I read Ghosted by Emily Barr last year and absolutely loved it so I was thrilled to get the chance to read her latest work.

I absolutely loved this too. Set across 3 timelines and 3 generations of family it slowly weaves them together beautifully. The fact I grew up very near a Cliff House overlooking a beach made it even more of a fun read although I think mine was a little less dramatic!

I see this is being pitched towards fans of We Were Liars and it definitely has similar vibes. I enjoyed it just as much.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC.

Cliff House is closed off for most of the year until its rich Londoner owners come down to Cornwall for the summer. This year, despite herself, Senara finds herself pulled into this world of wealth and ease, sunbathing and beautiful people. She even finds herself falling in love for the first time.

But Cliff house and its owners are hiding things.

I absolutely loved the different timelines and pov’s!
All the characters were wonderfully written and actually felt like teenagers.

I would say this book was a bit slow at the start but it got very exciting and mysterious half way though.

This book was filled with twists, turns, adventure, mystery, the lot.

I wouldn’t say it immediately gripped me because I don’t enjoy books set in different timelines but once I got past that, I really enjoyed it.

I think the young adult audience will enjoy it but at times I felt the content was more adult so I would steer my older students towards it.

Having read a couple of Emily Barr’s books now, I can say that they are all quite different which I like as it keeps me intrigued. This one was definitely more dramatic and mysterious which is an extremely popular genre at the moment.

This was such an interesting read! I found myself so engrossed in the story, the characters had such incredible arcs, and I can't wait to follow this author's journey!

This was a lovely surprise gem of a book!
Set in three timelines from the 1940’s 1988 and then the present.
The tale of family generations, Martha, Felicity and Clementine, Jenna and Senara and all the locals in the village. Set in Cornwall between Truro and Penzance with the beautiful backdrop of the sea during the summer months. This is a tale of secrets and cover ups over generations. A community divided by the people living at the castle and the locals.
Fascinating characters with difference. Well written and set up, the perfect summer holiday read!!
Loved this and will highly recommend.
Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for the early read! Loved it!

I loved this story so much. It follows several point of views, Senera's, a girl who lives by the sea and has always looked longingly at Cliff House, the massive property on the cliff. Josie's point of view, Senera's friend, who's mother is hardly able to get out of bed in the morning, let. alone work, leaving it up to Josie to work for their living. We also get Martha's point of view, except this point of view is from the time of World War 2.
When Senera and Josie find a bone in the garden of Cliff house they are intrigued and as they are drawn into the foreign, lavish life at cliff house, the girls begin to unearth more and more secrets.

This was a perfect summer read and I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you to Emily Barr for allowing me to read this as an arc.

@currentlyreading__
Book 44 of 2023

I have been reading Emily Barr since "Baggage" in 2002 and this was quite a diversion. This is the sixth YA book from Emily and if truth be told, I didn't realise that this was YA until I'd almost finished rage book. There are three timelines from the 1940s, 1980s to the present day which bring all plot threads together.

Our main character is Cornish teenager Senara who is mesmerised by the beautiful Cliff House which is closed off for most of the year until a wealthy London family come along and use it as their second house. Senara is lured into this mysterious family and builds a friendship with the grandmother Martha who lives in the adjacent cottage all through the year. Martha is a caricature of Miss Havisham and Senara, along with her friends, new and old, bring some life back into the house for Martha.

But then a party takes place, bones are found in the garden and there are screams of utter terror...

Emily Barr writes characters so well and this has made me want to revisit those early books from the early 2000s. The atmosphere is suffocating, stifling and it is the perfect summer read for anyone who likes stories of mystery, intrigue and family secrets.



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Cornish teenager Senara befriends an elderly lady and gets pulled into the world of her rich London family and friends who come to visit for the summer.

Teenager Senara gets sucked into the world of a wealthy London family, when by virtue of her link to Martha, the elderly lady who lives in their Cornish second home all year round. She meet her glamourous and exciting great-granddaughter Clementine who is determined to party and enjoy her summer, but also harbours secrets and suspicions about how her great-grandmother may not be intending to leave her house to the family after all. The books cleverly weaves several family stories and secrets into the contemporary story which focuses on Senara who develops a crush on one of Clementine's London friends and enjoys living the good life while also being self aware to realise the gap between those who can afford to 'summer' in Cornwall and those who are living and working there all year round. It's mostly a coming of age tale mixed with mystery with a fair few juicy secrets to uncover, the various threads all getsa bit tangled at one point but does all come together in quite a satisfying resolution.

Living in Cornwall myself and having heard incredible things about Emily Barr's novels, this new YA release instantly appealed to me. It didn't disappoint. This is a pacy and gripping thriller that will keep teens engrossed. It has a great tone and I loved the dark elements of it even though the MC, Serena, is lovely. With twists, turns and reveals, it's superbly plotted and, although I have heard that all Emily Barr's novels are quite different, I will absolutely go on to read more.

This was a fun read with some clever and unexpected twists. The narrative moves between several timelines and narrators and I did find it hard to keep track of them all until quite near the end, though they were neatly resolved and made for a satisfying end.

I did not love the characters, but I'm not really the target audience for this YA title. As the majority of the characters were teenagers they seemed quite self-absorbed and immature, which I did find annoying. There were lots of stereotypes, too: rich London kids with a second home versus impoverished Cornish teens who had no worldly experience; however, I think my own teenager could learn a thing or two from this read. The unworldliness of hard-working children who struggle to survive clashed regularly with the privileged behaviour of the London crowd and there were definitely life lessons on both sides.

