The Guest: Book Review

by lauralizbuckley | May 30, 2020 | Book Reviews | 1 comment

The Guest Blurb

She told him to make himself at home. He did.

Life has been good to Ellie – she owns a successful art gallery, is deeply in love with her husband, Seth, and has two beautiful children, Brandon and Simone.

But not everything is perfect…

Lately, Seth seems to have something on his mind and has become cold and distant. And things don’t improve when he invites mysterious stranger Ace to stay in their home.

Ace is charming, but Ellie can’t help feeling there’s more to him than meets the eye, that he has some kind of agenda. She’s also aware that she is dangerously attracted to him.

Then a girl at Brandon’s school is murdered, and Ellie is beyond devastated when the police tell her they think her son might be involved.

Ellie knows in her heart that Brandon is innocent and she feels certain that Ace is somehow connected to the disturbing things that are happening. She starts to dig for the truth and uncovers the terrible secret that will change her life in ways she can’t imagine…

I received a copy of The Guest to review as part of the Damp Pebbles Blog Tour.

My Thoughts

The Guest, by Cathryn Grant, is a psychological thriller. I’ve read and reviewed another of Grant’s books, The Good Mother, and The Guest has some similarities. The setting is suburban, a “good” neighbourhood with more to it than meets the eye. Pleasant interactions masking sinister intentions.

Ellie, the main character, feels surprisingly distant, despite the first-person perspective. I found a lot of the characters difficult to get to know, actually. Brandon, Ellie’s son, doesn’t come across with an awful lot of personality. There’s a neighbour who pops up periodically, but whose motivations are completely opaque. It feels like it could be a deliberate choice, referencing how unknowable people are in general. Even if it was intentional, it made it difficult to get invested in some of the storylines, which was a shame.

The author is good at pulling a number of plot threads together. While some of the choices the characters make seem strange, it’s all in service of an end-point. The extent to which Ellie allows a relative stranger into her life, and her kids’ lives, definitely gave me pause. Part of enjoying this book is not puzzling too hard over character motivations, and trusting that everything’s happening for a reason.

The Guest has a lot of high points

The real strength of The Guest comes in its most atmospheric moments. There’s a scene where Ellie is walking in the dark, and becomes afraid she’s being followed. It was so intense that I felt my heart rate speed up reading it! The thought process she goes through is one that will be familiar to anybody who’s walked across a dark car park and suddenly felt like they might not be alone. I also appreciated the way the tension mounts towards the end of the book.

Despite my earlier point about the characters, there are some intriguing dynamics between them. The mother-son relationship has some sweet moments, and Ellie’s growing awareness of her attraction to Ace was very well written.

I thought the use of food was really interesting as well. The way Ellie feels about the meals she cooks seems to correlate closely with the amount of control she feels she has over the rest of her life, and it’s fun to watch that ebb and flow throughout the story.

The Guest keeps you guessing, a suspenseful thriller with great atmosphere. Published by Inkubator Books on 31^st May 2020, you can find it on Amazon UK or US!