I always find it dangerous when publishers say things like "If you liked that, then you'll love this", because invariably it's not actually true and they're obviously just trying to push their new title. I've mentioned this in other blogs, where a thriller has been dubbed 'the new Gone Girl' or 'if you loved Girl on a train', etc. With this book, it was 'for fans of Eleanor Oliphant'. Now, I absolutely loved Eleanor Oliphant, I mean, the whole world loved her. She was the first of her kind and that was why we loved it. Just because another book is about a single woman with a few problems, does not make her Eleanor. The publisher may even try to copy the title style by using the character's name in the title, but come on. Give your author the individuality they deserve.
This is one reason I didn't like this book. I felt let down and slightly cross by the comparison. The main reason though is that I just didn't like Grace. She's having an affair with a married man, and she thinks he's going to give it all up to be with her. Her whole life seems to revolve around him (aside from her other passion - her cello, and her job as crafting and mending broken string instruments). By the way, why is there not a cello on the cover? That is a bigger passion for her than her life in Paris with her lover. I didn't like David the lover, I didn't like Nadia her assistant - how can such a classicist have such an awful temperament and rowdy social life? I got bored with the details of the cello making. The only person I liked was Mr Williams, the elderly customer who had become a friend. He seemed to be the only normal person in the story. I understand the comparison of her cello with her love life, how she cared for it and took love and attention over crafting a beautiful thing - it's how she dreamt of her life with David. Then when things went wrong with the relationship, so it was duplicated with the incident with the instruments.
The outcome is obvious, the story rather dull. Gosh, I've been rather awful here, but I just didn't like it.
A group of friends decide to to spend their New Year in a lodge miles away from anywhere in the wilds of Scotland. It will just be them, the lodge manager, and hunting instructor. They are planning on having fun, drinking, eating rich foods, and going hunting. They each bring with them their own emotional baggage and their secrets, but they are all good friends and there shouldn't be any problems, right? Wrong. By New Year's Day, one of them will be dead. And one of them is the murderer.
I just loved the premise of this story, and I liked the way that each chapter is told from the perspective of each of the friends (though a tad confusing at times). They relate how they know each other, and what they truly think of each other. The lodge owner and the instructor also get to tell their own stories of how they ended up working in such a remote location. As we learn more about their characters, we are led to be suspicious of most of them, and try to work out who could be the murderer. The only downside of this toing and froing of characters, is that you lose the tension of mystery and thriller. However, I loved the descriptions of how the friends are cocooned in this lodge, with lights on, gathered around a big table having fun, but through the large glass floor to ceiling windows all they can see is the blackness of the outside, and the snow starting to cover the ground, and the fact that they can't see much out, but anyone outside can see straight in.
I can't say that it kept me on the edge of my seat, but I did enjoy reading it. It was overlong though, I did skim read a few pages. I also didn't really like any of the characters, but that's possibly the point - any of them could be a murderer. A good, but not brilliant, murder mystery.
