Title: The Guests

Author: Agnes Ravatn

Genre: Suspense/Literary Fiction

Publisher: Orenda

Publication Date: 18th January 2024

Rating: 4/5

Cover:

Book Summary:

It started with a lie…

Married couple Karin and Kai are looking for a pleasant escape from their busy lives, and reluctantly accept an offer to stay in a luxurious holiday home in the Norwegian fjords.

Instead of finding a relaxing retreat, however, their trip becomes a reminder of everything lacking in their own lives, and in a less-than-friendly meeting with their new neighbours, Karin tells a little white lie…

Against the backdrop of the glistening water and within the claustrophobic walls of the ultra-modern house, Karin’s insecurities blossom, and her lie grows ever bigger, entangling her and her husband in a nightmare spiral of deceits with absolutely no means of escape…

Simmering with suspense and dark humour, The Guests is a gripping psychological drama about envy and aspiration … and something more menacing, hiding just below that glittering surface…

Review:

The Guests is a relatively short book that can easily be read in one sitting. However, Agnes Ravatn packs a lot into these pages and manages to expertly craft a succinct yet deeply compelling narrative that speaks to a complex understanding of the human condition. The Guests is written with sparing prose that creeps up on the reader, leaving them with a feeling of profound unease. The characters aren’t what I would call likeable but they are interesting – especially main character, Karin, whose obsession with the privilege she sees as out of her reach leading her into a deception that drives the plot of The Guests. In fact, Karin is so preoccupied with her feelings of inferiority that she is incapable of acknowledging the good things about her own life. This astute examination of the psychology of people and why we act the way we do is what makes The Guests an intriguing read. This, combined with the sparse and bleakly entrancing Norwegian setting results in a smart, unnerving and compulsively readable piece of domestic suspense that I would absolutely recommend.

✶✶✶✶

Thank you so much to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for inviting me on this tour and organising it. I kindly received a copy of the book from the publisher. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.

Buy the book:

Waterstones | Blackwell’s | Amazon