Moving out of the romance realm, Ms. Singh brings it with a twisted thriller. At the heart of this story, it is all about malicious envy. This is more than the basic jealous or envy of what someone else has. To me, it also speaks to a mental imbalance of the person coveting someone else's good fortune. I have encountered this type of malicious envy and being on the receiving end is no fun. This is what happens to Bea.

It seems that Bea is the goodhearted friend who draws everyone to her like a flame does to moths. This would normally be a great thing, until one factors in, that Bea's friends are all her older sister Darcie's friends originally. Sometimes siblings can share friends. Sometimes they cannot. This story told from the perspective of Luna is disturbing at times as well as depressing. Why is it depressing? Just as the title of the story states, There should have been eight. Once in a lifetime, there is a star so bright that comes into one's life. When that star is extinguished much too soon, those remaining suffer a hole they cannot seem to fill. This is how it is for the ones Bea left behind. Each of the remaining friends has their story of loss to share about Bea. When they reunite for a week after years of drifting apart, it could have been a great gathering of friends. Instead, it is a horror weekend of betrayal, death, and secrets revealed.

What I found disturbing in this story is Luna. I am no shrink nor do I pretend to be. This character though, is not exactly likeable but definitely someone who is goal focused. She doesn't seem to have the warmth and depth of Ms. Singh's usually characters. She almost comes across as mostly emotionless with the exception of furor and anger. In someways, she reminds me of the Psy in another series written by Ms. Singh. I like Luna. Maybe because I see so many of her characteristics in my mother. I digress.

This weekend of 7 friends with one new girlfriend becomes a terror of unexplained events and a survival against the elements. One would think this book is more haunting and paranormal. It is not. In fact, within the first few chapters I figured out the main plot of the story. I just wasn't sure how it would play out to the end. This book surprised me with some of the brutality and cruelty. Then again, reading Ms. Singh's paranormal romances, I shouldn't be surprised by any cruelty. This story ended in a bittersweet and fitting conclusion. I liked it! This book is recommended to those who enjoy betrayal themes with a touch of suspense.

I am a fan of closed circle mysteries, though I wasn’t sure if this one would qualify, since it at first seemed to be about friends reuniting nine years after the death of a beloved friend, rather than one where a character is killed and there are limited number of suspects. Things developed in the latter direction, but it took a while.

The narrator, Luna, is 29, and we find out almost on the first page that she is going blind. This is a huge fear of mine, so I was inclined to be sympathetic even if at times I got annoyed by the constant reminders that soon she would not be able to see. Ironically, I guess, Luna is a photographer, and she’s determined to get as much on film as she can while she can.

The story is set in New Zealand, with a diverse cast (something Singh excels at). Luna is ethnically Chinese, though she is adopted, presumably by a white family (it’s not made clear except that she notes the difference in coloring between her and her mother). The group includes a native Maori, a child of refugees from Sudan, and a character of Indian descent, among others. I really do like Singh’s commitment to portraying a melting pot with her characters.

At the start of the story, Luna is headed north, to a part of New Zealand that she refers to as “alpine” (Washington state was my point of reference, but I have no idea how accurate that was). She’s getting together with old friends she met as a teenager. There actually *are* eight in the group, since one member brings a new girlfriend. Our cast of characters:

Luna; narrator, photographer, secretly going blind;

Darcie and Ash; the hosts – it’s Darcie’s dilapidated but still impressive family estate that is the site of the reunion;

Vansi and Phoenix, Luna’s best friend and her husband – Vansi is a nurse and Phoenix is a doctor on the verge of becoming a surgeon;

Aaron and Grace; he is part of the group and she is his new fiancée – Aaron is sweet-natured and religious (though the latter is conveyed with a light touch) and Grace is very bubbly;

Kaea; handsome, charming and promiscuous; he’s a lawyer.

The missing person the – “should have been” – is Darcie’s younger sister Bea. Nine years before she had disappeared from the group, then died at a distant location, ostensibly by suicide. Luna is even now not reconciled to the loss of Bea. I mentioned that I was inclined to be sympathetic to Luna because of her impending blindness, but by a quarter of the way through she was working on my nerves hard.

