I liked how this presented the three different time periods and found that they all worked well together and separately. The action and drama felt like it had levels and seemed to feel like each scenario had it's own impact level. I preferred the 2008 storyline and wished that more was explored with the Victorian one as it felt the weakest. The characters were interesting and there was a nice drip feed of information that happened. I'd read more by this author as i really liked this one.

Thank you SO much to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

I absolutely loved this!! Such great characters and a great storyline.

My full review is to follow in a few days.....

I do enjoy a book about a house. One where several people live there and have strange experiences - where they have stories to tell. This book gets under your skin in many ways and it certainly put Peckham in a new light!

4.5*

One building, three time periods: 1843, 1994 and 2008, with the changing vistas of Peckham forming a colourful backdrop. I was particularly interested in picking up this novel because I grew up very near to Peckham, in fact, Rye Lane was our go-to high street. As a child I went to Jones and Higgins, the department store which was built in 1867 and was just one building in the Golden Mile, which at that time rivalled Oxford Street. It closed its doors in 1980. Shoe shopping as a child was always a highlight because in those days you could get your feet measured and get an X-Ray of the bones in your foot (that was REALLY a thing).

There are copious mentions of The King’s Head, a pub, which in this story is portrayed as a rough joint. I only know that it was a heart-sink moment if the 63 bus from King’s X terminated there because I lived beyond it on that route. And hanging around that area was to be avoided at all costs.

There is a great sense of the River Peck which in the Victorian era was used as a dumping point for sewage, causing a miasma in the hotter months which afflicted Horatio and his family, who lived in the house at that point. The tenants in 1994 and then the owners in 2008 both researched the context of the house in which they lived, throwing up more interesting information that contributes to the storyline.

Peckham has seen such changing fortunes. It was an easy place to shop and find exotic foods; the travelling fun fair that arrived on Peckham Rye each year was often beset by violence; and whatever became of the Lido, housed behind great fencing units that crumbled as the years passed? In 1985 there were riots and again in 2011, and in 1989 a visit to the local Marks & Spencer involved cash transactions with a cashier behind a solid grille for protection. Much has changed as the intrinsically mundane suburb, with a wonderful variety of solid housing vernacular, has inevitably become gentrified.

The story is as much about the building – groaning and creaking with a hint of menace throughout – as the people who inhabit it. Tragedy and crime are almost embedded within the timbers of the dwelling from suspicious deaths in 1843 and 1994, to a couple trying to find a way forward to finance the much needed renovations, but Seb has been involved in demise of Lehman Brothers and is actively pulling the wool over Maxine’s eyes…

This is a well written novel, that moves easily between the different storylines.

If you enjoy this novel then you might want to see the film Rye Lane which is a good natured and sharp film set in the area; and of course Only Fools and Horses is set there. So it is a residential area that quietly gets the limelight, perhaps in sharp contrast to its more flamboyant north London counterparts.

Built around 1830 and having lain empty for quite some time, the house on Rye Lane is in need of serious renovation when Maxine and Seb move in in 2008. They’re both working in well-paid jobs though, so they can afford it. Except that Seb had been working in Lehman’s in the city, one of the banks that would be hit hardest by the crash. So now Seb is unemployed and, with the state of the banking sector, pretty much unemployable. As Maxine struggles to keep the renovations ticking over, their relationship is becoming increasingly strained. But theirs is not the first strained relationship that the house has seen in its history…

Jumping back and forward between three timelines (two more than I prefer), I felt this book would have its work cut out to hold my attention. And for a while it was touch and go as to whether I’d stick with it. The first half is slow as we gradually meet and get to know the characters in the three timelines. But it starts with a great prologue that sets up an enticing mystery and that was enough to keep me reading. Gradually I found my interest growing in the two main strands – 1994 and 2008 – and while the earliest strand – 1843 – never quite grabbed me, it is minor in comparison to the other two, really there to set up the history of the house and the neighbourhood and to provide a background for the house’s rather creepy reputation.

In 1843, the house is owned by Horatio Lloyd, the man who originally had it built. His wife has recently died as has one of the maids, and the gossip is that Lloyd may have killed them. Lloyd claims they were killed by the miasma rising from the Peck, the river running across the Rye into which the sewage of all the new houses is dumped. Lloyd is the first of the house’s owners to find himself struggling financially and hoping, literally that his ship will come in.

