The Summer House by Keri Beevis

 

"The summer house is our special place. This private part of the garden, far away from the main house, is a place of secrets. They are ours alone and no one will ever learn what truly goes on inside this pretty white wooden building..."

Blurb:

Mead House was once our childhood home.

Despite my fears, I always knew we would have to return to face the demons of our past.

Back to the place where it happened, to where, as carefree teenagers, we lost our elder sister in the most brutal of circumstances.

As executors of our grandmother's will, my twin brother, Ollie, and I needed to empty the house for resale.

What I didn't expect to discover was my sister's secret journal that contained her most private thoughts and shocking dark secrets.

Now I am questioning everything that I saw that night. Did I get it wrong, who I saw?

Did my evidence send an innocent man, my then boyfriend's brother, to jail for the last 17 years?

I know I have no choice. If I want to find answer, I will have to go back to that fateful night my sister died. When she made her last visit to the summer house.

The dualtime story moves between the present day and back to 2005.

Lana Hamilton arrives to her late grandmother's house, in order to clear it out before selling. Mead House had been left to Lana and her twin brother, Ollie. Neither of them wants to live in the house. 

"Not since what had happened to Camille. It was seventeen years since their sister's murder, but it never became easier. Camille had been just nineteen when she'd died, the twins two years younger, and her death had changed everything, including their relationship with Mead House".

Lana keeps suffering from troubled dreams, where she tries to warn her sister that last fateful night.

"For a long time, Lana had carried the guilt of believing she could have prevented Camille's death. That night she had seen her crossing the lawn with Sebastian Landry, knowing they were going to the summer house. She remembered thinking it was romantic at the time".

Camille had died a horrible death, and the twins' lives have changed for ever. Now back in the house, they are sifting through the belongings and remembering the past.

Ollie arrives with his fiancee Elise, who is totally insufferable. While Elise does nothing to help, Ollie and Lana work on the house, and discover a hidden journal of their sister. Having started reading the journal, looking for possible clues of the murderer, Lana is shocked at the secret side of her sister's life. "This was not a romance. It was an addiction, an obsession. Her sister had been following a dark path..."

The journal makes Lana re-think what she saw that fateful night. It was her testimony that sent Camille's boyfriend to jail. He has always claimed he was innocent. If he didn't murder Camille, then who did?

Retruning back to the town of her childhood, Lana comes across her first love, Xav. He is a talented artist who prefers to live alone. Xav is embittered and angry. The last thing he wants is to see his former love. It is too painful for him.

As Lana begins to uncover the truth, her own life is in jeopardy. Someone is after her, someone who knows the truth. 

The story is unsettling and painful to read in certain parts. 

What I found slightly difficult to believe is the victim's taste for sadistic sex. As she is hardly out of school, her desire to be humiliated and degraded sounds less plausible, than if she were a middle aged housewife with jaded sexual appetites.

Camille is a less developed character in the book, and it's not clear what made her choose the path which ultimately brought her tragic demise. In a way, we barely see a shadow of her real self. There are little snippets of her thoughts in the diary, but not enough of her personality has been revealed.

The main villain of the book (and there's a few to choose from) is a psycopath of epic proportions. Their motivation feels quite unlikely and far fetched. 

Elise is a caricature, portrayed as a gold digger, with nothing to recommend her. She is rude, self-centred and quite stupid. As a character, she doesn't add much to the main narrative.

The Summer House is a dark psychological thriller, shocking and harrowing. Unflinching, edgy and intense.

Potential triggers: murders; the graphic scene of torture; the sex with the minor.

This review is part of the blog tour for The Summer House.

Many thanks to Keri Beevis and Rachel's Random Resources for my e-copy of the book!

Purchase Link - https://amzn.to/3QgukFa

Author Bio –

Keri Beevis is the internationally bestselling author of Dying To Tell, Deep Dark Secrets, Trust No One, Every Little Breath and The People Next Door. Dying To Tell reached no. 1 in the Amazon chart in Australia and was a top 25 hit in the UK. She lives in Norfolk, along with her two naughty kitties, Ellie and Lola, and a plentiful supply of red wine (her writing fuel).

 

Social Media Links –  

Facebook: Keri Beevis - Author | Facebook

Twitter: Keri Beevis (@keribeevis) / Twitter

Instagram: Keri Beevis (@keri.beevis) • Instagram photos and videos

Bookbub profile: Keri Beevis Books - BookBub