Hi Everyone,

It’s Friday! We made it to the end of the week and I managed to do it relatively unscathed and in good shape. Once again I am very much looking forward to the weekend and I’m actually expecting quite a chilled one this week. I have no plans other than some quick tidying around the house and then kick back and relax.

Book 📖

Thank you to @onemorechapterhc for this proof copy of The Locked Attic by @bpwalterauthor. Also thank you for inviting me to take part in this wonderful readalong with the other fantastic bloggers. The Locked Attic was published on 24th November 2022 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

There is something hidden within the shadows of the attic of the house over the road. It’s never been seen and nobody know’s what it is, but it’s there. Sometimes the man that lives there is watching from the window. He can be felt to be watching.

Now Stephanie’s husband and son are dead and she knows that there are secrets hidden in the house opposite. She had to find out what she knows is being hidden from her.

General Thoughts 🤔

I had been looking forward to reading this book for such a long time. The proof copy landed at my house quite a long time ago but I kept it sat on my shelf until the readalong started. I’m glad that I did so, because reading this book with the other bloggers was so much fun. I loved reading all of their speculations and thoughts and comparing them to my own.

The first 80% of this book was fantastic. Domestic noir is one of my favourite subgenres so I fell for this story very early on. There were so many suspicious goings on and shady characters that my brain was working overtime trying to piece everything together. Unfortunately the last 20% missed the mark for me. I thought that the reveal was slightly underwhelming and the build up had led me to expect so much more and something a bit more creepy.

Characters 👫👭👬

I went through phases during this book of being suspicious of certain characters and then really liking them and then feeling sorry for them and all the way back around again. Janet was the one that fell into this category the most. She was shifty straight away and I had a feeling that she was hiding something. But as the story evolved, I started to wonder if she was actually just lonely and trying really hard to keep up appearances.

The star characters of the book for me were Danny and Jonathan. These two boys were so sweet and so lovely, I wish that things had worked out differently for them. I felt incredibly sad for Jonathan and I can’t imagine what it would be like to grieve a best friend at such a young age.

Writing Style ✍️

Structurally, I thought that the book was fantastic. It had the ingredients that I love in a thriller; multiple perspectives and a non-linear timeline. It was brilliantly paced and the tension seemed to keep building and building as I was reading. There was a point that I thought my fiancé was going to have to drag the book out of my hands and force me to go to sleep. This was my experience for the majority of the book until the very last chapters. The ending disappointed me and I thought that there was so much more potential for something more creepy, more eery and just more shocking.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

This was a tension filled book that had me flicking the pages faster than I could say “the Franklins are so weird”. Mix in the beautiful story of growing up and friendship between Jonathan and Danny and I was hooked. I’m slightly sad that the ending didn’t quite ding my dong, but I would say that I loved 80% of this book and was somewhat disappointed by 20% and that’s a ratio weighted the correct way. I loved reading this with the other bloggers and this won’t be the last B.P. Walter book that I pick up.

😍😍😍😍😩