December 21st 2016.

Neve is out one night at a hotel with a guy known only as "Whatshisname". Both have had way too much to drink and she finally leaves the hotel, after assuring him she hasn't stolen his wallet. Steppeing out into the bitterly cold air, she sees a woman dressed in a very flimsy white dress. As she gets closer, she asks the woman, who says her name is Isabelle, if she needs to put somethin else on over the dress as she looks so cold, and also, increasingly concerned for the woman, lets her know where the night bus stop is.

Isabelle hands Neve a mysterious brown envelope.......Before she climbs onto the railings and jumps right into the freezing waters of the Thames.

Neve's life is in tatters. She works at a magazine company, has no boyfriend no money and no home, so is staying at her sister, Lou's Steve is married to her sister and they have a cute daughter is called Lottie. Steve is really annoying and keeps bugging Neve, even asking if she has found somewhere to be. Neve is still missing her ex, Daniel, but knows that's over.

Life passes slowly and normally by for a week and then she receives a call. Isabelle has left her a cottage! Could this be a new start? She finds out it's called Pretty Win Cottage and she has not only inherited it, but also all the belongings in it.

Through the short chapters but brilliant pace, Cass Green shows us how Neve keeps going through what happened in the bridge on her mind. Neve makes a snap decision. One day, she leaves it on a whim because two of her friends have moved away and also she spent so much time thinking about what is in the envelope that eventually she just leave her job and decides to go off to Cornwall.

I had a sense of wanting to know what would happen.

There is a sense of adventure amongst the sadness of the circumstances of Isabelle's death/ suicide. She was 34 years old with no husband or kids. She has a brother.

After 9 hours on the bus, after which she ends up walking in the dark for most of the journey, she goes the rest of the way in a taxi (I thought this quite sensible given the darkness and cold).

I could really put her feelings into context. I could put myself in her shoes. She has a good imagination and I think I'd feel the same in her position. Scared (especially because of arriving at nighttime.) She'd imagined a beautiful house, but the house is really shockingly dilapidated, with rubbish all over the place and a dead bird in the sink. It's less than cosy and welcoming. There's a sense of mystery when she looks around the house. She's starving so has to make do with a small and meagre meal of pasta, tinned tomatoes and a few spoonfuls of peanut butter, as well as some strong coffee.

It's very atmospheric. There are bars on the windows and lots of locks on the door.

She seems quite resourceful. I really feel for her in this situation.
It's great to see how her resilience grows. She pops out for groceries in the rain and meets Sally (car driver on the road) Sally seems quite understanding and I quite like her. She also is quite hospitable. I was glad they met. Sally has some gossip about Isabelle.

From then on, everything that happens to Neve is creepy . I like Neve's clothing style and her attitude despite how scared she is.

The book is interspersed with letters from Isabelle to her Gran which make her presence real even after her death.

Sally's family home, which Neve is invited to, is cosy. There couldn't be more of a contrast between there and where Neve is staying. She and her husband are helpful. Their son Matty's attitude worries me. Word is that Isabelle overdose in Australia where she used to live and then kept thinking people were watching her.
Isabelle's brother Richard lives in a large house which, with the cottage and Sally's house, forms an estate. Finn is a great person and I wamed to him and how he treated Neve, who, understandably, can be sensitive because of being in the house because scared
It's sad what happened to Jarvis (Richard's dog). I was galad Neve had Jarvis for company through much of the book.

Neve seems to be quite brave strong and resourceful. and seems to have quite a lot of common sense

We meet some of the other characters Linda (Bob's wife) seems friendlier than her husband, and there's a dangerous man on the loose.......

I cannot fault this book! The settings and characters are so realistic and the suspense is second to none. It is action-packed and I read it in a day. Truly amazing book! I really want to read more by Cass Green! Her writing is flawless.

Thanks to Cass Green and her publisher for a copy of this book via NetGalley

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Having read and loved Cass Green's debut, The Woman Next Door, I was intrigued by the synopsis of her new book. It did not disappoint. It has a clear, easy reading style and really brings both Neve's feelings and the creepiness of the situation to life. Neve is a great lead character and the mystery is explored really well. I loved the twists and turns towards the end of the book and I'm already looking forward to her next story.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for the ARC of In A Cottage In a Wood.

Neve’s life is going nowhere. She is living with her sister and her family (much to her brother in law’s disgust) and she works in a boring job as a receptionist at a publisher of specialist’s magazines.
One night walking home alone after another meaningless encounter with someone, she comes across a woman standing alone on a bridge. The woman doesn’t look right to Neve and after a small conversation with her, the woman hands her an envelope and then jumps off the bridge. This act will change Neve’s life.

