This was a quick read for me, finished it in a few sittings.

Kirsty, her husband Adrian and their daughters move to Wales to open a bed and breakfast, this is the fresh start they need after Adrian suffered a breakdown. Kirsty’s Mum has to move too so that they can afford it. 17 years ago Kirsty fell out with her cousin Selena.

On opening weekend Kirsty’s Mum annouces that Selena is coming to stay with her daughter Ruby. Oh and Kirsty’s brother and wife are also coming!

Things don’t go to plan, spooky occurences and a murder will tend to ruin an opening weekend, especially when everyone’s under suspicion

I guessed the plot with Selena and Ruby straightaway but what really frustrated me was the rushed and unsatisfactory ending. It felt like everything was just brushed under the carpet and glossed over.

Unfortunately not a hit for me.

Full of family secrets with plenty of twists and turns, this story will keep you guessing and guessing.
After husband Adrian's breakdown, Kirsty and Mum Carol buy a guest house in Wales. The locals are unwelcoming, the guests strange and then family members come to stay.
The atmospheric house in the brooding Welsh countryside is an ideal setting for murder and the tangled lives and lies of the family make for an Agatha Christie type whodunit.
Accept the fictional licence and enjoy trying to work out the plot.
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Another fantastic read from Claire Douglas. One of those books you pick up and just can’t put down;the characters are all relatable and it keeps you guessing till the end. I have yet to read a Claire Douglas that doesn’t tick all the boxes. Can’t wait for her next one

This is the second book by Claire Douglas that I’ve read – the first was her third novel, Last Seen Alive, which I thought was excellent. So I was keen to read her latest novel Do Not Disturb – I wasn’t disappointed!

Kirsty, husband, Adrian and their two daughters, Amelia aged 11 and Evie aged 6, together with Kirsty’s mum, Carol have just moved to a house in a little village in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. The house, a big double-fronted Victorian house with pointed roof gables and arched windows, had been empty for several years and they have renovated it to run it as a guesthouse. It had been their dream for years and when the opportunity arose to move away from the frantic pace of life in London it seemed the ideal fresh start, particularly as Adrian had just recovered from a breakdown and had left his job in order to write.

The book opens as Kirsty is woken by shrill screams and finds her mother crouched over a body. It then moves back to the events leading up to this scene beginning two months earlier as they work on getting the guesthouse ready. Amelia isn’t too happy at the move and thinks the house is jinxed and Evie has started to walk in her sleep. Kirsty and Carol have a tense, awkward relationship and Adrian seems detached from the rest of the family. The locals are unfriendly and hostile to the family, regarding them as outsiders, even though Kirsty is Welsh, and there are tales that the house is haunted.

This is a novel with many family secrets that only gradually come to light and right from the start things go wrong beginning with the arrival of the first guests. Amongst them are Selena, Kirsty’s cousin and her little daughter, Ruby, a skinny, disabled child in a wheelchair. Selena and Kirsty fell out seventeen years ago after a major row and haven’t met since then. Kirsty’s brother Nathan and his wife Julia arrive and they too are having problems. Dead flowers arrive on the front doorstep. Evie says she’s seen a ghost, and that things have been moved in her bedroom, Kirsty worries that Adrian is heading for another breakdown and when a man from their past turns up things go from bad to worse. Kirsty can’t work out who she can trust or believe and I began to think that maybe I couldn’t trust Kirsty either.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is full of atmosphere, from the brooding Welsh mountains, their tops hidden in the clouds, the cold and rain, the almost Gothic house – was it really haunted? – to the moods of the characters and their tangled and unsatisfactory relationships with their secrets and lies. It looks at the nature and role of parenthood, of mother/daughter and husband/wife relationships and questions how far you would go to protect your loved ones. It’s a book that kept me guessing for most of the way. The ending, which I had guessed, after discounting most of the suspects, left me feeling quite unsettled, leaving several situations that could easily go wrong. It certainly gave me food for thought.

Many thanks to Michael Joseph – Penguin Books and NetGalley for a review copy.

What more can I say, than I absolutely loved this book. This is exactly my cup of tea and I loved every last page.

It all starts with Kirsty and her family moving to Wales to start a bed and breakfast. Things have been hard for Kirsty and her family in London so they make the decision to sell up and go into business with her Mum. Everything seems to be going to plan, except for a few locals not liking them for being outsiders but then Kirsty’s estranged cousin, Selena, comes to stay and everything changes.

There are lots of twists and turns in this story and once you think you have everything worked out something happens to completely blow that theory out the water. A great read that will have you devouring the pages to find out what happens next.