Luna’s devotion to Bea felt unwholesome and honestly creepy. Luna states on several occasions that she would do anything for Bea. She mentions that her attachment is not sexual, twice I think, but it feels like it kind of is? Which – that part is not creepy, but the dynamics of the relationship, the intensity of Luna’s devotion and her insistence that Bea was the most beautiful, wondrous creature to ever walk the Earth – all of that was really strange and off-putting. It made me view Luna as an unreliable narrator, which I don’t think was the intent, since her view of Bea is never really challenged by the other characters. It’s just…very, very weird.

The group passes an uneventful first night, but things start to fall apart the next day. A freak storm hits while most of the group are out hiking, and they return soaked, with Kaea injured. Kaea is the strongest and most competent hiker of the friends, and later he shares with Luna that one of his shoes was apparently deliberately damaged right before the hike, leading to his fall and injury.

It’s at this point that I kind of wondered what would happen if Kaea and Luna just confronted the group with the evidence of sabotage. But that never happens in this type of book, so they keep it to themselves. There’s also some business with a doll of Bea’s that keeps turning up unexpectedly and traumatizing Darcie. It begins to be clear that either one (or more) of the group is acting with bad intent or….there’s someone else in the house. Did I mention that the house has a number of secret passages?

Then the rain turns to snow and soon the group are genuinely snowed in. Tensions rachet up as a character disappears and is later found in a secret room with an unexplained head injury.

There is some business with Darcie’s ancestors, the original tenants of the mansion. The mother of the family (whose secret diary Luna finds) was essentially a mail-order bride brought over from England, and her husband was at best dour and at worst erratic. Their oldest daughter seemed to hate her younger siblings, and eventually the mother and those younger siblings died in a house fire that caused great damage to the house (the damaged parts were never torn down, for reasons unclear). The suggestion seems to be that perhaps the eldest daughter, Elizabeth, killed her mother and siblings.

It’s further suggested that there is a strain of madness that affects the family’s descendants to this day. Darcie confides in Luna that Bea was severely mentally ill, and in fact was medicated heavily from the age of 13. Luna finds this hard to believe, both because she never saw signs of mental illness in Bea and because Luna literally worships the ground Bea walked on and doesn’t like to hear anything that could be construed as bad about her. She instead suspects Darcie; for a longtime close friend, Luna doesn’t actually seem to like Darcie that much. Luna resents that Darcie has Ash, who loved Bea first (Luna is convinced he still does).

I have complaints about some of Singh’s writing tics in her Psy/Changeling books, but there were different prose issues with There Should Have Been Eight. For some reason Luna constantly refers to Vansi as her “best friend” – by my count 22 times in the book. It was in situations where it made more sense just to use her name; e.g. “my best friend walked into the room”, “my best friend hates kumquats.” It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it really annoyed me, and it increased my annoyance with Luna.

Luna was really my big problem with the book. A few issues aside, the writing was good and the plot was strong. The denouement was twisty as expected (though I half-guessed the identity of a villain). As a mystery There Should Have Been Eight was a reasonably satisfying book. There are aspects of the plot that don’t bear close scrutiny, but I can live with that.

But: Luna. She is a cipher. We know a collection of facts about her – she’s adopted, she’s a photographer, she has a rare disease that will shortly take her eyesight – but the only sense in which she comes alive is in her bizarre obsession with Bea. My problem was really two-fold: 1) I didn’t like Luna, found her creepy, and didn’t trust her version of reality and 2) we only get Luna’s point of view and nothing in the story really challenges that POV, which left me feeling off-kilter.

If the book had dialed down the depiction of Bea as a magical fairy of goodness and light *or* if it acknowledged that Luna was cuckoo for cocoa puffs where Bea was concerned, I’d be able to judge it more fairly. As it is, that aspect of the story cast a pall over everything else for me. Because it was still readable and the twists were decent, I’ll give this a C.

A group of seven friends convenes at their late friend Bea's abandoned estate for a reunion, but tensions and tempers rise as the group begins to question whether Bea's death years ago was really what it seemed. The group is hoping for a relaxing vacation reminiscing about their past, but that quickly devolves into tense suspicion as a series of creepy pranks and accidents begin to occur while a freak winter storm descends, trapping the group in an isolated area with no cell signal. No one fesses up to the pranks and the group begins to unravel as everyone wonders what secrets the others are hiding.

