British novelist Alice Feeney (Sometimes I Lie) offers up another thrill ride for readers who dare to accept this delightfully dark and sinuous story that asks how well spouses can truly know each other.
Mr. and Mrs. Wright's marriage has gone all wrong, and they both know a getaway to a remote chapel-cum-romantic-hideaway in the Scottish Highlands is their last chance to save it. Arriving in the middle of a snowstorm, they find the chapel dark and foreboding. While it seems deserted, Mrs. Wright's sighting of a mysterious face at the window proves otherwise. Strangers aren't the only threat on this minibreak, though. "Marriages don't fail, people do," Mrs. Wright says wryly. She made sure to hide her husband's phone, and he turned off the chapel's electricity. Each has secrets, and each has plans for the other. The biggest question is whether they'll have time to carry out their schemes, or if their watcher will interfere first.
Feeney builds a satisfyingly ominous gothic backdrop for this marital tour de force. She misdirects masterfully, and even seasoned mystery readers may have trouble unwinding the truth before it's exposed. Chapters set in the present alternate with an undelivered letter from wife to husband for each year of their marriage, filled with juicy confessions and spine-tingling passive aggression. Slick and dangerous as a hairpin turn on an icy road, this cunning labyrinthine novel skates on the dark edge between love and madness, and packs a sinister loop-de-loop into its explosive conclusion. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads