‘If you want to get anywhere, you need to make a conscious decision not to be afraid to surprise people. We are hard-wired to provide what our fellow humans want and expect. If you do something they don’t want, and don’t expect, you confuse them, but you can also delight. The trick is to have absolute faith in your own decisions. Any self-doubt and people become wary. But you aren’t ashamed of showing enthusiasm. I like that.’

To those who think they know her, Eliza Curran has it all: two healthy children, a stunning home and a wealthy, adoring husband. No one would guess the reality of her life: trapped in an unhappy marriage to a controlling man, she longs for a way out.

When she takes on a new tenant, her life changes unexpectedly. Dan Jones is charming and perceptive, and quickly becomes a close friend to the whole family.

But Dan’s arrival threatens to tip Eliza’s fragile world out of balance. And when someone has as many secrets as Eliza does, the smallest slip could destroy everything

I move like an automaton to the door. Martin loves me, I know that. The trouble is that his need for control, only hinted at when we met, has gone into overdrive in the years since the accident. Nothing is beyond his attention. What starts with a perfectly reasonable request, given Martin’s circumstances – say, keeping the floor free of clutter – sends spores throughout the rest of the house and our lives. The children must not leave their bedroom untidy or their toys out. The children’s supper must be eaten and cleared up by 6.30 p.m. No item of clothing should be slung over the back of a chair even if it’s going to be worn later. Keys on the key hook. Children’s DVDs back on the shelf. For every infraction between ten and fifty pence is deducted from that week’s pocket money, depending on the severity of the lapse.

Man, what a ride. This book was unsuspectingly good. I was expecting cheap drama and I got back domestic noir. Martin is in a wheelchair following a motorcycle accident some years previously and he also knows secrets from Eliza’s past that could destroy any chance of her retaining custody of their children if she leaves. So she stays and longs for freedom. Would you stay with a man unwillingly? A man that keeps you under lock and key? A man that uses pity and your past transgressions from keeping you reeled under his thumb? You’d be looking for a way out and others have chosen death (either of their own or of their partner).

Now when her husband dies, drowned in the house’s pool, she can sense freedom right at her doorstep and this is when things start to go haywire. The Au-Pair threatens to tell the police she did it. Her heart-throb is not who he says he is. She is imprisoned again, this time by the people she allowed into her house and into her heart.

No more details in order to avoid spoilers, though suffice to say that the plot takes some surprising directions that kept me glued to its pages in anticipation of what happens next.

I did find Eliza difficult to empathize with as she seemed very immature and her own worse enemy in allowing Martin to bully and disrespect her in front of their children. Still, though Eliza was at times exasperating Martin was vile and vindictive; he would have felt right at home in a Victorian penny dreadful.

Just note – abuse can take many forms and disabled people are also capable of being mean.