Slow Burn Suspense…
The Starlings gated community appears perfection - it seems to have it all with sun, sea, security and the ideal neighbours. It is, perhaps, the perfect neighborhood. Or is it? When a party ends in devastation, secrets will out. With a well crafted cast and a compelling premise this is an intriguing, well written suspense although a very slow burn.

So … will come as a surprise to literally no one, but this is the first book by Isabel Ashdown I have read. I own a couple of books by the author​ but they are there in the TBR pile, soon to be moved to the ‘why am I such a tit that I didn’t read these before’ pile no doubt. 



I really rather enjoyed Homecoming. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it perhaps wasn’t this, and equally I’m not quite sure what category I’d put the book into if we were trying to allocate to a genre. It’s not quite a thriller, not quite domestic noir, but it is a relationship drama, and it is a book that held my attention from the very beginning. Not because it is packed with pulse pounding tension - often the way I like my books - but because it grabbed my attention from the beginning and left me with an overwhelming curiosity about what happened to cause such a dramatic opening scene and why.



Now I cannot tell a lie - I didn’t necessarily take to the main characters in the book. There is something about each and every one of them that is unlikeable, or at least would cause you to keep them at arms length in real life, with perhaps the exception of Frida, a young girl with the weight of the world upon her shoulders that it is almost impossible not to feel some affinity toward. One thing they did do, though, was intrigue me. I wanted to know their back stories, particularly Ginny, who is clearly nursing a deep secret. And secrets are, after all, at the heart of this novel. Secrets people might well be willing to kill to protect.



I really liked the uniqueness of the setting for this book. Whilst The Starlings may seem to be quite the exclusive development, and the author certainly manages to make it seem a very appealing and idyllic location, the building has somewhat of a chequered past that blends into the story in the most unexpected of ways. It seems that many of the central characters have some kind of link to the place, some more obvious and open than others, but it is in the history of the building that the core of the mystery lies. And because the main characters all seem to be duplicitous in some way, it is hard to trust any of them, creating its own kind of conflict, that adds a sense of threat and tension to the story.



Isabel Ashdown is definitely an author whose work I want to read more of. She created sure clear and vivid imagery in bringing The Starlings, and its inhabitants, to life on the page, and by the end I did have a (slightly) grudging respect for Ginny and development owner, Katrin. I think, in their own ways, they wanted to do the right thing, even if the way in which the author portrays them makes them seems as suspicious as all of the others. And the book itself covers very relevant and harrowing topic, ones which could easily have been ripped from the headlines - those of abuse of power and the denial of rights of unwed mothers - which adds a real emotional core to the whole story.



If you are a fan of the author I have no doubt you will really enjoy this book. If, like me, you are an Ashdown newbie, be prepared for a mammoth shopping trip, as reading the author’s backlist is now firmly on my agenda. Recommended.

This book has great characters. Unrealistic ones but they are well portrayed. However, the read is somewhat tedious and just too domestic with petty squabbles drawn out and the characters too nasty to one another. Not great, sadly.

This took me a while to get into - almost half of the book, but once I did I really enjoyed it and read it quite quickly. I thought the charcaters were well developed and I liked the gothic vibes I got from this book.

Sorry to say i really struggled with this.
Nothing happened, really it just dragged along. I had to force my way through until almost the end.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for my copy.
I really have nothing good to say.

Hmmm this book wasn't for me. I'm really sorry. I just couldn't get into it. I think it might have been the way it was written. I'm really sorry.

This one took me longer to get into than I expected. I found you had to read almost more than half of the story to get into. So I am sorry but I was just hard work.

This is a book that combines both some gothic elements and also those of a high pitch domestic thriller. I finished it in two sittings - that’s how invested I was in the tale of a seemingly perfect lives of the protagonists.

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. I have had a hard time getting into her recent books. This was very slow as stated in another review. Very slow. Nothing happened until 60%, and it was still slow for me at that point. I flipped to the back to see what happened. No suspense, very draining. Just not for me.

I really enjoyed this book but it is a SLOW burn.

The characterisation and descriptions of the area are absolutely fantastic - all characters were developed well and felt very realistic. Even the side characters were described well. I really enjoyed the writing style and found the story fascinating. The relationships between the characters were really fun and interesting to read.

The only drawback for me was that the book took a very long time to get going. For the first half, nothing really happens and it is all scene-setting. On one hand it works because I was very invested in the characters by the end but on the other hand I did find myself getting a little bored in the beginning.

For me, the story as a whole is definitely worth persevering with the slow start and I would absolutely recommend the book.