Monday 24 August 2015

Book Review - The Sudden Departure of the Frasers by Louise Candlish - Paperback Summer

Amazon UK
Title: The Sudden Departure of the Frasers
Author: Louise Candlish
Format reviewed: Paperback
Source: Competition Win
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 21st May 2015
Rating: 4.5 Stars


My name is Amber Fraser. I've just moved in at Number 40, Lime Park Road. You'll come to think of me as a loving wife, a thoughtful neighbour and a trusted friend.

This is a lie.

When Christy and Joe Davenport are handed the keys to Number 40 on picture-perfect Lime Park Road, Christy knows it should be a dream come true. How strange though that the house was on the market for such a low price. That the previous owners, the Frasers, had renovated the entire property yet moved out within a year. That none of the neighbours will talk to Christy.

As her curiosity begins to give way to obsession, Christy finds herself drawn deeper into the mystery of the house's previous occupants - and the dark and shocking secret that tore the street apart . . .

I always knew I liked books by Louise Candlish, but now I know for certain, that I absolutely love them. For 500 pages, I have been hooked on what exactly did happen to the Frasers. And as the revelations start being revealed, I am sitting starting at the book going OMG, OMG! 

I can say hand on heart that I did not predict any part of the eventual ending, and I am so impressed with all the lead up to explaining just why the Frasers left 40 Lime Park Road, and why it was on sale for such a bargain price. 

I was fascinated to find out the reasons the neighbours weren't overly friendly towards Christy and Joe, as they moved into Lime Park road, and at the same time in alternating chapters, I was reading accounts of only a year earlier, of what happened while Amber Fraser was living at the property. 

I will admit that it started off a bit slow, I was intrigued and very curious, but it was only as the stories progressed that it became unputdownable. The last 150 pages, thankfully I was at home when I read them, as I would have otherwise been riding the train up and down the line until it was finished, as I was that oblivious to the surroundings, while everything reached a crescendo. 

Throughout the book you are introduced to a lot of the other inhabitants of Lime Park Road, some of which I took to more than others, and it was interesting to see just how different 12 months apart the welcomes to the road were for both Christy and Amber. 

I suspect I found the opening slow, as for a while I just couldn't quite identify with Christy, and wasn't too keen on Joe either, whereas I found I was longing for Amber's chapters, as she was quite a storyteller, and drew me in completely. 

Utterly brilliant book, one I feel that I possibly need to re-read to see if there were any proper hints given to the eventual outcome.  I spent ages thinking of various reasons for why the Frasers would depart, and then disregarding them, then re-regarding them, while still reading, but of course I don't have the imagination of Louise Candlish, so was never going to come up with the answers!

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