Lots of the relationships developed very quickly and did not feel entirely convincing - they were too many commitments early on for me and they were quite predictable.

It's a slow burning read and I think will be enjoyed by its target audience. Some of the issues may be a little delicate for some readers.

Hmm ok maybe it was my fault I didn’t realise it was duel timelines and they confuse me too much while reading to actually enjoy them, this was not for me unfortunately but Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

A thoroughly gripping summer mystery spanning generations! Readers who enjoyed We Were liars by E. Lockhart would love this, it had similar vibes. It is a YA thriller that will leave you wanting for more.

The story grabs your attention from the very start. The constant switching between timelines and narrators is confusing at first but you'll get the hang of it after a couple of chapters. It's a story about war, friendship, family, love, and SECRETS! Although, i was able to guess the BIG TWIST fairly early on, it was still an entertaining read.

The story begins in current time where a trio of friends decide to trespass an ancient property, Cliff House, in their village. All of them had heard rumors about it. While trespassing, Senara comes across the owner of the property, an 92 year old lady, Martha. They form an unlikely friendship. When Martha's family comes for the Summer, her great granddaughter befriends Senara and her friends. They enjoy a summer of partying at the property and enjoying the beach. However, after slight turn of events, Senara and her friends find themselves amidst long forgotten secrets that their parents were a part of. Martha has her own secrets. All secrets are linked to the Cliff House. How far will one go to keep long buried secrets hidden? Read to find out!

Had no idea this was a YA book but was a good read with lots going on and was at times a tense read,well written and engaging fir the non intended audience ie me!

This was a bit of a complex read, with 4 diffenrnet oerspectives over 3 timelines! So, it took me a little while to fully get into it and it did sometimes pull me out of the read when I was trying to remember whose perspective I was reading from.

After seeing a few average reviews for this book I have to say my expectations were quite low. I really enjoyed Things to do before the end of the world so always good to keep an open mind.

It was split into three different timelines but all based in Cornwall around Cliff House and all it’s secrets.

The book requires you to keep up with all the characters and timescales but with enough attention you will be powering through the chapters.

If you like abit of mystery and don’t mind bouncing through time I think you’ll enjoy it

I love Emily Barr, both adult and YA. This book is amazing and twisty and full.of dark secrets. I loved Serena, she's a tough cookie and a brilliant narrator. Highly recommended xx

Absolutely loved this thriller. I don't know how Barr manages to keep writing these banging teen thrillers but she gets the tone and pitch right every time even though each one is quite different. The story is skilfully told through multiple POV and different timelines with the stories of three generations interwoven to great emotional affect. With its Cornish village setting and solid summer vibes this book is a perfect holiday read for your young teens. I have a growing Emily Barr fan club in my school Library and they are already excited to get their hands on this latest addition to her collection.

When Senara and her friends break into Cliff House gardens, the last thing Senara expects is to be invited back, again and again. But that’s what happens, and Senara finds herself growing close with the old lady who lives there, Martha. But the house is hiding things and when Martha’s great-granddaughter Clem comes up for the summer, the furthest thing from their minds was murder. But then secrets come to light, bodies are uncovered, and Senara is left reeling.

I’ve never read book by Barr before this one, and so I don’t know if I would have lowered my expectations had I known how she writes, but this was incredibly underwhelming.

Some positives—I loved how determined Senara was to find herself and what she liked. I enjoyed how she was strong and how she often tried to prioritise herself over others. I enjoyed Josie and Meg’s relationship, as I pretty much enjoy any sapphic relationship.

However, other than this, there weren’t many things I really liked about this book. This book, to me, felt very passive. As in, Senara wasn’t really doing anything, things were happening to her, and so this kept pulling me out of the book because I was expecting something to happen, but nothing really was because Senara was more of a bystander in these chain of events, rather than a main character.

I also got the impression that this was supposed to be more of a mystery than it really is. From the prologue, I felt like there was supposed to be more. And I mean—SPOILERS—accidentally killing someone and then burying their body in the garden is big, don’t get me wrong, I just thought it would be bigger. It’s all really rather done and dusted, that’s it. Move on. As for Aubrey, I mean, I get it. But once again, the book felt like it should have been bigger. I feel like that’s part in due to the fact that nothing actually happened until around the seventy percent mark. The first seventy percent of the story was literally just a young adult summer contemporary, complete with boy problems, friendship problems and the like. But this isn’t simply a contemporary, and so why it took that long to get to the major aspects of this book baffled me. I kept wondering when something was going to happen to shake it all up.

The fact that there were four points of view across three timelines was also a little baffling and it definitely added to the overall bulk of the story in terms of how long it took to get to the part where shit hits the fan. Martha’s part didn’t really seem overly important. And Felicity’s only served to tell us the how and what of what happens.

I also wasn’t entirely convinced by the romance. It didn’t feel fake, but it definitely felt forced. There was no chemistry between Rik and Senara at all.

Overall, this wasn’t a great book. I was bored for most of it. Will I read more of Barr’s books? I don’t know. We’ll see.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Centering around Serenas obsession with cliff house and the many going on through the generations, we are -resented with secrets and lies of the upper class as her friendship with Martha develops more and more.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advance copy to read.

I should start by saying I'm not really a fan of young adult as I struggle to relate being 36. However, this was actually a great read.

I loved the depth of the timelines showing the family through the years especially Martha, who is undoubtedly my favourite character.

The story was easy to follow, the character interactions were great and the plot built nicely.

I think this is great as a young adult book or for adults. Great summer read, I could almost envisage myself on the cliff house.