Product Description

When Lucas inherits Stoneborough Manor after his uncle's unexpected death, he imagines it as a place where he and his close circle of friends can spend time away from London. But from the beginning, the house changes everything. Lucas becomes haunted by the death of his uncle and obsessed by cine films of him and his friends at Stoneborough thirty years earlier. The group is disturbingly similar to their own, and within the claustrophobic confines of the house over a hot, decadent summer, secrets escape from the past and sexual tensions escalate, shattering friendships and changing lives irrevocably.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89767 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'Scary, sexy, sultry and shimmering - a brilliant debut in the vein of Donna Tartt finds a group of close friends discovering more than they bargained for in a creepy Oxfordshire manor' Daily Mirror 'Whitehouse manages to tug at the sinister threads running through the book at just the right moment, keeping her tale taut and her reader transfixed. Suggestions of the horrors that lie in wait are scattered throughout the book like a trail of breadcrumbs, leading you even deeper into the dark forest of Whitehouse's creation, at the heart of which lie deceit, cowardice and murder' Beth Jones, Sunday Telegraph 'Psychological suspense as elegant as a Swiss watch but as powerful as a locomotive ... subtle, intelligent, accessible, and highly recommended' Lee Child 'A pacy literary thriller ... deeply spooky, compulsively readable' Time Out

JOANNA BRISCOE
'Atmospheric and compelling - an impressive debut'

GUARDIAN
'combines the camaraderie of Richard Curtis with the underlying menace of Donna Tartt'

Customer Reviews

High Brow Scoobydoo
I agree with the Scoobydoo reference - perfectly sums up this book. I enjoyed the book on the whole, mainly for the perceptive middle-class Putney-dweller descriptions and the twists and turns, but I found the fact that Whitehouse mixes classical and artistic references (not everyone would understand - I, for one, did not study classics) with pop-literature a la Dan Brown amusing - a bit like she is trying too hard to write an intelligent classic piece of literature by including these references but with a plot that, although enjoyable, doesnt quite cut it.

Still, I'd recommend it as an amusing, enjoyable and "cant wait to turn the page" read, just like I would recommend "The da Vinci Code".

Gripping, and beautifully written
I started reading this book in the bath last night, I got out 3 hours later, freezing cold and looking like a prune, I just couldn't put it down!

Stoneborough looms at you through the pages from the start, pulling the characters inward to where the reader cannot help but follow. And there, at the heart of the book, is a gripping, psychological suspense which keeps the reader hooked until the very last page.

However, it isn't the plot which makes this book worthy of its 5 star rating. What really kept me in the water long after the bubbles had gone and the hot water had run out, was the beauty of Whitehouse's writing. It's not often that certain sentences of a novel linger in your mind for days afterwards, but this is exactly what happens with this one. The craftsmanship with which she expresses herself had me reaching back to the beginnings of certain paragraphs, just to experience the joy of reading them again, reciting the same few words repeatedly, committing them to memory so I could savour them once more when trapped on the tube perhaps, or in a boring meeting.

Read it and enjoy it for the wonderful first novel it is... I'll be waiting at the bookshop for her second.

Great read!
I picked this up in the Mark Warner "library" in Abu Soma where some kind soul had donated it. I was unsure at first as I no longer enjoy horror stories but it turned out to be more of a "disturbing" than a "horror" nature - like Rebecca as the reviews on the cover suggest. I loved it, great characters, great story line and very well written.