The House of Ashes

Written by Stuart Neville

Narrated by Caroline Lennon

“Here, now, till I tell you …”

Sara Keane’s husband, Damien, has uprooted them from England and moved them to his native Northern Ireland for a “fresh start” in the wake of her nervous breakdown. Sara, who knows no one in Northern Ireland, is jobless, carless,
friendless—all but a prisoner in her own house. When a blood-soaked old woman beats on the door, insisting the house is hers before being bundled back to her care facility, Sara begins to understand the house has a terrible history her
husband never intended for her to discover. As the two women form a bond over their shared traumas, Sara finds the strength to stand up to her abuser, and Mary—silent for six decades—is finally ready to tell her story …

Through the counterpoint voices—one modern Englishwoman, one Northern Irish farmgirl speaking from half a century earlier—Stuart Neville offers a chilling and gorgeous portrait of violence and resilience in this haunting narrative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705035696

Reviews for The House of Ashes

[norinrad10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Stuart Neville is an Irish novelist known for his crime de noir tales. His apex to date has been the Belfast trilogy, a collection up of books I strongly endorse. But now, it's time for something a little different. The Houses of Ashes is that and more.The tale transpires both in the present-day, and 60 years in the past. In both cases, it involves women who are both physically and emotionally abused. In telling the two tales, Neville shows how the chains binding these women may have changed, but the result remains, they are still equally and effectively bound. It's a harrowing tale and one that fully embraces the tradition of darkness that follows Irish writers. But it's also a tale that will spur the reader to delve deeper into thoughts about how we interact with the past and do we ever really learn from it?Solid read and one that I strongly recommend.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dark and intense. A mystery set 60 years apart and centering around a house called The House of Ash.This book pulled one of my triggers, the abuse and enforced servitude of women at the hands of what my granddaughter Rue, she's four, would call badies. Despicable men with little or no conscience. I think had I been reading and not listening I would have put the book aside. Not because it isn't good, it is, but because of the subject. The narrator though, Caroline Lennon hooked me completely and I wanted to find out the truth of what happened in this house as well as the fate of the current occupant.Can houses where horrific events occured maintain the ghostly remnants of the past? I think so, and this story, this house, is a case in point. I felt for the characters in this book, their bravery in the face of adversity, their will to live and the hope they maintain against all odds. I loved young Mary and the present Mary, now in her seventies, as well. Plus, I needed to know who these children were, what was their purpose. All was answered in this difficult but well drawn read.

[ozzer_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Two extreme cases of gender abuse. The disgusting depravity of these two linked narratives make the novel hard to read. The victims' perspectives illustrate just how this type of abuse is often hidden and tolerated.

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received an advance copy of Stuart Neville’s latest book, The House of Ashes, from his publisher, so I thought I’d take a chance, since I’d never read him before. Neville, the author of 9 books translated into several languages, has been described as “the king of Belfast noir.” (Apparently being the “king of ‘something’ noir” is a popular honorary title lately.) His books have been shortlisted for the Edgar, Macavity, Barry, Anthony and CWA Steel Dagger awards.Onto the book:Can a location, a house for instance, have an evil presence in it? Can the inhabitants be possessed by this presence to be evil themselves? Can two instances of violence and tragedy occurring 60 years apart be coincidence or is there a sinister force at hand?Sara’s controlling husband, Damien, has her isolated in ‘The Ashes’, a run down, burned out farm house in the remote countryside. Damien restricts Sara’s movements and her contact with the outside world, and so she has lost all her former friends. The house, purchased for them by Damien’s father for a song, is in the process of being renovated and modernized. But there something under the basement floor that Damien is hiding. Sara realizes she must escape.Sixty years earlier, ten-year-old Mary and her two mummies, Joy and Noreen, have been kept isolated in the basement of the same house for over 10 years by Ivan and his two sons, Tam and George. The women live in servitude, cleaning and cooking with the older women providing other services to the men. Joy feels she must escape.Shortly after moving in, Sara and Mary meet as Mary has escaped from her care facility and has come back to her old homestead screaming that Sara must leave the house which belongs to Mary. She keeps asking if the children are OK, but Sara knows nothing about any children. After Damien takes Mary back to her care home, Sara wonders about Mary and the house, about which there are many rumors. She reads old newspaper articles which describe Mary’s enslavement and some gruesome murders. Talking to townspeople, Sara learns that after the grisly events of 60 years ago, Mary, the sole survivor of the bloodshed, lived in The Ashes by herself, until the house inexplicably caught fire.Then Sara begins seeing visions: blood on the floor that returns daily even after strenuous scrubbing, a woman in the stream with red ribbons floating from her waist.What can this all mean? Will violence again visit The Ashes?I would describe The House of Ashes more as a thriller than a mystery, with a touch of supernatural. While supernatural in a mystery is something I don’t ordinarily like, I really enjoyed it in The House of Ashes. It wasn’t overwhelming, added intrigue to the story and is fully explained by the end. The story is told from several viewpoints: Sara, Mary, Joy and Esther, Mary’s “sister.” (Quote, unquote). The men’s brutality is offset by the women’s courage and readers will align themselves with the women in the story.If you are looking for something different, The House of Ashes definitely fits the bill.