I really enjoyed this book, I felt it wasn’t an edge of seat thriller but it had a gothic undertone for me, which I always love. Many strange and unexplained things happen while Neve is staying at the cottage she unexpectedly inherits.
I must admit that Neve frustrated me at times with her mouthy attitude but then other times I really liked her as she tried to get her life sorted. It was a little bit of a slow burn but when a number of twists came, I had suspected somethings but I didn’t see the other at all.
A very satisfying read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy to read and review.

I just loved this psychological thriller In a Cottage, In a Wood I couldn’t put it down and I read it in a day as I just needed to know how it was going to end and I was not disappointed.
Loved the twists and turns throughout, they took me by surprise and I was engrossed.
A well deserved 5 stars.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I really liked the character of Neve and found myself staying up late to finish the book it was that good.

I absolutely loved this one! I fell for it immediately. I was intrigued by the blurb but also wondered how this situation on the bridge was working. You just meet a woman who wants to commit suicide and she hands you over her cottage? But it did, actually.

So, one night after partying and an unpleasant one night stand Neve wanders the streets of London to find her way home. Home means her sister’s house, because Neve crashed there after she splits up from her boyfriend. She has a lousy job which she doesn’t like and which earns her not enough money to get her own place to live. So she is not in the mood to talk to a young woman she sees standing on Waterloo Bridge just in a dress in the freezing night. But somehow she does and so she witnesses her jumping into the Thames. Weeks later she learns from a lawyer that the dead woman gave her her cottage in Cornwall. And as it is, with a job she is going to lose, her sister and brother-in-law bugged by her and no place to live she decides to have a look at that cottage.

The cottage indeed is not what she expected. It is not very nice to look at, filthy and a bit creepy. So Neve finds herself stranded in this cottage in the woods and somehow the creepy atmosphere is getting her.

The book has its flaws. It is all a bit unrealistic and Neve is sometimes a pain in the a**. She is so chaotic and unfocussed. She acts without thinking things through. Everybody would consider that arriving in a cottage in rural Cornwall late in the evening without being able to drive a car would be not a good idea. But not Neve. She just jumps in. All the time.

The book is not a fast paced one. But it is an easy read and the pages just flow. It is a bit creepy but not in a supernatural way. There is definitive something going on and I would have freaked out much earlier and take the next train back to London. Strange things happen and because Neve is so chaotic she always things that maybe it was her own fault. There are a few things I would have done, like f.e. change the door locks. But I really liked the book. I enjoyed reading it. I figured out who was behind all this spooky things quite early but the author had still a surprise for me at the end. The writing is very pleasant and I think that was the main reason I enjoyed that book so much. There are some weird things happening in the story but the author managed it to sell it to me with her nice and convincing writing.

After a drunken one night stand Neve comes across a woman called Isabelle, after a short conversation she jumps from the bridge.
A few weeks later Neve receives news that she’s inherited the dead woman’s cottage. It seems like a god send, as her life seems to be collapsing around her. But when she gets to the cottage she feels something in not right.
Neve wasn’t a particularly likeable as a character (a trend I’m not a huge fan of), at the beginning anyway. She’s selfish, a little spoilt and seems to spend her days moping around. But as the novel went on I did grow to like her a little more.
As for the story, it was immensely readable and well written. You really just wanted to know why was Neve left this cottage and who was this mysterious yet troubled Isabelle.
My only complaint would be it seemed to lack tension. I kind of expected to be on the edge of my seat but I wasn’t. Also while the ending made sense, it was a little disappointing.
But overall an intriguing novel with some good twists and turns.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper fiction for this review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fantastic book. I have never read any of the author’s previous work. I will certainly be looking out for it plus new releases

When the Story starts you are dragged right into the action. After this the book carries on building suspense right through to the last page. You could feel the atmosphere in that cottage which freaked me right out and I just wanted to jump into the book and pull Neve straight out of there it was just so creepy. I read this book over 24 hours in 2 or 3 sittings it was that good as I just wanted to know what was going to happen.



I highly recommend this

This book starts with Neve, doing the walk of shame over Waterloo Bridge, she tries to do a good deeds for a stranger, Isabelle and surprisingly ends up inheriting a cottage because of it! With her life going downhill, Neve takes the opportunity of a place to clear her head, even though the cottage is not quite as expected…

Once there, she becomes entwined in the mystery of who Isabelle was, and how she came to be on the bridge that day. This is a creepy and slow building thriller that builds towards a surprising ending! As I mentioned in a previous post, I read a lot of this genre and I’m pretty good at guessing the endings, in fact I did guess part of this but a surprising second twist I did NOT see coming!

If you are new to this genre, this is a really good ‘first’ as it moves at a steady pace and builds gradually. This for me also had an echo of The Girl On The Train in that the main characters, Neve and Isabelle, are not taken seriously because of their personal issues (very much like Rachel in TGOTT with her alcoholism) and are left to resolve their personal quests alone before anyone sees the truth, this is such a clever way of isolating the character and drawing you in to their desperation as they struggle to find the truth.

