What an extraordinary novel this is, and for a debut novel it’s incredibly good. I’m surprised there are so many negative reviews of it on Goodreads. The theme of a dysfunctional twentieth-century family, harbouring dark secrets in a decaying English country house, is not particularly original. However, the narrative style is unusual and that is what I most enjoyed. The story is told from the viewpoint of Max, an old friend of the family, who is showing us around the house before the hotel development people come in and spoil it. He invites us to observe, touch and smell the rooms and objects within, as he pieces together the stories of the Gilbert siblings through a collage of memories, research, imagination and artistic licence. He’s an unreliable narrator, as we are not to know how much of the content is true. Early on, tragedies are hinted at, but the full picture is slowly revealed through chapters named after places and artefacts in or around Thornwalk House, such as ‘The Blood on the Blue-room Floor’, ‘A Fire Axe’, ‘The Onion Basket,’ ‘The Blacksmiths’ Cottages’ and ‘Concrete Lions’. This is a sad story with a lot of cruelty in it, but also beautifully descriptive and thought-provoking. It’s also interesting from a heritage perspective; ordinary, well-used belongings may become historical artefacts, as well as the obviously valuable things, but who is to decide which items are worthy of museums when they don’t know what memories and events are attached to the objects?

Highly recommended. I finished it in twenty-hour hours.

Published by Fig Tree (Penguin), 2026.