REVIEW – The Glass House – Stuck In The Book

I’ve seen this book floating around Bookstagram for quite a while now, so when I received my copy in my Richard and Judy Book Club Winter Collection, I couldn’t wait to read it and even bumped it up a few spaces on my TBR. Shameful behaviour, I know haha!

The book follows a wealthy family from London that have moved into a Manor House in a forest for the summer after a miscarriage and scandal had been stamped on the family name. The mother, her two children and the nanny all move to this manor house and whilst they are there, stumble across an abandoned baby that they take in and look after. Yet their family secrets and scandals are ruining this ‘perfect’ family, and is continuing to do so to other families years later.

What I loved about this book was not only how the author, Eve Chase, created suspense and how excellently she created the sense of scandal and secrecy, but how she questioned the sense of belonging through the use of different characters and narratives. We have three women in this book who do not know where they belong and through each of these women’s narratives, we hear and feel their insecurities and worries. We see through Hera, Rita and Sylvie, all the ways that someone can feel lost and unloved which was heartbreaking and emotional to read. Not just your average thriller that’s for sure.

Another thing this book did was make me impossibly broody. Now I’m not sure whether it was the timing of reading this book which made me yearn for a baby as I was just about t have my time of the month, or whether it was the gorgeous descriptions of babies gurgling and giggling. Either way, it made me very broody.

Overall I thought it was a fantastic book and I couldn’t find much wrong with it other than the pace of the book becoming VERY quick at the end. Yet the storytelling and character development was excellent and I’m excited for what else Eve Chase has in store…

The Glass House

Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2020
No. Pages: 387
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Trigger Warnings: Child loss, post-natal depression, cheating, adoption, abandonment, murder, teenage pregnancy
Links: Goodreads, Amazon, Blackwells