I am delighted to share my review today for The Red House by Roz Watkins. This is a new to me author and this book was a great introduction to their work.
Twenty years ago, Joseph Flowers murdered his parents and younger brother in cold blood, before spending the night at a friend’s house as if nothing had happened, then crashing his car into a tree. Since that night, Joseph has been in a coma, and the family farm has become known as the Red House. The place where the walls were covered in blood.
The only person to escape the massacre was Joseph’s five-year-old sister, Eve. Now living her life with a new identity, she finally feels like she’s put her horrific past behind her.
Eve was the only one to witness her family’s murder, and she has never known why Joseph snapped all those years ago – but when she is faced with the decision of keeping her unresponsive brother alive, or letting him die, it might be her last chance to find out.
As she pieces together what happened that night, she will have to question everything she understood to be true, including her brother’s guilt, the stories she’s been told about her parents, and her own innocence.
Because Eve may be a survivor, but she might also be a liar.
MY REVIEW
This is the first time I have read a book by this author, and it was a brilliant introduction to their work.
The Red House was the family home of the Flowers family, 20 years ago the eldest son, Joseph killed his parents and siblings, leaving only one sister alive. After the attack, Joseph crashed his car and has been in a coma since and cared for by a grandparent.
Joseph was found with a gun in his car and covered in the blood of his family. So, he must have been the one who committed this horrific attack.
Told between the past and the present, the author fills in details of what happened in the days leading up to the attack, the attack itself, and the events after and into the present day. Eve, as she is now known, changed her identity as she did not want to be remembered as part of the family at the Reed House. The house is situated in the marches and has an eerie presence, and this is felt throughout the story it makes a fabulous backdrop for the scene of the crime and also the general feel of the story.
Eve has decisions to make and there is an Uncle and Aunt who can provide her with some support, but there is also her boss Marcus who she can talk to. She is a very closed character and this is understandable, she is not trusting of people.
The author weaves some interesting elements into the story and this requires Eve to try to remember things from her past, much of which she has forgotten, or simply does not remember as it was such a traumatic event. Even though Joseph is in a coma, he also contributes to the story but in a slightly different way.
Various elements of this story captured me as I read this book. It has a strong psychological thread to it, with childhood trauma, PTSD, flashbacks and the way the family lived their everyday lives back then. There is a lot more to the story than I first realised and as the synopsis has not mentioned many things, I am not going to mention them either.
For me, this was a brilliant book, full of suspense and mystery, a thriller with a lot of twists and some surprises just to add a bit more intrigue. Thoroughly enjoyed this one and it is one I would definitely recommend.
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