Book Review: The Perfect Guests by Emma Rous

About the Book
The USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair returns with another delicious, twisty novel—about a grand estate with many secrets, an orphan caught in a web of lies, and a young woman playing a sinister game.

1988. Beth Soames is fourteen years old when her aunt takes her to stay at Raven Hall, a rambling manor in the isolated East Anglian fens. The Averells, the family who lives there, are warm and welcoming, and Beth becomes fast friends with their daughter, Nina. At times, Beth even feels like she’s truly part of the family…until they ask her to help them with a harmless game—and nothing is ever the same.

2019. Sadie Langton is an actress struggling to make ends meet when she lands a well-paying gig to pretend to be a guest at a weekend party. She is sent a suitcase of clothing, a dossier outlining the role she is to play, and instructions. It’s strange, but she needs the money, and when she sees the stunning manor she’ll be staying at, she figures she’s got nothing to lose.

In person, Raven Hall is even grander than she’d imagined—even with damage from a fire decades before—but the walls seem to have eyes. As day turns to night, Sadie starts to feel that there’s something off about the glamorous guests who arrive, and as the party begins, it becomes chillingly apparent their unseen host is playing games with everyone…including her.

My Review
Okay, so THAT happened… I don’t even know how to review this one. The beginning was fantastic. The plot rolled out well and the characters were introduced and the scene set in a back-and-forth in time and point of view that worked beautifully right up until the revelations started – and then none of it made any sense and it all felt melodramatic and unnecessarily complicated and it lost me…

Frankly it’s hard to believe that it all happened for the reasons described, even with suspended disbelief firmly in play. It was an odd way for it all to tie together (strangely tidy even for this type of mystery) and it felt like the end and the earlier 3/4 of the story were written by different people – or at least on different deadlines… It felt slapdash, given the careful construction until that point, and it was not very satisfying an ending as a result.

Still, I read it through to the end – even if the majority of the story was read with a great deal more enjoyment and zest for turning pages than the last bits…

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my obligation-free review copy.

About the Author
Emma Rous is the USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair. She grew up in England, Indonesia, Kuwait, Portugal and Fiji, and from a young age she had two ambitions: to write stories, and to look after animals. She studied veterinary medicine and zoology at the University of Cambridge, and worked as a small animal veterinarian for eighteen years before starting to write fiction. Emma lives near Cambridge in England with her husband and three sons, and she now writes full time.

Author photo © Brian Rous.