The Forgotten Room

Written by Ann Troup

Narrated by Jenny Bede

‘Addictive. A first-class page-turner.’ Lisa Hall, author of Between You and Me

Can the past ever be forgotten?

As soon as nurse Maura Lyle sets foot inside the foreboding Essen Grange, she feels shivers ripple down her spine. And the sense of unease only increases when she meets her new patient, Gordon Henderson.

Drawn into the Henderson family’s tangled web of secrets and betrayals, Maura can ignore the danger lurking behind every door no longer. Even the door she has been forbidden from opening…

Essen Grange is a house with dark and cruel intentions. But now that darkness has turned on her, can Maura escape before it’s too late?

The chilling new novel from the bestselling author of The Lost Child and The Silent Girls. Perfect for fans of Erin Kelly, Claire Mackintosh and Tracy Buchanan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Apr 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780008294601

Reviews for The Forgotten Room

[Jessika Graff · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

In my opinion, this book seems like a hodgepodge of other good mystery scenarios all squeezed into one story making "the plot thicken" until it is an overdone pot of sludge. The story line is all over the place. It starts out with a seemingly "cozy" mystery made-for-tv sort of plot but twists and turns through so many other angles until it ends up as a "grotesque horror story" meets "daytime soap opera." I liked it at first. But it just spun out of control in what turned out to be an unbelievable story with a cast of characters that were undeveloped and unspecial.

[nicx27 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Forgotten Room has a very enticing cover and title. The idea of the sprawling house with a secret really caught my interest. And wow, what a tangled web this story is!Maura Lyle is a nurse who is asked for by name to go and work at Essen Grange and look after an elderly man with dementia. But from the moment she gets to the house she is uncomfortable, she just feels ill at ease with the whole place and the set up.I must admit I found it hard to take to Maura. She's prickly and quite harsh and actually rather unlikable. But some of the people she meets in this book are even more unlikable so I guess she's the best of the bunch. Well, her and police officer, Mike Poole, who was my favourite character.The book seems to me to be one of two halves. The first half is about Maura's time at Essen Grange. I was quite surprised when this section ended as I was then wondering what the second half of the book would cover. What it did cover was the more interesting bit of the book for me. I won't give anything away but it was a little bit police procedural and a little bit dark thriller. I think this is a book which crosses all the crime/thriller/psychological genres.There are a lot of characters in the book and I did sometimes find myself thinking "who's so and so" for a minute until I had a good rummage round my head and remembered who they were. And the story is so intricately plotted that it's a wonder it didn't blow the author's mind. I was really impressed with how it all came together and how intertwined all the characters were and more than anything I was impressed with how much I was kept guessing all the way through.So a fairly slow first half and a faster paced second half, a disturbing set of stories brought together into one tangled tale and some thoroughly twisted characters - this is a great read for this time of year as the dark nights come in.

[vanessacw · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well, I found this quite the page turner! It begins when a community nurse is sent to a creepy old house to look after an elderly man suffering from dementia. As with most old houses, it creaks and groans and has plenty of spooky corners. And as you would expect, the bodies and the odd skeleton keep piling up! It’s a house of secrets where no-one is who they seem, even the nurse.Although the story is a dark and quite sinister one, it is written with a sense of humour. The similes abound! It’s very atmospheric and has a gothic feel. I got a little confused about who was related to whom and how they figured in the tale but I found the mystery very intriguing. I was eager to turn the pages..... just one more chapter before I go to sleep scenario.A compelling and suspenseful read with a great sense of foreboding and some horror thrown in. Just right for the time of year!Reviewed for TBC on Facebook.