A book full of secrets, lies and much much more. Will the full truth be discovered ?

Thank you to Penguin UK, Michael Joseph and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

Ever thought about jacking it all in a setting up a guest house? Buying a derilict old place and doing it up? How about a joint venture with family...what could possibly go wrong?

With this book there is so many twists and turns that you are literally unsure about who did it until the last possible moment and even then, I’m not quite sure how I feel about it all.

Set in a remote area of the Brecon Beacons under the watchful eye of the locals a family move from London to live the dream but what’s in store is more than they budgeted for. The history of the house comes back to haunt them and not all the family members are who they seem. Family secrets dare to tear their ugly heads when a murder is committed - but who can you trust and who had a motive; do they even remember?

It’s not a guest house I’d want to stay in if I’m honest but trying to figure out who the murderer was baffling me - a really good, well thought out novel.

Phew. There's quite a lot going on in this book. It opens with screams in the very early hours, a body lying at the bottom of the stairs and hands coated in blood. Accident? Murder? Then the story starts from two months earlier.

Kirsty has moved from London back to her native Wales with her husband Adrian and two young daughters.

With the help of Kirsty's mother Carol, they've bought an old Victorian House in need of repair in a village in the Welsh mountains, intending to turn it into a home and guest house. Her husband Adrian had walked out of his London job following a breakdown and they hoped a fresh start and gentler pace of life would benefit everyone.

It seems however not everyone is happy. 11 year old Amelia didn't want to leave her friends in London and hates it. Kirsty isn't thrilled that her mother has joined the business but they needed her money to allow them to buy the house and carry out the restoration. The locals aren't particularly welcoming either.

Then before the first guests arrive, Carol announces that Kirsty's cousin Selena and her little daughter Ruby who is in a wheelchair will be coming to stay for a bit as Selena has just left an abusive marriage. The problem is Kirsty and Selena had a major falling out years earlier and she's the last person Kirsty needs or wants to see.

Later Kirsty's brother and his wife arrive for a few days. Then a man arrives out of the blue looking for a room for a couple of nights. He turns out to someone from Selena and Kirsty's past. Is it just a coincidence he appears when Selena has just left her husband?

There are also strange goings on – dead flowers being left on the doorstep, items being moved. One guest when she arrives announces to Kirsty the house has bad energy and hints at deaths and murders.

Kirsty seems to be an over anxious, over protective mother. Maybe she has reason to be because of what has happened in the past. Selena also seems to be anxious about her daughter's health.

I did wonder if Do Not Disturb was going to be more of a ghost story than a thriller. There is a kind of Gothic feel to it – an old Victorian house, empty for years, next to a church, surrounded by mountains, non-welcoming locals, little incidents – some creepy, some quite shocking.

To me, the story is less of a thriller and more about a family affected by secrets and past and present lies. Who knew all along? Who now knows? Who is in the dark? Who is telling the truth? Who is telling lies?

Although I was intrigued by the start, after a bit I rather lost interest as I didn't particularly care for the characters and I put the book aside for a couple of weeks. When I went back to it I finished it fairly quickly and quite enjoyed it.

As usual, you'll get no plot summary from me (if you are looking for one, there will be plenty of others on Goodreads!).

The book is a well-written tale with supernatural overtones and many twists, turns and red herrings along the way - so many that you end up suspecting everyone! - and the characters and their behaviours are believable and well-drawn.

I haven't read any of the author's other novels, but will certainly seek them out after reading this!

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for my honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The story drew me in straight away and I found myself eager to pick the book up at any given moment, I couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next. Brilliant.

This is my favourite Claire Douglas book by a mile. I didn't work out the ending and the shocks just kept coming. I've read all her books and they just keep getting better and better. Loved it!

whilst i found this latest offering from clare douglas easy reading it didn’t grip me as an edge of your seat thriller more a family drama saga. the story will be enjoyed by many however, i felt it wasn’t a patch on her previous book and i felt slightly disappointed.

many thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book with its disjointed family mysteries and secrets and a few red herrings along the way. I would recommend this novel and thank Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to review it.

The tag lines for this novel made me want to read it immediately however I found the story was quite shallow and didn't quite become the gripping thriller I was hoping for. It may be that there were too many characters so there was no real depth to them as there was not enough time for their individual backgrounds to be fully explored. This left me wanting more answers than I was getting. The story was a slow burner that picked up pace toward the end as the murdered was exposed! Or were they? A few twists at the end and the final few sentences left me wondering who was the real villain of the piece . Having said that this book is an easy read as the author has a pleasant style of writing but one which didn't quite get the Agatha Christie type tension.

