This is literary fiction at its very best. The reader is submerged into a rich world of artists, and writers, and academics, where literary nuances can be savoured and historical subtleties appreciated.
Hawton, is an eighteenth-century manor house, on the rural outskirts of Cambridge. Lawrence, an academic supervisor, is determined to present it to his friends as another kind of Eden, but could his whole successful life be built on nothing more than deceit?
The author has a God-given gift for characterisation, describing emotions and sensitivities taut with friction but full of glittering possibilities. The characters create an unstoppable narrative tide.
This is a novel written with grace, intellect and authority. These pages contain a booklover's paradise.

This novel starts with a scene from the end, with two characters bleeding. At that point we, as readers, don’t know what has gone down, but this scene hangs over the narrative as something ominous to come. It gives the impression that we are going into a literary thriller, which we really aren’t. Lawrence, a Cambridge academic, is holding a week long writing retreat at his huge house just outside the city. His wife, is a soprano who no longer sings (and we can’t help but blame awful Lawrence), and writes classical music reviews and looks after everything in the domestic sphere. Their teenage son is on holiday in France with grandparents. Laurence has invited a select group, including old friends, old students and an artist. He has planned the week (which isn’t quite a week), within an inch of its life. We learn fairly early on that Lawrence is a prick and a selfish husband. Frances Wise writes the characters and the scenes at the retreat really well, and it makes for compulsive reading as old grievances come to light, and petty jealousies emerge. It comes a bit unstuck at the end with an unsatisfying conclusion and then a weird epilogue where we learn what happens to the house way in the future. It seemed an odd choice and not in the style of the rest of the book. Still, I enjoyed reading it and Frances Wise is a really good writer. I can imagine it being snapped up for a tv adaptation

This may just be my mistake, but it feels like this is being marketed as a literary thriller/whodunnit and doesn't deliver on that front, even though the writing is exceptional.

At the behest of pompous academic Lawrence, several hand-picked misfits gather at his (well, his wife's) idyllic countryside home for five days, to work on their writing, but all is not as it seems - Sri Lankan writer and critic Ash has some dirt on Lawrence, outsider Josh is there to pitch his Chaucer-inspired script, Lucy is haunted by bad memories of her youth and Lawrence's wife, Claudia, is bewitched by an artistic late arrival, who happens to be a woman. Miles, the gay popular historian who found fame late-ish in life after abandoning his academic persona and finding a husband, just wants to get plastered.

It was a shame not to actually see Lawrence getting his comeuppance, and even some of the mild mysteries raised seemed un-resolved. I'm a big fan of John Donne, but anyone who isn't might find the lengthy conversations about him lack a bit of interest for them. Nonetheless, I found this a very enjoyable read, if a bit of a puzzle in its own right.

This is my favourite type of mystery classic old house a bunch of friends who are not quite friends full of secrets. Prefect read for fans of classic crime. Really enjoyed the book group backdrop also.