House Of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen (2024)
Now here's the kind of thriller I live for. Fast moving, loaded with no end of psychological dread but never ever, as so may similar books do, bogs down into a morass of internal monologue blah-blah-blah.
Sarah Pekkanen's plot keeps a reader whipping through the pages, even while her lead character is already heavily weighed down with a horrendous backstory of her own.
Lawyer Stella Hudson, survivor of a childhood filled with tragedy and abuse, now serves as a court appointed advocate for children caught in the middle of their parents' ugly divorce and custody battles. Based on her assessment of the family and child, it's her recommendations that will inform a judge's ruling as to which parent's awarded either full or partial custody. Her own traumatic childhood normally keeps her away from cases involving small children but as a favor to a beloved mentor, she agrees to represent the best interests for 9 year old Rose Barclay.
Rose, an unnaturally wise-beyond-her-years gifted child, stands in the middle of a wealthy family currently embroiled with scandal and sudden violent death. Now afflicted by muteness, the little girl may have witnessed her live-in nanny's fatal plunge out of a window, a suspicious death with no shortage of family suspects......her mother Beth, her grandmother Harriet, and her father Ian, whose affair with the nanny left the girl pregnant, touching off the divorce and custody war between the Barclays.
Armed with a court order to conduct an overview of Rose and her family, Stella must plunge into the maelstrom of the Barclays' darkest secrets and the nanny's death, a mystery that's even left the police stymied. And all of her attempts to bond with the strangely silent, enigmatic (and just possibly, murderous) Rose, have brought back all the nightmarish memories of Stella's own childhood, including mysteries surrounding the death of her mother.
While I can't claim the twists and reveals are all that shocking, the suspense, ominous clues and red herring pile up nicely and the pacing never lags for a single moment. The story does an exemplary job in making a reader constantly worry about Stella's safety and sanity, which for me, more than compensated for the absence of the usual head-shaking, 'say what, now?' twists. I'm always all in for a book that hooks you from the start until you race to the finish and this one even includes a heart touching moment that might leave you misty eyed. A full 5 star 'grab it' for sure. Your final-weeks-at-the-beach-read has arrived. 5 stars (*****)
Sarah Pekkanen's plot keeps a reader whipping through the pages, even while her lead character is already heavily weighed down with a horrendous backstory of her own.
Lawyer Stella Hudson, survivor of a childhood filled with tragedy and abuse, now serves as a court appointed advocate for children caught in the middle of their parents' ugly divorce and custody battles. Based on her assessment of the family and child, it's her recommendations that will inform a judge's ruling as to which parent's awarded either full or partial custody. Her own traumatic childhood normally keeps her away from cases involving small children but as a favor to a beloved mentor, she agrees to represent the best interests for 9 year old Rose Barclay.
Rose, an unnaturally wise-beyond-her-years gifted child, stands in the middle of a wealthy family currently embroiled with scandal and sudden violent death. Now afflicted by muteness, the little girl may have witnessed her live-in nanny's fatal plunge out of a window, a suspicious death with no shortage of family suspects......her mother Beth, her grandmother Harriet, and her father Ian, whose affair with the nanny left the girl pregnant, touching off the divorce and custody war between the Barclays.
Armed with a court order to conduct an overview of Rose and her family, Stella must plunge into the maelstrom of the Barclays' darkest secrets and the nanny's death, a mystery that's even left the police stymied. And all of her attempts to bond with the strangely silent, enigmatic (and just possibly, murderous) Rose, have brought back all the nightmarish memories of Stella's own childhood, including mysteries surrounding the death of her mother.
While I can't claim the twists and reveals are all that shocking, the suspense, ominous clues and red herring pile up nicely and the pacing never lags for a single moment. The story does an exemplary job in making a reader constantly worry about Stella's safety and sanity, which for me, more than compensated for the absence of the usual head-shaking, 'say what, now?' twists. I'm always all in for a book that hooks you from the start until you race to the finish and this one even includes a heart touching moment that might leave you misty eyed. A full 5 star 'grab it' for sure. Your final-weeks-at-the-beach-read has arrived. 5 stars (*****)
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