The book:
The Visitors by Catherine Burns
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published 2017 by Legends Press
The blurb:
Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John in a decaying Georgian townhouse on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her fifties who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to shut out the shocking secret that John keeps in the cellar.
Until, suddenly, John has a heart attack and Marion is forced to go down to the cellar herself and face the gruesome truth that her brother has kept hidden.
As questions are asked and secrets unravel, maybe John isn’t the only one with a dark side.
My thoughts:
This is a strange and creepy book, and quite a compulsive read! I liked the creepy build up and the way in which we slowly build up a picture of the very odd Marion, who has clearly been damaged by a childhood with neglectful parents and a psychopathic brother.
We know from the blurb that her brother has a heart attack meaning she has to enter the forbidden cellar, where she knows he has disappeared with women, but this doesn’t happen until very late in the book, by which point we know exactly what is going on in the cellar. There are a few twists along the way as we get more of an insight into Marion’s own character.
I was expecting a massive twist at the end – which didn’t quite come, and the very end left a little to the imagination, which I liked. What happens to Marion at the end wasn’t very believable, and I could have done without this part of the ending.
But despite this, I stayed up late reading this and it had me gripped
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