The Guest Room: An utterly unputdownable psychological thriller (Totally gripping thrillers by Rona Halsall)

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I smile wryly. Luke’s a nice guy, for a city boy. And not your typical management consultant. A gym-goer and climber, sure, but he also writes poetry. So he claims.

I feel my brows twitch as I glance round. Lovely isn’t how I think of this flat. Scruffy round the edges, more like, with fossil floorboards and neat clutter. Though it does have that North East London charm. When Kristin Chapman agrees to let her husband, Richard, host his brother’s bachelor party, she expects a certain amount of debauchery. She takes their young daughter to Manhattan for the evening, leaving her Westchester home to the men and their hired entertainment. What she does not expect is that the entertainment—two scared young women brought there by force—will kill their captors and drive off into the night.I considered asking friends if they needed a room. Except I didn’t want a face I knew. I didn’t want someone taking root, becoming too fixed. I smile at my friend. Noticing the uncomfortable shift of my body, she switches to Viv the intern and biscuits.

I blink hard, the phone’s light flashing in my vision. I realize that my phone is acting as a beacon. Here I am, come and get me. The perfect drawing power. But I bet if I held it up high until the sun rose nothing would happen. It would be another dud. All these invitations. The sweat that sits between her shoulder blades—one of them lower than the other, like a broken wing. And her emotions. She’s so bad at hiding them, she doesn’t know how. I like it when she cries, eyes smudged and cheeks wet: that’s when she’s most compelling. Yeah, yeah,” she says, waving her cigarette hand. “It’s too painful. They can’t be near you or London because it reminds them too much of Rosie.” Her tone compresses, reciting my own words. “Doesn’t change the fact they’re being selfish.”

Lush with description, suspicious characters, and sharp twists, The Guest Room is an atmospheric thriller with a chilling soul. In Tess, Sylva has created a wounded yet tenacious narrator who will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Fans of The Girl on the Train will devour this one! THE BIG TWIST – if you see it coming or not, it will still hit you in the face like a big slap. Because you will never see it coming until it’s right there staring you in the face. I would recommend this book to the fans of the above as well as fans of 'The Girl on The Train', Lisa Jewell, 'The Family Upstairs', Mark Edwards, 'Gone Girl' and any fans of Rona Halsall and those who enjoy a surprise twist. This sounds simple, but a beautiful bunch of fresh flowers placed in the guest room before they arrive is a detail that says you care. I’ve been roaming the streets for over two hours. I was in the flat all day, trying to do translations, but as the afternoon wore on, I couldn’t concentrate. Dejection rising like water in a bath. I had to get out.

The Guest Room is a carefully constructed and compelling mystery, and a fine study of the way grief and uncertainty can disturb the mind. The final revelation is unexpected, and the ending is realistic and satisfying." Sort of.” His feet shift and he runs a hand through his hair. “I’m a graphic designer, though really I want to be a ceramist.” A tall guy with a duffel bag looks at me with dark blue eyes. They’re fixed on my face for two seconds before they drop. I walk into the road and follow the white lines down the middle. My throat is dry. I swallow another mouthful of wine. It’s possible she lost it. Dropped or left behind somewhere. But it’s also possible someone took it. Purposefully dismantled, smashed. Evidence destroyed.But then closed windows are left open, someone has broken in and Noah, a young man fixes her window and Steph impulsively invited him to live with her. She will safer, wont she? She won't be alone; she will have someone looking out for her. Steph is happy with the arrangement, but her estranged husband and daughter are not. Who can blame them? If a loved one told me that he/she had invited a random person who just did a home repair for them to live with them, I would be upset as well. The train car is crowded for this time of day, before rush hour gets going. People are clustering about me. Two instincts pull on my muscles: elbow them out of my space, or sit on the floor. Neither of which is socially acceptable. Steph and Andy are separated after a long marriage. She worked for a bank for many years but lost her job when they started closing branches. Now, she has taken a job working for a homeless shelter. She loves her job and feels like she is truly helping people. But some anonymous person in her office sent some pictures to her husband of her and her boss discussing business things, and Andy immediately thinks she is having an affair. After denying his allegations, Andy finally moved out.

Sitting on the sofa, I glance around the living area. At the Victorian fireplace, the worn spines of old Spanish books on the bookcase, the Moroccan mosaic lamp. On the coffee table is a congealed disc of wax marking a dead candle. Hm” what? I want to say. But it was only a faint sound deep in his throat. I’ve heard it before. When he’s thinking, when there are furrows in his brow. When I get into bed that night, I haven’t heard a single peep. He hasn’t come out to use the kitchen or the bathroom. Any movements have been soundless. I’m drifting to sleep when I think I hear something, a scratch or a scuff. In the hallway? The wall? Our bedrooms share one, and it’s thin.When Steph meets a young, homeless man named Noah at her office, she is impressed with him. After inviting him to dinner a couple of times, she offers him a room in the house which will, hopefully, add extra protection for her. But even with him there, more things happen and she begins to wonder about some of the things that Noah is doing. Is someone trying to frighten her away from her home? Oh, you gotta try it.” He sweeps his palms together, then cuts off a corner and holds it out to me. Trouble likes her. I might have said she likes trouble, but I feel it’s the other way round. As if there’s metal inside her body she doesn’t know about, drawing in the cold, the sharp, things that can cut. She’s so unaware of eyes on her face. Of what’s behind. No idea I was close enough to touch her hair. There’s a feeling in my stomach—a faint froth of fear. I unwind it, pulling the wire taut between my hands. Still unsure what this object is, and why he’d have it with him. It was a mechanical thing. A reflex. One morning, without clear thought, I applied for a job. When I came for the interview, the manager stared at me, his pale eyebrows knitting.