The Crooked House

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What to expect

One fateful night. One unthinkable family tragedy. One survivor. This is Alison's story.

Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train and Apple Tree Yard, this stunning psychological thriller from the author of The Loving Husband follows one woman's search for the truth about her family history.

Alison is as close to anonymous as she can get: with no ties and a backroom job, hers is a life lived under the radar. But once Alison was someone else: once she was Esme, a teenager whose bedroom sat at the top of a remote house on a bleak estuary. A girl whose family, if not happy, exactly, was no unhappier than anyone else's - or so she thought.

Then one night violence was unleashed in the crooked house, in a nightmare that only Alison survived and from which she's been running ever since. Only when she falls for the charismatic Paul does Alison realise that to have any chance of happiness, she must return to her old life and face a closed community full of dark secrets.

As she seeks to uncover the truth of what happened that terrible night, Alison begins to question everything she thought she knew. Is there anyone she can trust?

Critics Review

An utterly compulsive psychological thriller. I loved it.
SJ Watson, author of BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP
Brilliant...A spooky, gripping and affecting story.
Louise Doughty, author of APPLE TREE YARD in the GUARDIAN
Atmospheric and eerily menacing, this cracking psychological thriller demands to be read with all the lights on.
Psychologies Magazine on The CROOKED HOUSE
Compulsive, unsettling and scary as hell.
Sunday Mirror
God, I literally could not put this down. Teenage girl hides upstairs as someone massacres her entire family. Fast forward and she has a new name and a new identity, and a new boyfriend who invites her to a wedding...which is taking place in the town where the massacre occurred. For various reasons, she can't not go. At this point you cancel dinner, curl up on the sofa and pull an all-nighter. Christobel Kent is a brilliant writer.
India Knight on The Crooked House
Echoes of Christie and du Maurier in this fine thriller.
Sunday Times
Demands to be devoured in one sitting.
Good Housekeeping
An atmospheric psychological thriller about a community full of secrets.
Elle magazine
This complex, fascinating psychological thriller has a real twist at the end.
Bella magazine
Packed with well-drawn characters, full of atmosphere, twists, turns and menace, this dark psychological chiller has an ending that leaves the heart pounding.
Choice magazine
Thrilling.
The Sun
Beware sleep deprivation. Christobel Kent is one mesmerising writer. A brilliant thriller.
Alex Marwood, author of THE WICKED GIRLS
A gripping story of dark secrets.
Image magazine
[A] dark psychologically chilling tale...The spin of wheels within wheels is mesmerising, ratcheted when Alison revisits the house of old, dark secrets, and the threads of false memory in her life of anonymity are unpicked. Nothing is as it seemed to be.
SAGA magazine
Oh my goodness - what a book! So beautifully tense... just glorious.
Clare Mackintosh, author of I LET YOU GO
Tense, menacing, surprising and clever.
Morning Star
Gripping.
Hello magazine
A gripping thriller, beautifully unfolded, with gorgeous, evocative writing that builds to a shattering climax.
Erin Kelly, author of THE BURNING AIR and BROADCHURCH: THE NOVEL
The Crooked House hooks the reader though the gut from the first dark page.
Rowan Pelling
Brilliant, dark and vivid and almost unbearably suspenseful with an atmospheric setting in the wild estuary village and a sense of menace and claustrophobia as the local community clings to its secrets.
Cath Staincliffe, author of LETTERS TO MY DAUGHTER'S KILLER
Terrific, powerful and unsettling; I read it with my heart in my mouth.
Jill Dawson, author of THE TELL TALE HEART
Almost indecently good. A psychological page-turner imbued with depth and humanity. Broadchurch meets Rebecca. I loved it.
Allison Pearson, author of I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT
Sinister...Christobel Kent always writes with skill and elegance.
Literary Review
Beautiful, atmospheric writing with a perfectly unravelled mystery.
SJI Holliday, author of BLACK WOOD
A spine-tingling and haunting tale.
Peterborough Evening Telegraph
A psychological thriller of the highest quality.
Absolutely magazine
Creepily claustrophobic, the story builds to a thrilling climax, and combined with Kent's surefooted plotting, atmospheric prose and firm grasp pf psychology, the novel is a rare triumph. However it's the kind of book that comes with a serious warning...[it's] impossible to put down.
Cheltenham Standard
Gripped from the first page, the reader is taken on a tense, menacing and atmospheric journey culminating in a startling revelation.
Good Book Guide
A darkly impressive novel...The sinister, windswept town of Saltleigh is a brooding backdrop, and the characters are sharply drawn.
The Lady

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