★★★★ 4.5 stars

You can run from your past, but you can't hide forever...

WOW! I have to say I am always partial to thrillers set in Cornwall. No, I've never been there as I live on the other side of the world, but there is just something atmospheric about Cornwall. Imagine sitting there looking out over the Atlantic or the Channel (depending on which coast you are), you're in a sprawling house that has a few ghosts of its own and the wind whipping off the ocean and around the eaves with the rain slapping against the windows. It is the essence of creepy without being creepy.

I'd no sooner begun reading RETURN TO BLACKWATER HOUSE than I felt the same sense of foreboding as when I read Sue Watson's "The Forever Home" (also set in Cornwall). In fact, I think I pictured both houses almost identically. Woman alone in house, wind whipping around the house as the rain slaps against the windows...and then we have a missing girl, lost into the night. It was that same sense I had reading both books. It was chilling. Of course, having said that, both books are entirely different...and yet Cornwall is such a character in its own right that it feels familiar in each story that is set there.

But RETURN TO BLACKWATER HOUSE is different. It is not your usual missing child thriller followed by a frantic search thus concluding with a neat resolution. What makes this story unique is its backstory. It's complex, it's disturbing and it's chilling. A twisted tale that is as addictive as it is atmospheric. And one woman's quest for revenge and absolution.

Growing up in Cornwall, Rebecca Bray had a horribly dismal childhood. Kicked out of home for falling pregnant with her at sixteen, her mother Gemma turned to a life of drugs and alcohol soon selling herself to pay for her addictions. Becks (as she was known then) was left to her own devices. The only place she felt safe was outside under the stars...until one night she found herself at Blackwater House. The woman who lived there, through childish folklore, was rumoured to be a witch but Becks soon discovered that Gwen was a kind and gentle woman who gave a desperate fifteen year old girl a home until she went to university at eighteen. Becks loved her life with Gwen but Gwen encouraged Becks to go out and live her life. So that is what she did.

Almost two decades later, Becks has shed her old life and becomes Rebecca - engaged to Daniel with a beautiful step-daughter Ava - when she receives the news that Gwen has died and left her Blackwater House. Rebecca never thought she would return to Cornwall but maybe this is the perfect opportunity for a fresh start. And maybe, just maybe, she can finally lay her ghosts to rest.

But on New Years Eve, a difficult time for Rebecca that stirs up lots of old memories, Ava disappears in the middle of the night at her own sleepover with friends. It's 2am when distraught and in tears, friend Poppy knocks on the door of the main house alerting Rebecca to Ava's disappearance. Fraught with anxiety, she calls Daniel who is in London at a client's party and summons the police.

Enter Kate, family liaison officer, who incidentally also knew Rebecca (as Becks) when they were younger. She brings the investigative side to the story through her narrative but she also relies on her "intuition", which her DS calls "gut instinct". But she has some difficulty correlating the old Becks with the woman Rebecca and wonders if there is something she is missing.

Rebecca, however, is a deeply broken character with many ghosts that she has not been able to shake in the past two decades. She thought she had left it all behind but returning to Blackwater House has brought all the old ghosts to the surface again which is only exacerbated by Ava's sudden disappearance.

What ensues is the alternating narratives of Rebecca and Kate, beginning to a couple of months before that fateful New Years Eve and following on in the wake of Ava's disappearance. As the story unfolds, the reader begins to see a very different tale emerging that Rebecca has worked hard to keep hidden.

A fast-paced read, RETURN TO BLACKWATER HOUSE is an atmospheric and chilling thriller that is nothing you would expect. It certainly has that menacing eerie sense of foreboding throughout and I think that is best put down to the setting because in all honesty, a Victorian terrace in London would not have the same impact as the dark and chilling presence of a house situated on a rugged cliff edge in Cornwall.

It's also important to note the different aspects dealt with here - addiction, neglect, abuse, rape, teen pregnancy - enmeshed with coeliac disease. However, I think the constant reference to "gluten free" was a tad over-used to the point the reader expects some nefarious character to swap out a gluten free product then sit back and watch things pan out. Once or twice maybe, but every time Rebecca went shopping or cooked a meal? It wasn't necessary as it wasn't an actual focal point of the story.

