Review: One Dark Night

Title: One Dark Night 

Author: Hannah Richell

Publisher: 1st January 2024 by Simon & Schuster Australia 

Pages: 520 pages

Genre: General Fiction | Mystery & Thrillers  | Suspense

Synopsis:

One night in the woods 

A party gone wrong 

A body discovered at sunrise 

He murdered her at the folly on their wedding day, left her body for the crows. They say she haunts the woods now, a girl in a white dress …

Everyone in the small town of Thorncombe knows the tales of the haunted woods where the birds don’t sing and a girl in a white dress roams, luring people to their deaths. But when a girl in white is found dead the morning after Halloween, her body carefully arranged at the bottom of an old stone folly, the community is thrown into turmoil.

 With a teenage daughter of his own, police detective Ben Chase knows how high the stakes are. Was the girl the victim of a party prank gone wrong, or does her death represent something more sinister and ritualistic?

As the investigation unfolds and the noose tightens around Chase’s own family, the only thing anyone can be sure of is that no one is safe until this violent killer is caught.

My Thoughts

Hannah Richell knows how to write a great thriller. I have read and loved her previous books, so it was with great anticipation that I opened One Dark Night that was released earlier this month. Instantly I was transported to a haunted wood with every shadow making you slightly jumpy. This is a well written and atmospheric story that is sure to have you frantically turning pages to a drama filled ending. The woods referred to is in fact a curved stretch of road on the Somerset-Wiltshire border that cuts through dense woodland near Bath. Hannah’s novel is loosely inspired by this locale and the nearby stone folly. 

‘You’d think by now he’d have a healthy grasp on how quickly life can change, how all it takes is one single moment to shatter a life or send it veering off course.’

The story centres around the gruesome death of a young girl when a Halloween party goes wrong. Hannah has written such a well plotted story with a cast of characters and a sinister setting that will lure you in from the very first page. There is a  list of suspects with the police conducting investigations to find the killer. The lies and secrets weave a web that leave you guessing so just when you think you’ve worked it out .... boom! Hannah throws in a curve ball you did not see coming. Fantastic!

One Dark Night is a suspenseful and entertaining read you will definitely find hard to put down. There are dramas with unfolding layers that will keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing to a suspenseful conclusion. 

‘Everything is so jumbled, so heightened, it’s hard to know what’s real, and what’s being magnified or manipulated through the lens of stress and anxiety.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

 

Review: The Search Party

Title: The Search Party

Author: Hannah Richell

Publisher: 3rd January 2024 by Simon & Schuster Australia

Pages: 352 pages

Genre: mystery, thriller, suspense

Rating: 4.5 cups

Synopsis:

Five old friends reunite for an idyllic glamping holiday on the rugged Cornwall coast, but tensions rise when a storm leaves them stranded and someone goes missing. Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race with their twelve-year-old son to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. 

Eager for a dry run ahead of their opening, they invite three old university friends and their families for a long-needed reunion and a relaxing weekend. But the festivities soon go awry as tensions arise between the children (and subsequently their parents), explosive secrets come to light, and a sudden storm moves in, cutting them off from help as one in the group disappears.  

Moving between a police investigation, a hospital room and the catastrophic weekend, The Search Party is a propulsive destination thriller about the tenuous bonds of friendship and the lengths parents will go to protect their children.

My Thoughts

I have read and loved Hannah’s previous books, so it was with great anticipation that I opened The Search Party and I was not disappointed. Such a well written and atmospheric story that will have you frantically turning pages to a most fitting and suspenseful ending. 

‘She keeps asking herself, how could one weekend spiral so dreadfully out of control?’

Basically this is a glamping trip that goes horribly wrong! Told from multiple points of view and moving back and forth in time, Hannah is very clear on character voice and timelines (she even includes a list of names) and pay attention to chapter dates so as never to be confused. The two timelines are the weekend away itself and then interspersed with police interviews in the aftermath. This is such an extremely clever technique in drip feeding character and plot clues along the way. 

