The Guest Room: An utterly unputdownable psychological thriller (Totally gripping thrillers by Rona Halsall)

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Steph at one point that she had it all, a loving husband and two wonderful children and their lovely home. However, after thirty years of marriage Steph’s husband wants out and has left their home and her son rushed off to begin his own life in the military without a word and Steph’s daughter has married leaving Steph on her own.

I know why my dad couldn’t look at me the whole time he was here in England for the funeral. Because he blames me. I failed Rosie because I missed her calls. If I hadn’t, she could still be alive. I needed to grip any rope I could reach—any thread of her. Make a seam between us and stitch over it. Tasha Sylva has crafted an absorbing thriller, in which a woman wrestling with her own grief can't tell which of the people in her orbit presents the most menace. It is a dizzying tale of obsession, where nothing—and no one—is exactly as it seems."

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Sylva does a fine job drawing us into Tess’s desperate and paranoid state, making us feel the 'familiar creep of cold disappointment' at each dead end in her sister’s murder investigation. The thrilling ending jumps out of left field. It’s not what you expected." Steph and Andy are separated after a long marriage. She worked for a bank for many years but lost her job when they started closing branches. Now, she has taken a job working for a homeless shelter. She loves her job and feels like she is truly helping people. But some anonymous person in her office sent some pictures to her husband of her and her boss discussing business things, and Andy immediately thinks she is having an affair. After denying his allegations, Andy finally moved out.

Oh, you gotta try it.” He sweeps his palms together, then cuts off a corner and holds it out to me. In late January and February, in those first few weeks after Rosie’s death, Nalika cooked for me. She knew I wasn’t eating, so she’d make big batches of stew, curry, and lasagna for the freezer. Often, she’d stand over me, force me to put the fork in my mouth. “You have to eat, Tess. You’re getting too thin.” With their house now a crime scene, Kristin’s and Richard’s life spirals into nightmare. Kristin is unable to forgive her husband for his lapses in judgement, or for the moment he shared with a dark-haired girl in the guest room. But for the dark-haired girl, Alexandra, the danger is just beginning. In the aftermath, Kristin and Richard’s life rapidly spirals into nightmare. The police throw them out of their home, now a crime scene, Richard’s investment banking firm puts him on indefinite leave, and Kristin is unsure if she can forgive her husband for the moment he shared with a dark-haired girl in the guest room. But the dark-haired girl, Alexandra, faces a much graver danger. In one breathless, violent night, she is free, running to escape the police who she fears will arrest her and the gangsters who she knows will kill her. For me, it’s the fact that she spent hours in these rooms, her footsteps on the floors, rubbing her finger along her right cheekbone, just near the hint of blue eyeliner. She wore it almost every day, a subtle line on her lower lids. Until those last few months when she wore no makeup at all. Some days, I wanted to beg her to put that eyeliner on again.My mum’s having therapy, apparently. That’s what she told me in her last text. Her doctor is treating this is as personal trauma.” I fix my gaze on the table, willing her not to suggest I try therapy. I can’t have that conversation again. Another plane flies overhead. Nalika’s silence is noisier than the unseen metallic drone. People are strange. I’ve been B-and-B-ing the spare room for three months, and some guests I barely see, they’re so stealthy in their avoidance tactics. Others want to hang out and chat. If I had to choose, I’d go for stealth. Ghost guests: come on in.

All these invitations. The sweat that sits between her shoulder blades—one of them lower than the other, like a broken wing. And her emotions. She’s so bad at hiding them, she doesn’t know how. I like it when she cries, eyes smudged and cheeks wet: that’s when she’s most compelling. Heartbreaking. . . . I won’t give away of the surprising twists and turns that The Guest Roomtakes on the path to Bohjalian’s daring conclusion; I’ll only note that much of the pleasure that comes from reading any well-constructed narrative lies in trying to anticipate how the author will write himself out of seemingly inescapable corners. But here, for a change, we also have a novelist who seems more concerned with examining and dramatizing a much more universal question: whether, in the end, any amount of love or compassion, retreat or nobility or forgiveness, can overcome the remorseless workings of evil.”— The San Francisco Chronicle I smile at my friend. Noticing the uncomfortable shift of my body, she switches to Viv the intern and biscuits. Bohjalian’s deftness as a story teller is on full display here, as he couples the urgency of a compulsively readable crime thriller with a quiet meditation on the meaning of family and relationships.”—Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winning author of March Rosie called me that evening. She rang me three times. The log showed as missed calls at 21:37, 21:50 and 22:18. Those times are burned behind my eyes. After the second one, at 21:50, she left me a voice mail. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times; I can remember it word for word. Every pitch and dip of her voice.

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There was one evening last year when we went to a Spanish bar on a cobbled street in Notting Hill run by a guy from Cádiz. I thought cold cerveza and an authentic Andalusian atmosphere might lighten her, refresh memories of summer holidays in Sevilla and Nerja.