The Insect House

Written by Shirley Day

Narrated by Jilly Bond, Simon Mattacks, Mark Meadows and Regina Reagan

As children, siblings Gareth and Helen went ignored and utterly unsupervised in their isolated English farmhouse while their mother obsessively tended to her beloved, exquisite garden. When they were little, Gareth would occupy himself by trapping insects under glass and Helen would find ways to entertain herself - but the older they grew, the more sinister their lives became, with no attentive parent to shield them from the predators of the world. Decades later, Helen is in the same crumbling house, unhappily married and looking after their bedridden mother, and Gareth finally returns home. Evidence of a long-ago crime has recently emerged, and in its wake will come a series of shattering truths . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oakhill Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781399114295

Reviews for The Insect House

[Bianca Chimelli · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent! Bravo!!!! Beautifully written, I really enjoyed it! Very good

[Leah Barton Tew · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’m a tough grader, so a four star rating from me is really, really good.

This book has the same weird, somewhat mysterious-quirky feel of “We’ve Always Lived In The Castle” and pays its due homage to the crumbling English estate genre - which I love.

I found the American philosophy professor character to be annoying and unnecessary save one particular plot point, which easily could have been developed some other way. There were also a few smaller threads that kind of went nowhere, although they did support the overall feel of the story and some of the characters. For these reasons I took off one star.

All in all, a great read and I look forward to more from this writer.