I’m not even sure how I got recommended this one. It’s not part of my book club but I might have seen it on a list somewere like on the Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller (2021) and it was interesting to read to a point, and then super boring, and then super interesting again with a twist. And then she had to go and spoil it and do another two twists in the end chapters.

So let me tell you what this book is about.

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.

The couple in question are called the Wrights and in a play of words, things have gone wrong for the Wrights. There’s infidelity, there’s accusations and resentment and there’s one disease you don’t see a lot written about which makes one not see a person’s face. It’s like blindness but just to the facial features. I can see why the cheating happened – I mean both women were the same to him.

It’s not my husband’s fault that he forgets who I am. Adam has a neurological glitch called prosopagnosia, which means he cannot see distinguishing features on faces, including his own. He has walked past me on the street on more than one occasion, as though I were a stranger

Amelia and Adam are going through a rough patch in their marriage, so they thought a trip to a secluded location in Scotland would be just what they need to mend their relationship. But when they arrive at the derelict church where they’ll be staying, it’s not what they expect. Soon enough, things start to go wrong and of course, they have no way of leaving and there’s a third person there.

Of course, things are always more interesting when there’s a love triangle or an intruder. But the author spends so much time befuzzling us with words and epistolary breaks that we don’t even feel that this third person is more than a neighbour or a nuisance. Until she slashes their tires and steals their dog. OK, unhinged neighbour until *spoiler* she’s the ex! And then another spoiler – she’s the one that’s been writing the 1-9 years of love letters that were never sent and the current wife is the affair partner.

Another spoiler – only two people make it out alive.

Eh, book would have been good but it’s filled to the brim with silly sayings. A LOT of them. I was thinking where the hell do these fillers go and what purpose do they serve? So I started playing a drinking game. Whenever I would run into a saying or a fortune cookie wisdom as someone else called it, I would drink a coffee.

• I immediately regret saying it, but words don’t come with gift receipts and you can’t take them back
• If every story had a happy ending then we’d have no reason to start again. Life is all about choices, and learning how to put ourselves back together when we fall apart. Which we all do. Even the people who pretend they don’t. Just because I can’t recognise my wife’s face, it doesn’t mean I don’t know who she is.
• I’m sure everyone thinks we treat him like a surrogate child, even if they are too polite to say so. I always said I didn’t mind not having a real one. People who don’t get to name their children get to name a different future.
• Believing in someone is one of the greatest gifts you can give them, it’s free and the results can be priceless.
• There are as many varieties of heartbreak as there are love, but fear is always the same, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m afraid of so many things right now. I think perhaps the real reason I am so scared of losing – or leaving – my husband, is because I don’t have anyone else
• The ability to write a good book doesn’t make someone a good person.
• Some people say that marriage is like wine and gets better with age, but I guess it all depends on the grapes
• You can’t get this close to a cliff edge without seeing the rocks at the bottom
• I wish people were more like books. If you realise halfway through a novel that you aren’t enjoying it anymore, you can just stop and find something new to read. Same with films and TV dramas. There is no judgement, no guilt, nobody even needs to know unless you choose to tell them.
• The world can seem less frightening when you don’t have to face it alone
• The woman wore her bitterness like a badge; the kind of person who writes one-star book reviews
• the world keeps turning, and the years go by, regardless of how much she wishes she could turn back time. She wonders about that a lot: why people only learn to live in the moment when the moment has passed
• But curiosity killed the cat, not the dog or the man, and now I really want to know what’s at the top of the stairs.
• We’re all too busy looking down to remember to look up at the stars. It makes me sad when I think about all the things I might have already missed out on in life, but I plan to change that.
• Enjoy the stories of other people’s lives, but don’t forget to live your own.
• But marriage changes people whether they like it or not. You can’t unbreak an egg when you’ve already whisked it into an omelette.
• Adam is full of random knowledge, sometimes I think it’s the reason why there is no room left inside his head to think about us, or me
• The world seemed full of endless possibilities, but now it’s nothing but a series of dead ends
• Tiny nuggets of buried regrets sometimes slip through the gaps, but the heaviest of memories tend to sink rather than rise to the surface
• not everything that gets broken can be repaired
• Life makes other plans when people forget to live
• Life is like a game where pawns can become queens, but not everyone knows how to play
• People are different and that’s a good thing. Two pieces of different puzzles cannot and will not fit together unless one has been forced to bend or break or change to fit around the other
• The best lessons are often the ones we don’t realise we’re being taught.
• Sometimes home is more of a memory than a place
• a person can become immune to beauty when exposed to it too often
• Sometimes fights are like storms, and you can see them coming

• Some writers are like apples, and soon turn rotten if they don’t get picked
• That’s the problem with following in someone else’s footsteps; if you leave a bigger mark than they did they tend to get upset
• Sometimes the early bird eats too many worms and dies
• The only people with no regrets are liars
• It’s too easy to get blinded by man-made city lights, even though they could never shine as brightly as the stars in a cloudless sky, or white snow on a mountain, or sunbeams dancing on a loch. People confuse what they want with what they need, but I’ve realised now how different those things are.
• sometimes the things and people we think we need, are the ones we should stay away from
• sometimes we outgrow the dreams we had when we were younger, happy when they turn out to be too small, sad when they prove to be too big
• Marriage is hard work sometimes. It can also be heartbreaking, and sad, but any relationship worth having is worth fighting for. People have forgotten how to see the beauty in imperfection
• haunted houses are always the ones in which you are the ghost.
• A haunted marriage is just as terrifying as a haunted house
• Dreams are like dresses in a shop window; they look pretty, but sometimes don’t fit when you try them on
• Tiny violins always sound loudest to those playing them
• We’re not born afraid. When we’re young, we don’t hesitate to run, or climb, or jump, and we don’t worry about getting hurt or fret about failure. Rejection and real life teach us to fear, but if you want something badly enough, you have to take the leap
• sometimes small mistakes lead to bigger ones

As you can tell, I’m awake three days after reading this book. Good parts? Yes, it has a few – the gothic feel, the house, the isolation, the snowstorm. How many good books had this premise and turned out to be horror classics. Then there’s the relationship drama, the failing marriage, the childless couple desiring a child but not being able to coceive, the drifting apart.

I would have 5-starred the hell out of this book weren’t it for the pesky quotes that sound like they’ve been taken out of motivational posters or tumblr.