Our
House. Louise Candlish. Penguin Publishing Group. August 2018. 416 pp. ISBN#: 9780451489111.
Fiona
and Bram have been living a “charmed life” up to now in contemporary
England. They own a gorgeous home in the
“posh” section of London, slightly above their means but nothing to worry
about. Now, Fiona and Bram decide to
separate; they will each live in their home during the week and the other one
will stay in a rented apartment. It
takes some adjustment but they handle it with the best possible equanimity,
mainly by just forging ahead and never getting around to talking about it all. Then one day Fiona arrives home to discover
it’s not her home anymore. First, she
thinks it’s a terrible joke but then there is intense shock, made much worse
that Bram cannot be reached by phone or by any of his peers/friends.
The
premise behind this mysterious mystery is not one most readers will easily
relate to but suffice to say that Bram’s very poor in choosing options. What also might be amusing to some but comes
across as somewhat incredible is that both start seeing other men and women but
these experiences are low-key and hardly satisfying beyond the first
infatuation flush. The story is told
from two narrative viewpoints.
The
story behind their forced separation is tragic, to say the least. One wonders how one would have handled a
similar situation. Of course, there are
always evil characters quick to appear and make the most out of the incredible
opportunity.
Our House is listed as a thriller per the unending
tension behind Bram who is constantly being afraid he will be arrested and
therefore contemplating suicide and being threatened by the many involved in
the plot against him. That gets old
because it is repeated so often and starts to seem like “Cry, Wolf.”
The
other problem with this storyline is that the characters are somewhat
stereotypical, remaining undeveloped and truly unchanging in spite of the
disasters happening around and to them.
This
is a nice summer read that some will enjoy as a unique mystery with a little
bit of suspect romance in between the conflict.
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