Aside from that, my only real gripe is with the ending. I get that there needed to be an ending that wrapped things up, but "Seven Years Later" could worked just as well as a simple Epilogue that rounded everything out without notching up several chapters that really didn't go anywhere. I thought the entire Part 3 fell a little flat. I would have preferred just a simple Epilogue taking place from Ava's perspective to give readers a satisfactory explanation and ending. The rest was waffle, in my opinion. It is for this reason I have to reluctantly deduct half a star, otherwise it would have been a perfect 5 star read!

Twisted in more ways than one, RETURN TO BLACKWATER HOUSE is an exciting and engaging read that is not quite what you expect. It is most certainly an atmospheric and chilling thriller filled with suspense and twists that keep on coming.

My second read by author Vikki Patis, I look forward to more of her superbly sinister thrillers. Haunting and chilling, RETURN TO BLACKWATER HOUSE is perfect for fans of dark psychological thrillers.

I would like to thank #VikkiPatis, #Netgalley, #HodderAndStoughton for an ARC of #ReturnToBlackwaterHouse in exchange for an honest review.

I loved everything about this new thriller by Vikki Patis. The Cornwall setting is so well evoked - making you feel as if you are there by the sea. Secrets are slowly revealed and Rachel is a sympathetic character and I enjoyed seeing the character Kate again who I recognised from Vikki's debut, The Diary, The ending is particularly satisfactory - from the moment the plot begins to unravel in a deliciously twisty way until the carefully thought out and satisfying ending. I'm looking forward to reading more Vikki Patis books!

This is my first book by Vikki Patis, and was a great introduction to her as an author. The story builds up into a fast-paced, action-filled thriller, which, at times, had me on the edge of my seat, racing through to see what was coming next.

The story started gradually in the first half of the book, clearly setting up the main characters (Rebecca, Daniel & Ava) and the setting, Blackwater House in a beautiful, sometimes harsh Cornish village.
Told from Rebecca’s two timelines, childhood and then Christmas 2020, the pace builds with clues about the past lives of both Rebecca & Daniel and the anomalies within their unusual relationship. I found myself on edge ‘watching’ the household interactions. Add in an alternative narrator Kate, a police officer and FLO, who Rebecca knew in her childhood and you are set for a great thriller.

What seemed like a troubling mystery suddenly gathers pace and menace in the second half as Rebecca (Becks) backstory reveals a much more troubled and dangerous past than we knew already. The twists and turns come rapidly and I was totally gripped trying to predict where the story was taking me.

There are several very challenging subjects dealt with in this book, which I felt were handled with sensitivity and understanding, whilst also creating huge empathy for the darkness and depths of some horrendously desperate situations.

The acknowledgments at the end contain a powerful reminder to the reader of the harsh realities of parts of this story.

Growing up in Cornwall Rebecca Bray led an awful life, the only place she felt safe and secure was at Blackwater House with Gwen, a woman who many children thought was a witch.
But when Gwen dies, leaving the house to Rebecca she's sees an opportunity for a fresh start. Moving with her fiance and his daughter she is excited for all the new life can bring. Until Ava goes missing on New Year's Eve and Rebecca's childhood comes back to haunt her.
This was a great book that I could not put down. It is not your typical young girl goes missing novel, there are so many depths to the characters that you just gave to keep reading to find out where the story is going next.
A brilliant book for lovers of Psychological thrillers

An incredibly atmospheric read, full of unpredictable twists and turns!

Living just across the border from Cornwall and reading this book during storm Eunice made it very easy for me to imagine the setting for this brilliant thriller. As usual, Vikki has done a great job with creating a suspenseful read that also has a heart-wrenching story at the core.

Rebecca didn’t have it easy growing up, living in what can only be described as a drug den where she was left to fend for herself, she did well to get away and make something of her life. It’s been a long time since she’s been back to the Cornish village she grew up in, but now an opportunity has arisen that sees Rebecca returning for good! Bringing her fiancé and stepdaughter with her, she is hoping this will be the fresh start they need as a family, but things aren’t going to be that straightforward, especially when her stepdaughter Ava goes missing!

The chapters alternate between the present and the past as we follow the search for Ava and return to the events of Rebecca’s younger years. The first half was slightly slower paced, but I kept turning those pages, keen to know where the story was heading. I had so many questions and theories along the way and I did wonder at times whether it was going to end up being a predictable read.

