Open House - Katie Sise

Reading Challenge Category: Amazon Prime First Read - Free

Official Blurb:

A missing young woman, ten years gone. A town still held in the grip of an unsolved mystery. A breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by the bestselling author of We Were Mothers.
A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked into the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister, Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.
Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.

My Thoughts:

I had no preconceptions about this book. I’d never read anything by this author before, and I received it free as part of the Amazon Prime First Reads that I choose one of each month. I took all pressure off and decided if I didn’t like it, I could just discard it and move on.
Even though it is quite slow, to begin with, it does manage to draw you in right from the start. The fact that I am writing this review means I didn’t abandon the book but finished it in record time! Towards the end, I just couldn’t put it down and even stayed up until 2 am this morning to finish it.
I’m having a bit of trouble categorising the genre. It wasn’t quite a Psychological Thriller nor crime. I’m going to go with a mild thriller; no one felt completely in danger, and my heart wasn’t pounding, but there was a lot of mystery surrounding the story.
There are three points of view being given throughout the book: Haley, Priya and Emma (ten years ago). Haley has never gotten over her sister’s disappearance ten years before the current events. Priya is struggling with her husband’s infidelities and is intertwined with Emma’s past more than she deserves to be. Emma is giving us a real account of what happened. Emma’s sections are a little bit more few and far between to really keep the suspense going.
I didn’t take to Haley, to begin with, as I thought she was a little too morose. However, as the story progressed, she really grew on me, and we learnt her little quirky ways. In fact, all of the characters were very well developed.
Overall, a short and suspense thrilled book and I will certainly be having a look to see what else this author has written. A solid four-star read.

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