This was a satisfying closed circle mystery with a moody, gothic air, courtesy of the abandoned estate setting. In addition to the present-day story, the narrator Luna uncovers some secrets about the family's past that make the mansion feel even creepier. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, especially in the first few chapters when they're all being introduced, and the story moves a bit slowly at times, but the author does a really good job of providing plausible backstories and motives for all the characters, making it hard to know who to trust. A good choice for fans of atmospheric slow burn mysteries.

From the moment I read the blurb for this book, I couldn't help but be intrigued. I mean a story where the characters meet as teens and reunite again as adults, to mourn the loss of Bea. You've got best friends, old flames, enemies, and new lovers all under one roof. And when they get snowed in, things take an unexpected turn...

While the pace of this book was slower than I had hoped for, I will say I loved the gothic setting. This book both intrigued and thrilled me. The mystery kept me on my toes and I couldn't wait to discover all the secrets. All in all, it's a bit of a different read for me, but I'm glad to have checked it out.

4.5 STARS

Back together again after many long years, a group of friends who were split by a tragedy decide to meet up for a reunion. They lost their most dynamic member, Bea, whose unexpected death sundered the group which included Darcie, Bea’s sister. The tale is told first person by Luna, who loved Bea in a platonic way although perhaps bordering on obsession, or maybe more than just that fine line. Four men and three women of the original group plus a new female addition converge on the wilds of New Zealand in an old and partially derelict Gothic mansion during a still very cold Spring.

Luna is a photographer who has had some recent devastating news of her own while two others of the group, her best friend who is a nurse along with her doctor husband seem to have some issues as well. Darcie, whose family owned the property, sets up the group reunion which includes her husband; they are under some marital stress especially once everyone is together when strange and macabre things start happening in the spooky old place.

Luna’s grief over the loss of Bea pervades her psyche; she has a lot of unanswered questions concerning the young woman’s death as well as anger towards Darcie’s actions at that time to go along with some major personal angst. The weather turns deadly trapping them all while mishaps and accidents continue happening to the group. They are cut off from all outside forms of communication in this wild and remote location.

This Gothic thriller of a story has many twists, turns, and a miasma about the seriously creepy isolated old house and its sad history regarding the original occupants from the Gold Rush days. When all the old and new secrets are finally revealed, readers will be quite surprised. Ms. Singh has crafted a very intense ride that will keep everyone turning the pages trying to figure out who are the friends and the foes as well as what really happened to Bea and why her loss haunts this group still.

In recent reads, I’ve had a problem with authors dropping big hints to the “solution” and making it so obvious, I would guess the ending and be left feeling disappointed.

However, THIS book is a master class in how to leave clues along the way, allow some clues to leak information but let the ending still pack a major freaking punch.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. So, let’s rewind a bit.

A group of old friends cone together for the first time in years to relax and reminisce at one of the friend’s remote ancestral estate - a creepy gothic mansion filled with mystery and old legends. The group of seven drifted apart nine years ago, when the eighth member of the group, and sister of the week’s host ran away from everything and everyone and eventually committed suicide. Despite their friend’s death and the circumstances surrounding it hanging over their reunion, the group vows to have a good time, but then mysterious “accidents” begin to occur as a storm bares down. And with the estate completely cut off from the outside world, the group needs to figure out what’s happening- and fast.

This book had everything you need a for great mystery/thriller: a creepy mansion, love, lies, madness, murder, oh my! I was enthralled from the beginning as the key players were introduced in the story in what was an insanely tense an brooding atmosphere. And things only got better from there. With every chapter, things got darker and more intense as things deepened. And like I said, the author left some key clues that helped me guess some of the solution, but man, there were plenty of other surprises packed in there! I was floored!

I love, love, loved the ending and once I reached the 70-ish percent mark I couldn’t put the book down until I finished it. I HAD to know it ended. And the last pages were sheer perfection. Perfect for the tone of the book. Just perfect.

Honestly, if you’re looking to read a great thriller by the fire this winter, make sure to pick this one up. It’s a perfect gothic-style mystery that will eat up a cozy weekend. Then will have you turning down your friends’ Facebook invites to meet up.