Once I passed the mid-point though, this became a much faster-paced thriller, and I couldn’t put it down. With twists and turns galore, predictable this book was not! I am in awe of any author who manages to shock and surprise me with their twists, this book was so cleverly plotted for everything to weave together the way it did, so much of what happened I really didn’t see coming.

Vikki is incredibly diverse with her writing, including characters from different ethnic backgrounds and those with different sexual orientations, as well as characters who have certain food allergies. It is really refreshing to read a book like this because it is very relevant and realistic.

You may think when reading this that the characters eat a lot of takeaway pizza! Haha. This was one of my thoughts but having lived in Cornwall myself I know that the takeaway options can be rather limited. 😂

There is one particular part of this story that I absolutely loved, but I can’t say what it is without giving away a spoiler, so all I will say is that you must read this brilliant, atmospheric, chilling and emotional story.

Thank you to Vikki Patis, Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalleyfor my copy of this book. All views are my own.

I loved this book! Rebecca and Kate were really interesting characters and the plot was fast-paced. I had to keep turning the pages to find out what happened! I also liked the way coeliac disease was portrayed and how the novel had a diverse range of characters - which made it more interesting and engaging. The ending was brilliant - all the loose ends tied up in a very satisfactory and fitting way.

I read a lot of psychological thrillers so they have to have something different or special for me to rate as 4 or 5 star, and unfortunately this one was not for me. I had high hopes after seeing the book cover and title which hinted at an atmospheric possibly gothic thriller set in Cornwall, but I found this to be a very modern thriller.
I did read this book very quickly wanting to know what happened, but I found the latter part of the book very far- fetched. There was just too much going on for me to believe in the story – murder, a missing child, abuse of all sorts, lies, secrets, deceit, mental health........... and all the ends are tied up too neatly.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to review an advance copy of this book.

This book had such a complex storyline that I was gripped from start to finish, wondering what the next twist or reveal would be! This book was really hard to tear myself away from, it’s a storyline that you can easily become immersed. Characters, setting and storyline are all really compelling. I got to about 40% and the book just flew and flew until that completely unpredictable ending. I really like books that keep you guessing and have revelations even after you think everything has been revealed.

I also really enjoyed the setting – Cornwall is so often written as a beautiful setting (and don’t get me wrong, it is in this book) but the desolation and isolation are really clear in this book. Wonderfully portrayed by Vikki throughout. I can’t wait to read more books from this Author!

Rebecca Bray returns to her childhood town in Cornwall, after she has inherited a house known as "Blackwater" from Gwen. She remembers all those fond memories of her childhood and teenage years and vowed never return back to the town. She and her fiance Daniel and his daughter Ava seemed to be the perfect family, living in this new house.

But one day, Ava goes missing. And while investigating Ava's disappearance, Rebecca's past came back to her tormenting, a past she vowed to forget...

This is really a good book. Though this was actually a thriller, to me, this was actually an emotional roller coaster ride, especially when reading towards the end and you find what Rebecca's secret and past was, you feel a bit emotional and at times it was heartbreaking.

The story divides between the past--when Rebecca, Daniel and Ava moves into the house to the present, when Ava has disappeared and the police taking part in the case. In the beginning, we see a different picture of this picture perfect family but towards the middle of the book...well let's just say, it's not as picture perfect as it seems. The writing was engaging, the author doing a great job making the reader immerse into the story and making the reader feel like they are part of the story as well. I was so engrossed into the book and simply couldn't put the book down. The characters, particularly Rebecca is broken character and despite being not biological mother and daughter, Rebecca and Ava seem to have a very strong bond with each other.

Nonetheless, the ending left me emotional and it was a bit heartbreaking.

Overall, this was a good thriller, that will make you emotional as well as unputdownable--worth five stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.

Atmospheric, haunting and superbly plotted. I still have goosebumps from reading it! Everything about this book is captivating. This novel is impossible to put down. I downloaded the arc this morning, and by this afternoon, I had finished. The rollercoaster was intense, the twists and turns unexpected, and the element of surprise insane.

