THE VILLAGE

SYNOPSIS

Ten years ago, the Harper family disappeared. Their deserted cottage was left with the water running, the television playing cartoons, the oven ready for baking. The doors were locked from the inside.

Overnight, the sleepy village of Nighbrook became notorious as the scene of the unsolved mystery of the decade, an epicentre for ghoulish media speculation.

For crime journalist Naomi, solving the case has turned into an obsession. So now, with Ivy Cottage finally listed for sale, it’s her chance to mount an investigation like no other. And her husband and stepdaughter don’t really need to know what happened in their new home… do they?

But Nighbrook isn’t quite the village she expected. No one wants to talk to her. No one will answer her questions. And as she becomes increasingly uneasy, it’s clear that the villagers are hiding something―that there is something very dark at the heart of this rural idyll. And the deeper she digs, the more it seems her investigation could be more dangerous than she ever imagined… In raking up the secrets of the past, has she made her own family the next target?

Title: The village

Author: Caroline Mitchell

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Publication date: January 18, 2022

Caroline originates from Ireland and now lives with her family in a village on the coast of Essex. A former police detective, she has worked in CID and specialised in roles dealing with vulnerable victims, high-risk victims of domestic abuse, and serious sexual offences. She now writes full time.

Caroline writes psychological and crime thrillers. Her stand alone thriller Silent Victim reached No.1 in the Amazon charts in the UK, USA and Australia and was the winner of the Reader's Favourite Awards in the psychological thriller category. It has been described as 'brilliantly gripping and deliciously creepy'.

The first in her Amy Winter series, Truth And Lies, has been optioned for TV.

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I had never read anything by Caroline Mitchell before reading The Village, but with her being a former police detective I had in my mind this would be a police procedural (yes, I went in blind without reading the synopsis!), so I was pleasantly surprised to find a pretty atmospheric suspense story.

Ten years ago the Harper family disappeared into thin air from their home. Now, Naomi, a crime journalist obsessed with the case, moves into the Harper’s cottage with her husband and her stepdaughter Morgan, trying to get to the bottom of the mystery without realizing she’s putting her family in danger.

The foreboding feeling that permeates the whole story was quite the surprise. I love it when a book makes me feel unease while reading it and the villagers in this story managed that with each and every of their meetings. I found the scene in which we meet them for the first time quite unsettling.

Told in dual timelines the story moves between the Harpers and the event leading to their disappearance, and Naomi and Morgan’s dealings with their new surroundings and neighbors. I think both characters were well developed and their relationship portrayed in a realistic way. I usually hate teen characters but Morgan got some of my sympathy (not at first!).

Lloyd’s character was also quite interesting as you could never be sure if he was friend or foe.

The suspense built nicely as the story progressed, with a couple of twists in the last third, one I called halfway through and one that caught me completely unaware.

The Village was my first approach to Caroline Mitchell’s work, but if it’s an indication of her other books quality, I will be reading more of them for sure!

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and Rhiannon Morris from FMcM Associates for my gifted copy and my spot on the Blog Tour.