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

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