Another thing I LOVED about this book is that there was a couple of times within the book that Neve had a potential romantic encounter, I must admit I done the internal groan of ‘ok, here’s where the guy steps in and fixes everything for the damsel in distress and life is all rosy again, same old same old…’ BUT Cass Green doesn’t take the easy way out by doing this, instead Neve battles everything herself before considering moving forward in her life – very sensible too I might add! She couldn’t be part of a partnership while that was hanging over her and while some may have taken that easier option, Cass Green pulls together an altogether more complex journey for Neve.

I found this book genuinely creepy. Neve receives a cottage through a very unusual inheritance. There's something very strange going on and the tension builds brilliantly. This is the first book of Cass Green's I have read but it won't be the last.

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.

I loved this - different to what I expected and very satisfying. I don't generally read thrillers, but the title appealed to me, and the blurb sounded great: meet a stranger in London and they give you a cottage - what's to worry about?
Neve's spiky personality is the perfect foil to an old-fashioned suspense novel, she's believable and her confused unhappiness having to depend on other people feels real. But everything seemed a bit worrying for Neve and I read carefully to not miss any clues about where the danger lay... biting my nails and reading late into the night...
Recommend for lovers of suspense, country novels, novels about young women in the city and anyone really!
PS when I mentioned this book to my mother she started singing a creepy song 'in a cottage, in a wood' that I'd never heard before....

I absolutely loved this one! I still remember the old rhyme from my school days that this title is based upon. I always found the little poem really creepy back then but now as an adult, it sent shivers down my spine when mentioned within the narrative here. I mean, where would horror movies and thrillers be without the iconic isolated cabin/cottage in the woods? It’s the setting for many a nightmare scenario and here Cass Green manages to turn a stroke of good fortune for her main protagonist Neve into a darkly atmospheric and creepy ordeal that seemed never ending-all based around a house with bars at the windows. But those bars won’t keep out the terrifying nightmares that are about to stalk Neves dreams!

I did worry when I started to read that I wouldn’t actually care what happened to Neve! I took an instant dislike to this young woman who seemed set upon her own path to self destuction. She was rude, inconsiderate, selfish and disagreeable. Her friendship group seemed smaller than expected for a young single woman living in the city of London and her contempt for her living arrangements was frustrating, as well as rather annoying, to watch. I just wanted to slap a little bit of appreciation into this arrogant but troubled young woman. A visit to Cornwall to claim her inherited cottage leads to a life changing experience for Neve as whilst there she begins to discover more about the ethereal and damaged Isabelle who gifted the property to her. But who was Isabelle and what was she hiding from? Has Neve inherited more than just a new home from the haunted young woman?

This is a fabulously creepy and darkly atmospheric slow burner that I read in one intense sitting. I suspected every character that was introduced once Neve had fled to Cornwall, unable to work out whether everything was all in Neves head or if someone really did want to scare the bejesus out of her!! But little by little I came to respect Neve, developing a warmth and tenderness towards her as she started to let her guard down thanks to some very poignant observations by the author,

There were twists and turns galore here and enough red herrings to throw a forestful of sticks at! I was thoroughly engrossed in this spellbinding thriller that gradually worked its magic on me. The clever denouement shocked and surprised me as it was a twist that I definitely hadn’t seen coming but was a perfect reflection of what had gone before and therefore worked brilliantly.

I loved The Woman Next Door but in my opinion In a Cottage In a Wood is even better! Full of deeply disturbed individuals, this is a compelling and suspenseful page turner that you will not be able to put down. Highly recommended by me!

A troubled woman, Neve, inherits a cottage in very strange circumstances. This is more a family drama or mystery than the thriller it is billed as, and it is a little far-fetched and predictable. However, it is a quick read and the actual setting is quite atmospheric.