In 1994, Diana Lloyd now owns the house – a descendant of that long-ago Horatio. Miss Lloyd can’t afford the upkeep of the house alone, so she has taken in lodgers – the Delaneys, who live in the attic. Ruth and Lee are also having marital issues brought on by financial worries, this time because Lee has a gambling problem that has led him into serious debt with some scary people. Their son, young Cookie, is deeply unhappy in this house, and the elder Delaneys bitterly resent that Mrs Lloyd keeps rooms on the second floor empty and unused, while all three of them are crowded into one living space in the attic. The prologue tells us that Mrs Lloyd dies, probably murdered by one of her lodgers, and the chapters in this timeline gradually reveal the tensions that led up to that and we eventually find out who did the deed, and why.

2008 is probably the main timeline – it’s certainly the one I became most invested in. Max and Seb may be having their problems but they’re both likeable and seem to genuinely love each other. But we soon learn that Seb is lying to Maxine, though we don’t know about what. The house is adding to their problems not just because of money, but because Maxine loves it while Seb finds it creepy and possibly haunted. He’s not sleeping – is it the house or his financial woes that keep him awake at nights? Is it his imagination that taps turn on by themselves and there are sounds that might be footsteps on the upper floors? Then there’s Colin, the man who is doing the renovations. Maxine finds him attractive, though she’s determined to resist temptation and make her relationship with Seb work. Seb doesn’t like Colin at all, and resents Maxine hiring him without consultation.

That’s all I’m going to reveal of the plot, which makes it hard to explain why the book becomes so tense in the second half, but the slow revelations are what make the book work. All along the reader knows slightly more than the characters but still not enough to be sure how the stories will play out. And because the characterisation is done so well, whether of the likeable characters like Max or the less appealing Delaneys, I found I cared about what would happen to them and that meant that the suspense grew to a level where I’d have carried on reading even if an earthquake had happened around me!

Allott uses her setting very effectively, especially the idea of the Peck – once a river meandering through a rural landscape, then turned into a sewer as houses began to be built in the area, and finally buried underground as urban sprawl brought Peckham into London. The house is spooky but without it being overdone. Everything that happens can be rationally explained, but there’s a feeling that the history of the house has made it a place of ill-luck, and Allott subtly makes the three stories echo each other as if it is the house that influences how its tenants behave. There’s a theme of gambling running across the three stories – from Horatio with his fortune tied up in a risky trading venture, to Lee whose gambling takes the form of getting into debt with bookmakers, to Seb and Lehman’s, gambling the economy of the world on the floor of the stock exchange.

I wasn’t at all sure about this one till I was a good way into it, but gradually it caught and held me, and I found the second half increasingly tense and riveting. Very different from her debut novel, The Silence, but just as good, this one has cemented Allott’s place on my must-read list.

The House on Rye Lane is a tense and atmospheric read set across three timelines: 1843, 1994, and 2008.
1843 Horatio built a house for his beloved wife in 1843, and after her mysterious death, becomes the centre of rumours and suspicion.
1994 Cookie and his family become lodgers in the same house due to the father's gambling debts, and tensions arise within the family and with their elderly landlady
2008 Maxine and Seb purchase the house with Maxine being convinced it's their dream home, while Seb is more skeptical.

It is a chilling read about the occupants in the house and the secrets they keep.

1843. Grieving widower Horatio Lloyd writes furious letters to The Times demanding the enclosure of the stinking River Peck, which he blames for his wife's untimely death.

1994. Twelve-year-old Cookie and his parents move into the freezing attic of Mrs Lloyd's once-grand townhouse, fleeing his dad's gambling debts.

2008. Maxine is convinced she has found her dream home, even if it does need a bit (okay, a lot) of work. Her boyfriend Seb isn’t so sure - he can't shake the feeling that something very bad happened in the house.

Susan Allott's second novel, The House on Rye Lane, is an engaging mystery which combines rigorous historical research with three intriguing, inter-weaving storylines taking place in the same house over a period of over 170 years.

The author was inspired to dig into the history of Peckham, the district in south London where she lives, when the 2020 lockdowns compelled her to slow down and stay at home. Supported by local historians, she spent months researching how the area had evolved from a semi-rural middle-class enclave in the nineteenth century, to one of London's most deprived and notorious areas in the second half of the twentieth century, to a highly sought-after, fashionable (and expensive) hot-spot in the new millennium. In her author's note, Allott explains how she hoped to write 'a portrait of a corner of London whose wealth and fortune has fluctuated wildly over the centuries,' and at times - particularly in the 1994 and 2008 timelines - the historical exposition did feel clunky, the narrative contorted to fit the historical context rather than seamlessly blending into it. Nevertheless, the history of the area is fascinating, and even the more egregious information dumps are still very interesting.