‘Maybe their reunion weekend had brought the wildest, truest sides out in all of them  - one way or another.’

Three families are partaking in this glamping experience for the weekend and the various dynamics between the characters and has much to do with how events play out. There are disagreements, past histories, missing campers all played against a raging storm on the Cornwall coast. Tension builds, tempers fray, friendships are strained and it all comes to a raging and violent conclusion inline with the storm. 

‘It was as if the elemental wildness of the place had got under his skin, altered him. All his emotions rising to the surface.’

The Search Party is such a suspenseful and entertaining read you will find it hard to put down. There are many dramas and unfolding layers that will keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing to a fitting conclusion. 

‘In that moment, twenty years of friendship, of camaraderie, of pints in pubs and late-night bonding over music, of toasting each other’s weddings and children, of standing shoulder-to-shoulder through life’s ups and downs went skittering away on the wind.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

Review: The River Home

Title: The River Home

Author: Hannah Richell

Publisher: 25th February 2020 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 357 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre: fiction, contemporary

My Rating: 5 cups

Synopsis:

The river can take you home. But the river can also drag you under... The new novel from bestselling author Hannah Richell. A wise and emotionally powerful story of a broken family and the courage it takes to heal.

The river can take you home. But the river can also drag you under...

'It's something she learned years ago - the hard way - and that she knows she will never forget: even the sweetest fruit will fall and rot into the earth, eventually. No matter how deep you bury the pain, the bones of it will rise up to haunt you ... like the echoes of a summer's night, like the river flowing relentlessly on its course.'

Margot Sorrell didn't want to go home. She had spent all her adult life trying not to look behind. But a text from her sister Lucy brought her back to Somerset. 'I need you.'

As Margot, Lucy and their eldest sister, Eve, reunite in the house they grew up in beside the river, the secrets they keep from each other, and from themselves, refuse to stay hidden. A wedding brings them together but long-simmering resentments threaten to tear the family apart. No one could imagine the way this gathering would change them all forever. And through the sorrow they are forced to confront, there is a chance that healing will also come. But only if the truth is told.

My Thoughts

“The memory brings an ache - nostalgia for the past, when everything felt so simple and uncomplicated, for a time when they didn’t have to let go of anything more weighty than dandelion seeds.”

I have been eagerly anticipating my first book of Hannah’s and I was not disappointed. The River Home is a story about family secrets, past and present, and the impact it has on the various members. With a strong focus on the three sisters, events slowly unravel over the course of the novel with far reaching ramifications. 

The story moves between past and present with Hannah masterfully moving all the puzzle pieces, slowly revealing the fallout from each of the various characters' interactions over the years. Can this dysfunctional family, broken apart through miscommunication and failure to be honest, heal itself? A story of several characters is easy to follow thanks to Hannah’s skill in writing - each being so real and their individual tale, as part of the whole, is seamlessly presented. Overall themes of tragedy and heartbreak make you wonder if they will each find their closure and be able to move on. The plot lines speak to the heart and you will reflect and ponder how you may have reacted when in such dire circumstances. 

What is so appealing about this novel when there are a plethora of books out there on dysfunctional families? It all comes down to how engaging Hannah's writing is. Her eloquent prose is engaging with its imagery and nuances to make it feel as if you are sitting at the kitchen table as events unfold - a spectator to both the joy and grief. Featured throughout is the river ... symbolic as it too winds its way through events with a role of its own to play.

“She would never, ever utter a word about what happened that night, down by the river.”

The River Home by Hannah Richell is an emotional mystery, filled with family drama -  from the long felt bitterness and resentment to the hope of a brighter future. 

“You’re not empty. You’re afraid. Let yourself feel. Let yourself feel it all. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I’m afraid I will crack”.

“If you crack, perhaps you might start to heal?”

“What if I don’t? What if I break?”

``Then I will be here to hold the pieces.”

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.