The New Home by Chris Merritt
Genre: Psychological thriller, Domestic thriller, Suspense
Read: 5th September 2021
Published: 7th September 2021
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
You never know what’s happening behind closed doors…
Freya loves her new home on a quiet suburban street. And her beautiful neighbour Emily is everything she’s ever wanted in a best friend. Finally, she has somebody to share her secrets with over a glass of wine. But as Freya watches her new friend setting the table for dinner one evening, she sees something shocking that makes her think that Emily’s life might not be as perfect as it seems. Days later, Emily and her daughter vanish…
When you meet Emily’s husband, you will think you know what he’s hiding.
You will ask yourself whether Emily and Freya really did meet by chance.
You will think you know what happened to Emily and her little girl the night they went missing.
But when you discover the truth, it will shake you to your core and you will lie awake at night wondering if you can ever really trust the people in the house next door…
Fans of Claire McGowan, Shalini Boland and Lisa Jewell will love the gripping tension and unexpected twists of The New Home. Once you start reading, you’ll be hooked!
MY REVIEW:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Chris Merritt's first standalone thriller THE NEW HOME.
I've not read Chris Merritt before and I have to say that THE NEW HOME was a great introduction if this first standalone thriller by the author is anything to go by. It is well-written and quite addictive once it gets going as the twisted story slowly unfolds and you don't know who to trust.
Freelance documentary filmmaker Freya and her cardiologist fiance Jack has just bought and moved into a fixer-upper in Weybridge on the outskirts of London. Almost immediately Freya befriends neighbour Emily Crawford and her daughter Thea even if her husband is a standoffish barrel of laughs. Over the course of the ensuing months, Freya and Emily enjoy an easy friendship in each other's company...until one day in July the police come knocking on their door.
Emily and her daughter are missing.
Almost at once Freya begins to suspect Emily's husband Michael who doesn't appear to be too distraught over his wife and child's disappearance. He welcomes no help, he is abrupt to the point of rudeness and Freya is sure he hiding something. Not only that, whenever Freya tries voicing her concerns with the detective in charge of the case, Paul Henderson, her pleas appear to fall on deaf ears. After the initial questioning by police at the outset, no one seems to be looking for Emily and Thea at all!
No one, except Freya.
And so she sets up a page on social media to garner the assistance of the public to help find her missing friend and daughter. Because right now, Freya appears to be the only hope Emily has. No one else appears to be at all concerned. When she received a post from a woman claiming to be Michael's ex, Alice, outlining his abuse of her and that Emily is better off without him, Freya feels she is validated in her suspicions of her secretive neighbour. Which then lead her to searching his loft which adjoins theirs as well as his shed at the bottom of the garden. Then it isn't long before she begins receiving threatening messages to leave well enough alone or she'll be next. Is she getting too close to the truth and now he wants to ensure her silence?
Just when she thinks she knows what has happened to Emily, Freya's world is turned upside down as her vivid imagination, as well as Jack, appear to betray her and she no longer knows who she can trust. But despite this, Freya knows she cannot rest until she finds the truth about what happened to Emily and Thea.
THE NEW HOME is certainly a twisty addictive thrill ride of a domestic thriller that will have you questioning the reliability of everyone in the story. Freya, especially, was an unreliable narrator that it was hard to trust her judgement let alone anyone else's. As the reader, you will go through a multitude of scenarios, even the most outlandish ones, before reaching the final conclusion which will leave you thinking..."what the hell just happened?"
Filled with spine-tingling suspense, THE NEW HOME gives us characters who are not all that they seem. There are twists and red herrings to keep readers on their toes with this nail-biting read. The plot is tense and tightly written filled with cryptic clues that will befuddle the cleverest and most observant reader. I truly didn't know what was going on but I sure had fun trying to figure it out! And figure it out I did just before it was revealed.
The story unfolds through Freya's first person narrative which is clever in such a way that we are getting her perspective which is not always reliable...and so we begin to question just how much truth is there to her narrative? We are also given a glimpse into an unnamed person's delusional narrative as we try to weave the two together to see the bigger picture.
THE NEW HOME is certainly an addictive and enjoyable read and perfect for fans of domestic thrillers with a psychological twist.
I would like to thank #ChrisMerritt, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheNewHome in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
All his novels are set in London, where he lives. He began writing fiction in 2014, after previous careers as a diplomat, based in Iraq and Jerusalem, and later as a psychologist working with victims and perpetrators of crime. He specialised in treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which sparked his interest in telling stories about how people cope when faced with extreme adversity.
Now, he spends most of his time writing novels and drinking coffee while *thinking* about writing novels. When he's not writing, he loves climbing and playing basketball.
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