Book Review: "The House Guest" by Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards has some quite twisted storylines and though again, I did have a few gripes with this book, I won't be giving up on the author entirely - I'm sure it's going to pick up soon. Be that as it may, my gripes with the book aren't really down to bad writing but really personal preference. I don't see the point in lots of characters being introduced at important parts of the book because then I don't feel like I know them properly, they are kind of just there. Apart from this, I think there were a few plot points that felt a bit shoehorned in. For example: when our main character was driven out to the middle of nowhere by a dodgy cop but then someone comes out of the woods to save him but that's never really explained. It's just these occasional things but, if we put that aside, this wasn't really a bad premise for a book at all.

Adam and Ruth are house sitting for some American friends they met on a cruise named Mona and Jack. Whilst there, a woman turns up at their door claiming to know the couple whose house it is. Her name is Eden and she is kind of upset because she wanted to surprise her friends. Not wanting to turn away the woman into the on-going storm, they invite her in to spend the night, and she ends up overstaying her welcome a little too much - but that isn't to say that Adam or Ruth notices that there is something wrong with her. One night, Adam, Ruth and Eden get blackout drunk and by the time Adam wakes up, the house is a mess, the couple are due back to their own home in less than 12 hours and atop of this, Eden and Ruth are missing. Mark Edwards has definitely set up a thrilling chase here, but instead of going running to everyone who could know the two of them - Adam seems to muster in his own mind, looking from the corner of his eyes to see if anyone who passes him on the street could be Ruth and Eden. But there's someone waiting, watching the house as well - a man...

When Mona and Jack return, the police get involved with trying to find out who Eden is but Adam gets angsty after he is basically set aside as are his worries for Ruth. When he starts digging, he gets involved with people who believe that Eden has taken Ruth to a cult, but this cult is very difficult to infiltrate as nobody knows who they are or who they are run by. Mark Edwards makes this big-city American piece of fiction out of what seems the classic folklore about successful people in America - that they must belong to some sort of sex trafficking cult. In our modern times though, that isn't too far from the truth and even Hollywood has come under fire as being a cult. But when we start to get Ruth's own testimony through her narrative, this cult isn't all doom and gloom - or is it? Mark Edwards doesn't reveal everything immediately and yet, we are made to find things out and piece them together from the little crumbs of information we are given. Yet, by the end we don't even know what is true and what is not as our characters are facing each other off with guns.

All in all, what Mark Edwards has created here is something special. My gripes with the book having too many characters and too many characters introduced at important times in the book are purely personal preferences. However, I think this book could have been written a little cleaner - there is a clear fluency issues which can often send the reader here and there and everywhere. There are a few plot points that feel a bit shoehorned into the book and the ending (final 4-5 chapters) can feel a bit rushed by comparison to the rest of the book. Again, I think I just prefer something that burns a bit slower and has more atmosphere. Apart from that, this is another great novel by Mark Edwards.

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