This one missed the mark for me. I am so thankful to have gotten access to it on PRH Audio and from Berkley and Nalini Singh, but there was just too much going on in the plot for me to even begin to grasp what was happening.

Ultimately I guess it's just safe to say, if you're estranged friend group asks you to reconnect for a little friendly reunion after the loss of one of your pivotal friend group members, maybe don't go??? especially if you are slowly going blind and could be caught at an impaired disadvantage... There were so many times during the plot of this book that I wanted to rattle and scream at our main character to make better decisions, but of course they couldn't hear me, because I'm yelling at an audiobook.

Anyway, I will need to pick it up again in physical format to get the fully defined scoop. This zinger hits shelves on November 21, 2023.

This sounded right up my alley but overall didn't work for me. Being in Luna's POV the whole time was a little boring, she's just not that interesting! Also, I'm all for suspending my disbelief but some of the twists were just over the top.

This was such a solid thriller!

Short Synopsis:
Nine years have passed, but Luna and her closest friends as teenagers all meet back up for a reunion - but it ends up being a house of horrors. Nine years ago one of their friends - Bea- died and some things just don’t add up and make sense at this reunion.

My Thoughts:
I read one of Nalini Singh’s fantasy series in college and enjoyed it and was curious to see this transition to writing a thriller. Initially I struggled keeping all the characters straight, but once I got that down, I was absorbed. The house was creepy. Some one is lying.

Read if You Like:
🏠 Locked-in Mysteries
🏠 Reunions
🏠 Revenge stories
🏠 Whodunnit
🏠 Creepy Houses

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free eARC of this book to read in exchange for my review!

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating. I love Nalini's Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter books, but the spark isn't there for her thrillers. It's fine but not that tense or scary.

For me, two things combined to make this a truly suspenseful book - the descriptions of the mansion, and Luna's impending loss of vision.

The author made me want to know about every twisting hallway and hidden room in this gothic family estate located across a bridge and miles from the nearest town. You can feel the tension mounting as a snowstorm sets in. Add to that the ruined wing, people coming and going, and people disappearing, and this reunion is seriously flawed. To top it off, cell reception is almost non-existent!

Someone is playing elaborate games, scaring Darcie by leaving her dead sister's doll on her bed. When it shows up again, you have to wonder if Darcie is just manipulating the scene...or is someone really trying to freak her out?

You might be able to guess some of the secrets, you might even guess "who done it", but the story is so well written that you won't guess the why!

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for this advanced reader's copy.

There’s something so irresistible about an author who shines in any genre she chooses to write in, captivating the reader with the sheer fluidity of her writing style and her keen eye for detail, and Nalini Singh proves once more that she is a true chameleon storyteller! I couldn’t seem to put this down!

Seven friends get together in a remote estate for a reunion. There should be eight of them but a death occurred, which wasn’t what it seemed.

A good one for fans of locked door, slow burn mysteries. There was a lot left unknown about the past in the beginning. It was confusing for me at the start but once I began to know the characters (all seven of them!), I was able to settle in. While the burn takes some time to pick up, it gets exciting at the end.

“Don’t you think it’s weird? All of us pretend we’re good and normal when we haven’t been good and normal since that night?”

There Should Have Been Eight comes out 11/21.

I have to admit that this is the first book I've ever read by the author and I was not disappointed! I loved the extraordinary setting of a gloomy mansion somewhere in the rural countryside in New Zealand, miles away from any neighbors. Eight friends reunite, but one of them is missing. Bea who has committed suicide. The main protagonist is Luna, a photographer with a visual memory. She will loose her eyesight soon due to a rare disease which can't be healed. One by one, her friends get attacked- who is the bad guy? A classical whodunnit which I enjoyed very much. I also loved the diverse cast of characters. I had my theories who could be the murderer, but the author was really good in throwing red herrings again and again. Read this novel in a couple of days and was sad when it ended because it was so good! I highly recommend this book. Perfect if you like whodunnits in a dark setting.

If you love a good secluded, locked-room and revenge type story, I highly recommend There Should've Been Eight!

Firstly, I would love to say a massive thank you to the author - Nalini Singh for providing me with an early e-arc of this novel.

