The Companion

This book has a fantastic opening. Honestly, it will suck you in. The writing is good and the story could have been superb but, for some reason, I got to the end and felt like it had been a lot of build up for nothing. It felt to me that threads that were there, that could have been made more of, went nowhere and there were some big logic gaps in this book. I don't want to say too much about it, as it will give away the plot. However, towards the end, certain characters just dropped out of sight (which didn't make sense). Barrett, who added a bit of interest to the novel was soon dispatched to a friend's house (fine - we knew where he went). But John Sutton, Laura's husband, disappeared with no explanation, apart from the fact he was working away a bit. But even then, the guy would have had to return on occasion. It's like this whole 'thing' was going on but John had never realised anything was suss (despite being a supposedly intelligent and worldly lawyer). And Mr. Albright - the family's right-hand man - also went AWOL. There were elements of the book (which made the reader think there might be some supernatural element) - the lilies that flowered overnight that were never explained and didn't end up meaning anything. It's like the author thought they might go in one direction with the novel but then changed their mind. The family history wasn't embedded enough or explored enough to really provide a good explanation as to the motivation for certain actions. And, retrospectively, a lot of description was simply repetitive (the sluggishness, the dreams etc). Elements were introduced that could have been good (closed passageways being explored) but were never put to use later on. All in all, this book simply didn't live up to its early promise.

This had a good story line though it was a little slow to start. Had the constant feeling that 'something' was going to happen. Was a little predictable but enjoyable

I did not enjoy this book at all. How many times I fell asleep listening to this.... From the first few chapters it's very obvious what's going on, and the fact that the main character didn't realise stressed me out. Yet I continued reading, hoping there'd be a big twist at the end and there wasn't. Massively disappointing. Pure drivel.