An invitation you can’t refuse. You should . . .
When shy, lonely Ivy meets a woman who claims to be her long-lost sister, she knows it’s too good to be true. She decides to trust Kate anyway. She wants a family. She wants someone to love.
She’s making a mistake.
Ivy enters Kate’s fairytale cottage, deep in the heart of Scotland . . . and she doesn’t come out.
She’s the first to go missing.
She won’t be the last.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Tash’s journey is just beginning . . .
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I received a copy of this book from Severn House and the author in return for an honest review.
My Thoughts…
This is a gently paced story that follows four women whose lives are inextricably linked. The scene is set in a macabre way, and graphic and gruesome description is a feature of this story. It’s about abuse, evil, identity and loneliness and these relevant issues resonate throughout. The story has a great sense of place, and this adds to its atmospheric qualities.
The gingerbread house with its fairytale connations is the perfect foil for this story which focuses on evil in many forms. There is an underlying ethos of sadness in this story that highlights the vulnerability of the three women drawn into the gingerbread house.
This is not an easy read, the themes are disturbing, and parts take on a nightmarish quality, but it is cleverly plotted with well-crafted characters who evoke empathy and dislike in the reader.
Born in West Lothian and educated at Edinburgh University, Catriona McPherson has been a full-time fiction writer since 2001. She is the multi-award-winning author of the Dandy Gilver historical mysteries, the Last Ditch mysteries and a number of standalone psychological thrillers. She lives in northern California.
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