This is the first book I have read by Cass Green. The main character Neve is walking home late one night and comes across Isabelle on Waterloo Bridge, unfortunately despite Neve trying to help Isabelle jumps off the bridge, the emergency services are called and try to find her but there is no trace.
Neve's life is far from perfect, she has split up with her boyfriend, so is temporarily living with her sister, and her brother in law is not happy about her being there, she hates her job and eventually walks out. Luckily she finds out that she has inherited a cottage from Isabelle and decides to leave London to take a break from her problems. The cottage is not the picturesque chocolate box home with roses around the door that she is hoping for, it is cold, unkempt, and damp with bars on the windows. An altogether creepy place.
As time goes on Neve makes friends with some neighbours who live nearby, Sally,her husband and son Matty, who is very uncommunicative. Sally's home is much more comfortable and welcoming than the cottage and the difference between the two dwellings adds to Neve's unease about the cottage. Various creepy incidents happen, the door being unlocked on Neve's return after she was certain she had locked it, the radio being on, and the sense that she is being watched. Nevertheless she stays on and then meets Isabelle's brother Richard who owns the estate that the cottage is situated on, even dog sitting for him.
Although the author gradually builds up the sense of menace, and answers to various questions raised through the book are eventually resolved, I struggled with the book overall and found it hard going at times, hence the three star rating. Having said that I do think that it may well be a good story for a TV drama, and would transfer well onto the screen.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book as an arc.
I really enjoyed this book. Lots of twists and turns and a creeping sense of unease throughout. I don't know how Neve managed to sleep at all in that cottage with all the strange goings on!
I loved the way the book was written, there was a slight thread of black humour running throughout which really appealed to me. Neve's life really was a mess when she left London for Cornwall and it didn't seem to be improving any once she had moved into the cottage!
The only slight niggle I had was that I felt the reason for her being terrorised was a bit of a let down. But the back story leading up to the conclusion was really well done and I really did enjoy the book, would certainly recommend.

Neve is a bit of a flaky character. Sleeping in her sister's spare room after breaking up with her boyfriend, she is barely managing. Her work is basic, her lack of money is a problem, as is her drinking. She needs to grow up and take responsiblity instead of acting like a teenager. One night walking home along Waterloo Bridge a woman she talks to briefly jumps off the bridge in front of her. This leaves Neve in shock but she becomes more shocked when she discovers this woman has left her a cottage.

Neve irritated me. She really needed to grow up and get a hold on her life. She behaves very irresponsibly and is very childish, forever expecting other people to bail her out. I never really took to her. I did feel that the supporting cast, however, were well written. Neve's sister is a good sister, forever bailing her out but obviously coming to the end of her tether. The people she meets who live near the cottage are all very plausible and nice. It did take a while to work out who wasn't quite what they seemed.

The actual plot of this book is sound. Why did Isabelle throw herself off the bridge? What is going on in the cottage? There are plenty of questions for the reader to get their teeth into. I have to say that some twists towards the end weren't exactly what I had been expecting which was nice.

This is a well written book. I wouldn't have said that this was a psychological thriller as I didn't feel a read build up of suspense. However, it was an excellent mystery with some tension & a sound plot. It is a shame that I couldn't feel for Neve at all. Had I felt a glimmer of compassion for her it would have involved me a little bit more and maybe I would have felt more suspense.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

Excellent book - Great characters and plot. I would highly recommend this book.

Having read Cass Green's previous novel, the excellent "The Woman Next Door", I was excited to receive this review copy of "In A Cottage In A Wood".
This is a compelling psychological thriller which I found difficult to put down.
Neve's life is not great: both her parents have died, she has a dead end job, she is an unwelcome guest in her sister's home and she has split up with her boyfriend. One evening, en route home she comes across a woman on a bridge in London. Her name is Isabelle and she appears suicidal. Neve does her best to try and save her but to no avail and it is only later that she discovers Isabelle has left her a cottage in a bizarre sort of oral codicil to her will.
Keen to start a new life Neve decides to move into the cottage which is located in Cornwall in an isolated location. However things do not go as planned and Neve fears that someone is stalking her and breaking into the cottage. She finds a dead bird in the sink, and her radio switches on and off without her knowledge. She wonders if she is going mad in the same way as Isabelle who was so scared she put bars on the windows to keep out intruders.
Resolving to find out what is happening, Neve starts to look into Isabelle's life and things will never be the same again for her.
I really enjoyed this book, particularly the way the author built up the tension as the story progressed. Telling the story from Neve's point of view ensured that the reader felt empathy for her although she did not seem a very likeable character at the beginning. She behaves in a reckless and selfish way, treating her sister's home like a hotel and cheating on her boyfriend. She seems to be on a path to self destruction. As the novel progresses she becomes much more likeable and the reader feels sorry for her as events unfold at the cottage.
The opening sequence where Neve encounters Isabelle is well written and really sucks the reader in- I was keen to carry on reading to find out what was going to happen next.
This is a fabulous five star read, thoroughly recommended by me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my arc in exchange for an honest review.

Five brilliant stars!

I loved The Woman Next Door so the moment I knew there was a new thriller by Cass Green coming I wanted to read it. And I was not disappointed; this novel is excellent.
It has the right amount of seclusion that can guarantee some creepiness but still sound believable. It has good characters, an intriguing mystery and a wonderful protagonist. Neve reminded me so much of one of Sophie Kinsella's main characters--which is a huge compliment for me since Kinsella is one of my all time favorite authors.

Safe to say now that Cass Green is on my go to list of authors--I'll read anything she comes up with next, for sure.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.