We live here now A novel

If fairy tales taught us anything, it was to be careful what we wish for. When Emily, in recovery from a three-month coma, wishes she had a house in the country, far away from the madness of London, her husband Freddie finds the perfect place. A huge house, on the edges of Dartmoor. But what follows is anything but a "happily ever after" ending. Larkin Lodge is striking, but there is an unsettling miasma about it. Indoors, there are creaking floorboards, fires that extinguish themselves, books that fall from shelves, and fleeting foul odors. Outdoors, pesky ravens, skeletal tree branches, a landscape covered in icy gray mist. All of this on top of a marriage crumbling under the weight of the nasty secrets that moved in with them. Pinborough skillfully transforms the narrative from domestic suspense to an intriguing horror story, with shades of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. The improbability of it all might be a stretch for some readers, but her fans may take delight in considering just what Hitchcock might have done with this material.

Pinborough's wobbly latest standalone (after Insomnia) is an atmospheric if anticlimactic gothic thriller about a couple's move to an eerie estate. Emily and Freddie Bennett have left London for the village of Dartmoor after a near-fatal fall induced a miscarriage in Emily. Following a lengthy hospitalization, she hopes for a fresh start, but her transition to their new home, Larkin Lodge, proves difficult. Apart from feeling unsettled by the surroundings ("Uneven ground and rough shrubs amid rocky outcrops"), Emily hears strange noises in the house, and an unseen presence seems to be tossing books around. Her fears that Larkin might be haunted are stoked by an interrupted session with a Ouija board, during which the planchette spells out the phrase "find it" multiple times. Both Emily and Freddie keep secrets from each other--including Emily's affair with her boss, who might have been the father of her child--and Pinborough smartly externalizes their tensions with disquieting descriptions of the odd goings-on at Larkin. Less effective is the book's final reveal, which undercuts the promising buildup. Here's hoping Pinborough returns to form next time out. Agent: Grainne Fox, UTA. (May)