Rebecca Bray returns to her childhood town in Cornwall where she inherits Blackwater House from Gwen. She moves in with her partner Daniel and their stepdaughter Ava. Rebecca Bray didn’t have the best of childhoods. Her parents were druggies and after an incident she runs away and finds her at Blackwater House were Gwen takes her in. Gwen changes her life for the better.
Its New years Eve and Rebecca is on her own with Ava and her friends having a sleep over. By being in Black water house brings up memories she is trying to forget. When is gets a visitor, an old school friend who brings drink in to celebrate the new year. She forgets about Ava and her friends. They don’t want to her to crash the party. So, the next morning she realises that Ava has gone missing.
Thank you, Hodder, and Stoughton for an ARC Return to Blackwater House by Vikki Pattis. I must be one of the majority here, to say I have mixed feelings about this book. Yes, I like the premise of the story and it was engaging but, I just found that there was a hell of a lot of backstories about the past and felt the present storyline was lacking. Three stars from me.

I could not put this book down! It is written so well, fully developed, diverse, and complex characters, and a mystery that just keeps you guessing right to the end, with unexpected twists and turns along the way.

Rebecca Bray inherits Blackwater House, in the village where she grew up, and moves there with her partner and teenage stepdaughter. When she returns, she keeps seeing glimpses of a past she wants to forget. But then, on New Years Eve, her stepdaughter Ava goes missing.

The book switches between "before" and "after" Ava's disappearance, and viewpoints switch between Rebecca and the family liaison officer assigned to their case, Kate, who remembers Rebecca from childhood.

A fantastically written, haunting thriller. I will definitely be looking up more works by Patis. Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

I loved this one. Very fast paced, had me turning pages as I tore through it – I had to see how it would end. The characters were well rounded and the narrative felt believable. Gave me chills. Solid five

Life is good for Rebecca Bray, she’s left her past behind her and has a wonderful fiance and stepdaughter. But the past catches up with her when she and her new family move back to the same Cornish village Rebecca grew up in, when Rebecca inherits a house. Despite her misgivings, the home is too much to pass up, and she believes that her past is dead and buried. But when her stepdaughter disappears during a New Year’s Eve party, Rebecca will have to face her demons to bring her daughter home. A creepy, suspenseful slow burn that kept me on the edge of my seat

I absolutely LOVED "Return to Blackwater House" by Vikki Patis.

The storyline is a good one and I was so glad to find it wasn't another standard 'little girl gone missing' thriller as there are so many stories along those lines nowadays!.
This storyline follows Rebecca and her move back to her original hometown in Cornwall after inheriting Blackwater House from Gwen.
Taking with her to Cornwall to live- her husband Daniel and 14 year old Step daughter Ava whom she has raised from birth.
But on New Years Eve, whilst at her own sleepover- Ava dissapears in the middle of the night. The storyline unwinds from there, whilst also following the family liaison officer Kate's life (who also happened to know Rebecca when she was younger) .

I loved the plot twist in the storyline, I don't think I was quite expecting it to go that way- so it was a pleasant shock. I also loved how the storyline continued to play out after Ava had been found. This made the storyline feel more 'full' rather than rushed and tied up quickly like most thrillers tend to do

Recommended Read. 5 Stars from me! *****

Rebecca Bray has few fond memories of her childhood or teenage years and swore she would never return to the town where she grew up. Now, as an adult and with a family of her own, she finds herself doing just that. The house left in to her in a will is too good an opportunity to pass up on residing in, despite the bleak setting surrounding it and the even bleaker memories that encroach upon her return.

But the past soon proves to be more than distant memories when her stepdaughter disappears and she is forced to confront the secrets and lies she hid both from herself and others for the many years she has been absent.

This quickly proved itself to be SO much more than a thriller, with all I was expecting paling in comparison to everything that was actually delivered. The sinister abode and familial secrets were present at the beginning, just as they are in many other similarly set-up thriller novels, but the direction this one took was definitely different to any I have read previously.

Heartache and heartbreak, tears and tantrums marked my journey through these pages as I suffered each horrifying reveal and harrowing ordeal, trauma and tragedy, along with these quickly beloved characters. The concluding reveals had me genuinely open-mouthed and their continual arrival ensured this a read as unforgettable to my memory as it was matchless to experience.

I loved this book from start to finish.

