Book Review: The Perfect Guests by Emma Rous @EJRous 

 

The Perfect Guests
by  Emma Rous

 

Amazon  / B&N / GP/ Apple 

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 Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

Her thoughts are like darting fish, sparking across her mind and slipping out of reach.

 

My Review:

 

My first Emma Rous read and it was quite a complicated and twisty tale with lots of moving parts, secrets, and hidden agendas. The storylines were slowly constructed and cleverly nuanced over two timelines with a large cast of characters. The story threads were taut with tension and wound around themselves to weave what seemed like tangled knots, which ultimately became a complex tapestry while ensnaring my attention and endlessly provoking my curiosity with ever-evolving theories. Many of the main characters were elusive and an odd mix of peculiar and erratic in both timelines. This was a hard one to put down and my poor optical orbits feel like they have burned through to the back of my skull as I may have been reluctant to blink as I didn’t want to miss anything. All told, it was rather ingenious.

About the Author

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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.

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