The Uninvited by J.A. Baker (ARC)
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Gothic
Read: 6th December 2018
Purchase: Amazon
★★ 2 stars
THE UNINVITED by J.A. Baker is a psychological thriller with a difference. It's a little bit of mystery, a little bit of ghost story and a tad creepy.
Faye and Hugh move into Cross House in Brackston, North Yorkshire for a new beginning after a somewhat disturbing year. The house is an old delapidated sprawling structure on around an acre of untended and overgrown land. Needless to say, it requires a lot of work to make it remotely inhabitable. But despite this, they tidy the house up enough to live in and undertake the renovations themselves. It becomes a bit of nightmare living in a near warzone when it's discovered the entire house needs rewiring. But regardless, Faye and Hugh remain upbeat and make it a bit of an adventure for their two children, Aiden and Poppy.
But then strange things begin to happen. Faye wakes in the night to the sound of heavy breathing, a kind of groaning and the sound of shuffling in their bedroom. She tells her husband but he dismisses her concerns as paranoia in the aftermath of the reign of terror they were subjected to the previous year. She is even more enraged to discover he has made an appointment for her to see her psychiatrist. If anything, he should be supporting her not writing her off as psychotic and bundling her off to therapy. She decides she will not confide in Hugh anymore regarding her fears surrounding the house.
Then one night Hugh wakes Faye suddenly, claiming that there is someone in the house. He could hear them breathing and shuffling through the room. He even caught a glimpse of the silhouette shadowed by the night as he chased them out the door. All of a sudden, he believed Faye in her tales of nighttime visitors. She wasn't paranoid. It was real. He heard and saw them too.
But what distubed Faye were the pictures she found in the old summerhouse that Poppy had drawn. Pictures of what appeared to be a monster in her room. Faye put it down to bad dreams. Surely Poppy hadn't seen anything. But Poppy is adamant. There is someone who lives in her room with her.
When Faye discovers some old diaries in the back of an old wardrobe, she begins to spend time reading them and learning about the family who lived in Cross House before. Obviously the property of the previous owners, she feels a little voyeuristic reading their secret thoughts but she finds she can't help herself as she endeavours to learn more about them. Most of the diaries appear to be that of a teenage girl and Faye is shocked to discover the horrid cruel detail of some of the entries which went beyond normal teenage angst.
Faye discovered the family who had lived there were the Wentworths. Adrian, his wife Hilary, their teenage daughter Tammy and someone called Peter who appeared to be unwanted. They had a sad and tragic history. Adrian went missing only to be found dead five days later on the moors. Hilary, a chronic sufferer of bronchitis and breathing problems, fell to her death down the stairs in Cross House. But when she searched, she could find no information on either Tammy or the boy called Peter. What had happened to them? Faye made it her mission to find out. What really happened at Cross House almost 40 years ago? Why did Adrian go out onto the moors? And did Hilary really fall down those stairs...or was she pushed? And where were Tammy and Peter now?
THE UNINVITED is written solely from Faye's perspective so we get to see, hear and feel everything as she does. I found her a little grating at times but not completely unlikeable.
Personally, I thought the first half of the book was so long and drawn out I was almost ready to give up several times. I wanted to know what was happening but I didn't anticipate the long winded way it got there. For me, the book didn't even start to get remotely interesting until about halfway through and by then most people would have given up. I didn't care for the long winded story about Todd or Jeff only to find out they had nothing to do with it. Most of that could have been cut out and the story would have been far better and much more gripping. I mean, Faye spent an awful lot of time just wandering about the village not really doing anything. She is supposed to be a writer, but she didn't write a thing throughout the entire story.
The story started to get interesting with the introduction of Gwen. But then it tapered off into a tangent again, most of which (I say again) could have been eliminated. But once the story started to get interesting, it really did get interesting. However, I figured there had to be a logical explanation to "the bumps in the night", so to speak and I had long worked out who or what was behind it before Faye even got there. To me, it was logical. So there was no surprise or twist at the end for me. What did come as a surprise was that the entire house appeared to be complete after just two more weeks when, at the end, the final chapter is titled "Two Weeks Later" and Faye's friend Irena had previously stated she wouldn't come for drinks until the house was complete...and there she was!
THE UNINVITED certainly sounded appealing by the book description but for me it failed to deliver in its entirety. I did end up enjoying it, but it shouldn't take 50% of the book to get there. For me, it was OK but not great.
Many thanks to #JABaker, #NetGalley and #BloodhoundBooks for a free ARC of #TheUninvited in exchange for an honest review.
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