Atmospheric, creepy, and with brilliant twists along the way! I’ve just finished it, I think it will stay with me for a long time. There was also an emotional quality about the ending that I really loved.

Evocative Suspense…
Past comes back to haunt the present in this evocative, hugely atmospheric psychological suspense with a well crafted cast of characters and a perfectly nuanced sense of place and of time. The storyline is compelling, there are twists and turns aplenty and red herrings dotted liberally around. With a sense of underlying menace from the off this is a one sit read which really is difficult to put down,

I'm writing this on Sunday morning, and struggling to remember much about Friday night. And before any of you say "well, surely there's nothing unusual there", let me explain my reasoning.

It had been a long and busy week at work. I had started reading 'Return to Blackwater House' by Vikki Patis the previous weekend, putting it down with tremendous reluctance late on Sunday evening. Thereafter my reading had been limited to a few snatched chapters late at night, as I cursed the need for sleep because all I wanted to do was read more.

So on Friday, I came home as soon as I could, poured a glass of wine and picked up my kindle. The next thing I knew it was after midnight and about three-quarters of the bottle's contents had mysteriously disappeared. Also, I had come to the end of the book and my tired mind was struggling to digest what had hit it.

I've said in reviews of some of Vikki's previous novels that she really can, and does, write beautifully. But I think that she may just have surpassed herself in that prologue and first chapter. I felt every part of Rebecca Bray's sense of overwhelm as she struggles to comprehend that her fourteen-year-old stepdaughter Ava has disappeared from a sleepover on New Year's Eve. She reduces it in her head to the power of three little words - "Ava is missing" - and to the number of paces it takes her to cross her living room floor. It's wonderfully done, it's powerful and yet the way it had me well and truly drawn in seemed almost effortless.

From there ... well. I have read quite a lot of crime and psychological fiction books involving the disappearance of children and can honestly say that the plot this book follows is different to any of them. Through chapters narrated by Rebecca in both the present and the past, we are treated to a whole host of revelations, each one of which turns the book into something darker and more disturbing than I could ever have imagined it being. These are interspersed with chapters told by the police Family Liaison Officer, Kate Winters, who used to know Rebecca as a child and who is one step behind the reader in terms of what she knows. But we still feel her growing sense of unease.

As I reached the end of the novel, sitting bolt upright and wide-eyed, one of the first things I did was to flick back to the prologue and the opening chapter. Because the story had undergone such a change of direction that it almost felt as though I was reading an entirely different book to the one that I had started.

Is this a criticism? Um ... I'm not sure.

I absolutely didn't feel that twist after twist had been included almost for the sake of it. Every part of the book felt believable. But the problem for me is summed up in an admission made by the author herself in her note at the novel, in which she explains that the story has been "through the wringer" and re-written on a multitude of occasions. If I'm honest, it occasionally felt it. It just seemed a little bit disjointed, as though she had tried a bit too hard to try and find a way of fitting a number of different ideas together.

This is perhaps most apparent in the final section, in which the storyline jumps from 2020 to "seven years later". Yes, I know something similar happens in Girl, Lost and that I didn't mind it that time. But in that book, it's only the epilogue that's affected. Here, it's several chapters and they have a bearing on the main story. I found myself wondering why, if the book was to end in this way, it was necessary to start it in the New Year of 2020. 2013 would still have worked.

It's for these two reasons that I have to reluctantly deduct a fifth star. But it's as far as the criticisms go. Two points, which really are nothing more than niggles and which you really should try to ignore. Because otherwise, it's a beautifully written and compelling story in which the sense of atmosphere is palpable, the characters are well-portrayed and those that need to be are likeable. Put simply, there's a heck of a lot to like.

I must also mention - albeit a bit cryptically - another admission that Vikki makes in her author's note, this time about her own life. I'm not going to reveal what that is here, but I will say that it made me want to applaud her from the rooftops and give her a huge hug at the same time.

My thanks to the author, Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for a digital ARC of this book, which I have reviewed voluntarily and honestly. I will post my review on Goodreads now and on Amazon on publication day.

Twisty!

This was a great book, written from multiple times and characters that all came together to create a brilliant ending. Rebecca Bray has a turbulent history that unravels itself as the book goes on. I liked her as a character and was routing for her and Ava, the missing step-daughter.

Recommended.

Thanks to the publisher, author, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review.