The characters are a mixed bag. I was impressed by the way Allott is able to shift back and forth between Horatio's formal, old-fashioned cadence and the more casual way of speaking (even in their inner monologue) of the modern characters. Ruth, Cookie's mother, and Dorothy, their elderly landlady, get relatively little page time but feel like fully-realised, nuanced characters. In contrast, Max and Seb are the main characters of their timeline but I felt like the reasons behind them acting in certain ways were quite vague and non-specific, and I never felt like I had a secure grasp on who they were as individuals. I enjoyed their part of the narrative, which is the twistiest and most dynamic of the three mystery plots, but felt like I wasn't terribly invested in their fates.

A real highlight for me is how Allott craftily misdirects the reader, playing on our familiarity with certain story-telling and character tropes to imply which characters we should trust and empathise with. Some of these arcs have more satisfying resolutions than others, but I did enjoy the feeling that the author was using the reader's own awareness of the genre to wrongfoot us.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

I really enjoyed this book. Told over three timelines, it is immensely gripping and filled with twists and turns. I would highly recommend.

Horatio has built a new house in South London overlooking a river called the Rye. he is new wealth and is trying to impress his wife and father-in-law. However his wife dies mysteriously and Horatio blames the 'miasma' from the river, others are more suspicious. In 1994 the house is owned by one of Horatio's descendants but to make ends meet she lets the atic to a family haunted by debt. To them the house is a scary place and they feel evil around them. 2004, after standing empty for many years the house is bought by Maxine and her boyfriend Seb, they optimistically hope to restore the house to its former glory but when Seb loses his job, secrets come to the surface and the house is not as friendly as it seems.

Reading the blurb this seems to be a story about a haunted house but it is actually much better than then. The three interwoven stories are each interesting but the later two link together much more cohesively, the 19th century one seems more about giving a historic context rather than being a driver of narrative. This is deceptively simple book and, although it took a while to engage me, byt the end I was really invested.

When I seen this compared to The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, I knew I'd like this. The House on Rye Lane follows three different time periods, all connected by the stories of the house that they live. The house is in a picturesque part of London, but there's a reason that nobody want's to live there and it brings the worst out on the people that stay there.

I raced through this book so I could catch up on each of the time periods, and thought it was clever how the characters overlapped between them.

The House on Rye Lane by Susan Allott is a riveting narrative woven through three distinct timelines, imbuing Peckham’s Rye Lane with a character of its own. The book crafts an atmospheric tale of a house steeped in misfortune, where the walls seem to breathe with an unsettling presence that influences its occupants.

With well-developed characters ensnared in the house’s malevolent grip, the story unravels their personalities and fates with a sense of impending doom. It’s a masterclass in creating an ambiance of overwhelming dread, making it an unforgettable read for fans of psychological thrillers.

The blurb starts out with "They thought they’d found their dream home. They were wrong."

And that perfectly sums up the book, relationships wither and die in this house. It either attracts people down on their luck or is a malevolent entity that slowly, subtly encroaches into inhabitants lives, twisting their emotions, eventually leading to ruin. Suffice to say,

"It’s all gone wrong since we’ve moved here", the refrain of everyone who has lived at this house in Rye Lane, is not wrong

The Timelines
1843. Horatio built this house for his beloved wife, who then died in mysterious circumstances. I liked this period for the history of the area. I’ve lived in Peckham and know Rye Lane but this timeline made me consider Peckham before it was a bustling urban hub. I like finding out new information about things I already know.

1994. Cookie and his parents have been forced by his dad’s gambling debts to move into the attic room of a big old house, as lodgers. My favourite timeline because it took a while to work out what was going on, eventhough sadness and turmoil in teens is a tender spot for me.

2008. The house Maxine and Seb have just bought was a bargain – a huge Georgian townhouse on the edge of Peckham Rye, it needs a lot of work but Max couldn’t resist it. Now they are in, though, nothing seems to be going right. The slow reveal of their relationship in the context of 2008 was sublime, you knew things would go wrong because of the house but not how.

Connections are unveiled in The House on Rye Lane
Fundamentally, The House on Rye Lane is about relationships. The house as an entity made you ruminate on relationships, how they work, what happens when they don’t and the ties that bind. It also made me introspective and consider the things you tell yourself to make yourself feel better and whether lying to ourselves is ever a good tactic.