This review is entirely my own thoughts and opinions 😊

Synopsis
Eight people met when they were teenagers and are now reuniting as adults, all bar one - Bea, who was tragically lost to suicide nine years ago. Since the loss of Bea, this group of friends had fallen apart.

They have gathered to reminisce at Bea's family estate, which is located in a remote alpine region of New Zealand.
Our main character Luna hopes that this reunion will finally provide some further answers surrounding Bea's shocking death, especially considering Luna's nagging feeling that this death wasn't what it claimed to be.

When the weather turns and everyone ends up snowed in and trapped at the estate, there is nowhere left to hide from their shared history. Best friends, old flames, secret enemies and new lovers are all locked under the same roof.

My thoughts
Thrillers are quite easily my favourite genre and after reading the premise of this story, I was immediately intrigued.

I did find the first part of this book to be a little on the slower side, however, I don't necessarily find this to be a negative thing. With the detailed storytelling, I found that the partially slower pacing really allowed me to get a feel for each of the characters and allowed me to really immerse myself in the setting.
I find that sometimes books tend to brush over the setting and characters and as a result, you aren't able to fully connect with the story itself.
But due to the details of this book, I really felt as though I was right there in the moment.

Before long, everything starts going and when people start going missing or turn up injured, it is clear that no one can be trusted.
Who is responsible?
Why are they trying to rid of the others?
What really happened to Bea all those years ago?

This book will truly keep you guessing right until the very end. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, I was hit with yet another twist!

I absolutely loved that this story was told entirely from Luna's perspective. It really kept the focus clear and very straightforward. I also feel that the ending connected back to the main story perfectly!

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Thank you again to Nalini Singh for providing me with an early copy for this upcoming release. There Should've Been Eight was my first read by her and definitely will not be my last.

I cannot wait to check out more of her novels!

Is there nothing that Nalini Singh can’t do? Is there nothing that she can’t write? I’ve lived her romance series worlds many times over and this foray into thriller/suspense feels so fresh and hauntingly good, I can’t wait to read another!

Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars.

For a suspense novel, this moves slowly and thus, not particularly suspensefully despite all the terrible things that could be accidents, but, given how many unfortunate things happen in such a short time, are likely something more.

Seven of eight college friends return to the estate of Bea and Darcy for a reunion. Bea would have been number eight, except she committed suicide nine years earlier. Or did she?

Some of the friends have married each other or found other partners. The mansion has a chilling history and is far removed from other people, so when the weather turns ugly, there is no way to get out and get medical help for those who need it.

The end had some nice twists I didn’t see coming, but while reading this, my mind kept wandering and, while I wanted to know the mystery, I had to work to get through the novel.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this book, which RELEASES NOVEMBER 21, 2023.

I tried to get into this one, but the characters all blend together and the plot was not going anywhere. I set it aside as I was not interested in it. Slow burns are not my favorite.

A group of school friends are gathering at the isolated home of one of them for a reunion. Since the loss of Bea some nine years ago, the group has fallen apart. The narrator Luna hopes that there will finally be some answers for why Bea's sister Darcie buried Bea in secret and scattered her ashes in an unknown location.

Luna has some issues of her own that she is dealing with. She's a photographer who has just received a medical diagnosis that she has inherited a genetic condition that will make her blind. She's not dealing well with the diagnosis which isn't helped by her lifelong fear of the dark.

As she photographs her friends, she sees currents and secrets and wonder what they are all hiding. When the weather closes in, and they are stuck at the creepy Gothic manor complete with a burned out wing, strange things begin to happen.

One of Bea's old dolls is found on Darcie's bed which really freaks her out. Avid hiker Kaea has an accident due to a sabotaged boot. Nix takes a tumble down some stairs and breaks his neck. Darcie's husband Ash goes missing and is found in the burned-out section with multiple stab wounds. Aaron who brought his new girlfriend Grace is drugged while searching for Ash. As the numbers who have survived uninjured goes down, Luna becomes more and more certain about who she believes the killer is. But then there is the twist...

This was a compelling thriller that sent chills up my spine that had nothing to do with the cold house and stormy weather in New Zealand. Seeing events from Luna's tight viewpoint really kept the focus on her and her perspective. The ending fit perfectly considering Luna's own descriptions of her relationship with Bea.

Fans of creepy thrillers will enjoy this one.