This is an easy read. It touches on several topics eg: mental health issues but doesn't seem to address anything in depth. I found the first 75% rather a thin story. In the last quarter the action increases but although there is a mild twist, it wasn't a surprise. I was reading on, waiting for the reveal with several options in my mind. I am sorry, but I found the book something of a disappointment. The characters are minimally described so that the reader, in my opinion, is unsure whether any actions fit within the character. The setting is small and there is no real opportunity to develop any depth.

Kirsty needs a fresh start with her family. Running a guesthouse in the Welsh mountains sounds idyllic. But when their first guest arrives, Selena is the last person Kirsty wants to see. Seventeen years have passed since she tore everything apart. Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty's life?

After what happened in London, Kirsty and her family are looking forward to their fresh start running a guesthouse in the Welsh mountains. When Selena and her daughter are the first guests, she is the last person Kirsty wants to see. Is Selena running away from something? Things go from bad to worse. When everyone becomes a suspect in a murder, Kirsty wonders if their move from London was a good idea.

This book is written in the style of an Agatha Christie novel. The book starts with the murder then goes back to tell us what occurred in the days before the event took place. The pace is steady, tense with many twists. The plot, at times, just did not seem believable to me. In saying that, this book is still a good read.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Penguin UK, Micheal Joseph and the author Claire Douglas for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have been a fan of Claire Douglas' previous books but this one was definitely favourite. I started this in the afternoon and stayed up late to finish it last night. This book had it all and more, couldn't wait to find out how it was going to end.

Kirsty and Adrian pack up theirs lives in London with their 2 daughters and move to Wales to open their own guesthouse. Adrian suffered a breakdown recently Andy they see it as their chance to start fresh. Their first guest is Kirsty's cousin Selena who she has not seen for 17 years after an argument. Why is she coming back into their lives now? Is she running from something?

This is story about family, love, secrets and lies. Who can be trusted? I found it very difficult to work that one out, right till the very end. Such a great story - highly addictive.

A big thanks to Penguin UK and Michael Joseph and NetGalley for inviting me to read an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own and are in no way biased.

Penguin After reading Local Girl missing and Last seen alive also by Claire Douglas and couldn’t wait to read this.
After her husband’s Adrian’s breakdown. Kirsty, her husband Adrian and their two girls Amelia and Evie leave London to start a new life in the Brecon beacons to open a bed and Breakfast. Her mother is also part owner. They find a large empty house that no one has lived for many years, and decide that this place they want to be. Adrian has his own dream of writing a book.
But, on the opening weekend not only have they got guests staying but, half the family too. Her brother Nathan has come to stay with wife Julia and cousin Selena who she hasn’t seen each other for 17 years comes to stay with daughter Ruby. There is a rift between then that hasn’t been settled. Not only that, Selena is here after leaving her husband Nigel.
I quite enjoyed this, in a spooky and creepy sort of way. You can feel the atmosphere of this story as you read on. This story is about family secrets and lies and who can you really trust, and who’s telling the truth. The main character Kirsty though was quite annoying because she thought everyone was up to no good, but, she wasn’t the Miss perfect herself. There was a lot of twists and turns in this story. But I thought for me personally the ending was a bit flat.
Thank you Penguin Michael Joseph for a copy of this book. 3.5 stars from me.

Kirsty is hoping for a new start with her family after traumatic events almost tore them apart. What could be better than running a guest house in the Welsh mountains? Probably lots of things as it turns out (not quite as easy it seems on Four in a Bed!). With her Mother moving in to help and her hubby also on hand it should be manageable but both of them for different reasons become more hindrance than help. Add to this, long lost family members turning up with their dark secrets both past and present, demanding guests and a community who are not exactly welcoming has Kirsty made the biggest mistake of her life? Secrets and lies abound in this excellent read that had me guessing and accusing. Highly recommended

A gripping read. A family looking for a new start out of London by opening a guest house in remote Wales. As you read the setting gets eerier and tenser as new guests arrive. An accident happens and the story turns to a real whodunnit. I really enjoyed this book which was cleverly written with some great twists. Some very dark backstories of mental and physical health which all add to the mystery. Lots of secrets thrown in too. A wicked ending!

My enjoyment of this book was marred at times as I thought there were too many characters in play. Found it really hard to develop empathy for any of the characters, however it was an enjoyable enough read.