My thanks to HarperCollinsUK and NetGalley for a digital advance copy of this book in exchange for a review. A cracking read.



Posting schedule
Jan 4th Blog - Engrossed Reader: Ramblings, Reflections & Observations https://engrossedreader.com/2024/01/review-the-house-on-rye-lane-by-susan-allott/
Jan 4th - Jan 8th social media posts @engrossedreader

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC! "The House on Rye Lane" is a creepy, atmospheric book that draws you in with the creep factor. The story is set over three different periods of time; some more interesting & enjoyable to read. This book really made feel uneasy! I will definitely be checking out Ms. Allott's debut novel "The Silence" soon!

A difficult review for me this one as not sure I can describe it as deserves…

I guess the easiest way is to say it as it is:

A big mansion house in Peckham that we find out via 3 story’s and timelines ( 1843, 1994 and 2008 ) causes its occupants a myriad of problems and grief

The 3 timeline sets of characters are not particularly endearing and in some cases feeble springs to mind, nevertheless they all play a part in what happens to amd in the house

The descriptions of the house are enough so you would never want to step into it as are the carryings on that go on BUT the changing fortunes as described of Peckham build a vivid picture of how the area used to be and is now

It’s darker than ink in places and there is not a whole lot of humour in the book but then the stories told are not ones to be lol ding at

Well written and the obvious time and effort invested in the history in the book shines through even before you read the Authors very detailed and interesting letter at the end

I guess now thinking back on the book I do know what to say as above and it is a good if unexpected and unsettling in parts read

I enjoyed this and the different eras and the characters past and present ,good atmosphere of each era and I really felt the chill of that room
I was involved with all the characters situations and enjoyed the links forwards and backwards
I was going to give it three stars as is an enjoyable story but an extra star as delightfull the little Easter eggs between each era or objects linking the peoples similar interactions with the house and also the situation of self denial ,determination delusion and desperation that seeps through

This is a book set overall multiple timelines. I struggled to keep up with the oldest timeline- perhaps because I could not relate. However, it is well written and interesting.

This is a seriously creepy, dark novel which kept me awake at night. The story of a house in 3 timelines it is character led and yet weaves a complex plot so that the end is ultimately hugely satisfying. Loved it

I was addicted to this book. I couldn’t put it down. The twists were lurking round each corner and pounced out at you. I love Susan’s writing style - she keeps you gripped and doesn’t go on too much. Just the right amount of character building and plotting. I will be recommending.

A peculiar sort of book, not in a bad way.

I admired the cover, glanced briefly at the blurb. I used to live by Peckham Rye and was intrigued by the concept of a story based in one house across three timeframes, 1843, 1994, 2008.

A once grand house in 1843, a struggling family renting a room upstairs in 1994 and a young couple looking to restore the house to it's former glory in 2008.

It takes a while to come together, but it kept me reading, especially the 1994 and 2008 stories. There's a nicely constructed atmosphere and some strong character writing.

It's not one that I'd get excited about, but it kept me reading, I enjoyed it and I'm glad I read it.

Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK

Rating 3.3/5

"The House on Rye Lane" is an interesting variation on the domestic drama theme. It is set across three time frames (1843, 1994 and 2008) and although the stories are distinct from each other in many respects, there are also aspects that link them. The most significant connection is that they all revolve around the inhabitants of a large Georgian house in Rye Lane on the edge of Peckham Rye.

Susan Allott is a talented storyteller who also has a knack for creating credible characters. I was particularly impressed by her ability to adopt an appropriate tone for the chapters relating to Horatio in 1843. For the most part the narrative flows neatly, though readers who are averse to frequent switches in timeframe may not find this novel to their liking, as the narrative does constantly move between the three specified periods throughout the book. Initially I felt that this story may have echoes of Stephen King and relate to some kind of supernatural force that the house seemed to exude, but that isn't really how it develops. There was a period in the central body of the novel where I felt that the narrative was treading water without really moving forward. Had that not been the case then I would almost certainly have been rating this as a 4-star read rather than a strong 3-stars. Nonetheless, I would still happily recommend taking some time out to read "The House on Rye Lane".

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the author's first
book, which was very different from this one, but happily just as good.
The different time lines worked well and the sinister house (which I imagined as quite Gothic but maybe that was more to do with the story) felt like one of the main characters. I like Ms Allott's writing style and look forward to finding out the theme of her next book which will definitely be on my reading pile
Thank you to netgalley and Harper Collins for an advance copy of this book.