Reviews

Seaview House by

kaz_loves_books's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Jill Holland and her family moved to Walney Island in the Irish Sea when she was only fourteen years old. Jill loved being able to walk Lucky, the family dog, along the beach which she got to really enjoy exploring. It was there where she met Andrew Brownstone. Stoney, to his mates and they soon started hanging out together quite a lot. He was a few months older, being fifteen. He saw her as his girlfriend but as Jill was very inexperienced and had no friends to confide in, she didn’t really know what their relationship was. Apart from it was very, very toxic. Stoney was hanging around with an older guy, Malcolm Gibson who was nicknamed Mick. He was around twenty so Stoney was getting some pretty heavy ideas from him. He didn’t like it when Jill kept refusing him but he liked her so much, he was infatuated with her. She liked Seaview House where he lived with his parents. He stayed there until approx 1988 which was roughly when she last saw him and by then, she really wanted him out of her life.

Now, in 2018, the house is all boarded up and about to be demolished when a body is found in the back garden.  The police are brought in to investigate and it turns out the body has been there thirty years. It puts us back in the timeframe when Stoney was still possibly living at Seaview. The police visit Jill Francis, nee Holland and at first she denies knowing Andrew Brownstone as she doesn’t want to get involved. An appeal is put out in the papers asking for information about Andrew Brownstone with an old picture of him. Jill sees a man hanging around her property late one night but can’t make out his features, then spots someone near the school but they move off but she gets to them. The police ask more questions so Jill decides to come clean, even though her husband knows nothing of her past. This could be her undoing and reputation is everything…

Is the body Andrew Brownstone? What was Jill’s part in this?

This was a very intriguing read right from the start. It is like a diary style and flicks back and forth, from the present to the past but letting you know which time zone you are in. I read it in one sitting. It’s very well written with great descriptive prose. It makes you feel like you are seeing the book unfold like a film in your mind. 

memull17's review

3.0

Jill has been carrying around a dark secret for decades. Carefully hidden away from her family and coworkers but now her secret threatens to come crashing down upon her when the discovery of a body is found at an old abandoned house. The house holds too many of Jill’s secrets and she fears it will finally force her to reveal them to the world. 

Told in alternating timelines; we get to know Jill present day and her mental state as she wrestles with her past coming to light. In the past timeline, we learn about the summer that changed everything for Jill and how it continued to hold a tie to her future until one fateful day.  As the past timeline accelerates, you as the reader constantly wonder what Jill has done that has caused her to carry around such guilt until it’s finally revealed. I won’t say it was necessarily anticlimactic but it wasn’t this shocking revelation that I was hoping for based off of all the build up. The setting of the island and the looming presence of the old house definitely made this read engaging. 


Thank you @lovebookstours and @bloodhoundbooks for this gifted e-copy and a spot on the book tour.