To be honest I didn't particularly enjoy this book, a bit too dark for me and I found it hard to get into the storyline and I couldn't gel with the characters.

Based on my comments I wouldn't recommend this book, an okay read but didn't love it.

Thank you to Netgalley and The Little Brown Book Group for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

My thanks to Sphere and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read The Woman in the Dark
This is a very dark novel with many layers entwined for the denouement that I'm not sure satisfied me completely. Sarah thinks she has the perfect husband, but I began asking questions as to the balance of their relationship when he all but pushed her into looking after his motherless child when she was only nineteen. Her youth and experience led her to believe her life with him would be idyllic but after seventeen years of marriage and another child, she begins to realise that all is not as it should be when he guilts her into giving up her inheritance from her mother to buy the house he was raised in, a Victorian villa with a murderous past where three people were stabbed to death. The premise and plot of The Woman in the Dark is excellent, however I feel Sarah's acceptance that everything that goes wrong in their lives is completely her fault becomes a little wearing. I wanted to tell her to 'woman up'. I'm sure most readers could see what was coming, and that it could never end well. I enjoyed the novel. It was well written with lots of heart and soul within it, but Sarah was a character I unfortunately found difficult to champion.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this tale of Family secrets and lies. How does a seemingly loving and respectable Husband and Father, morph, over time, into a raging facsimile of his former self.?
The house he grew up in holds the answers, and the evil within creeps across the pages like Poison Ivy.
This Novel will grip you from the opening Chapters to the very last page, and will remain in your thoughts for some time after.
Thank you Netgalley, the Publishers and Vanessa Savage for the opportunity of reading this Ark. I would thoroughly recommend it to all!

The Woman in the Dark is a relevant and very disturbing tale, taking on elements of mental health, abuse and the things that define us.

It was an addictive, unnerving read, with “The Murder House” taking on a presence of its own – the idea that places of violence hold onto that violence gives this oft told tale an extra, intriguing layer.

In a family full of secrets, the story plays out in pacy and thought provoking style, as Sarah fights her inner demons in an effort to protect that family – it is a fascinatingly dark read that leaves you thinking of it after it is done.

Enjoyed it muchly even though it made me shiver.

Recommended.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. To say this book is dysfunctional is an understatement. Absolutely brilliant storyline. The characters where brilliant too. Don’t think I’d live in or even want to live in a murder house, but I’d try anything once. Great writing. Great psychological book I’ll not forget too soon. Brilliant will recommend this book to anyone.

This is a good solid read. A few somewhat unbelievable instances but overall a really good read. Thank you for the review copy.

I do like to book and the story is amazing. I am so curious what is going to happen in the end in the 'murder house'. I think the best thing is not everything is revealed in the beginning so there are always some new information and twist in the story, what makes it more exciting.
Also the character of Patrick. I hated in the beginning but as the story goes my opinion about him always changes.
The only thing what I don't like is the mass of the characters and independent story lines.

A good psychological thriller that keeps the pace and keeps you guessing. Some plot holes but we can overlook these in the guise of artistic licence. Some twists 'guessable' others not so much. Recommended.

I was very eager and excited to start reading this book, after I had read the blurb.

The story flows beautifully and is full of intense moments that make you so eager to continue on. The characters are well written and engaging.

I really could not recommend this book more to anyone,.

Thanks so much for letting me read this brilliant book before release.
A family move into a house.
Three murders had taken place in the house and it was felt by all that the house was haunted by ghosts.
It was haunted by what had gone in previously in the house, how a boy was beaten and left in the cellar if he was naughty, and how the house nearly ruined all there lives.
Really enjoyed the book read it in one sitting.

The Woman in the Dark is the story of one family and a house. Patrick, Sarah and their two children, Ben and Mia live in Cardiff. Patrick, as a child, lived near the coast in a beautiful Victorian house. Unfortunately though the house he grew up in was repossessed when his father lost his job and a new family moved in. Following a tragedy in the house involving the new family, the house remains empty for years and is dubbed, in the media, the "Murder House". For 15 years, Patrick dreams of moving back to his childhood home and recreating that loving, nurturing environment he experienced in the house, before it was known as the "Murder House", for his own family. Sarah, not keen on moving, has to be persuaded but eventually relents for Patrick's sake, and the children are not happy about the move either.

Once they move in though, they try to overlook the reputation of the house in the local area but still, Sarah feels uneasy in the house, there's unexplained cold spots and a cellar that Patrick insists remains locked. She feels as though the house is being watched by someone. Patrick is oblivious to all of this and tells Sarah she is paranoid, however, with every day that passes, Patrick becomes less and less like the man that Sarah married and more into someone she doesn't recognise.

Initially, I found it difficult to get into this book, I found the writing style hard to get my head around. I felt there were too many unanswered questions at the start and I was getting a bit confused. I continued reading the book and holy moly, did it take off!! The story quickly becomes clear. It is a claustrophobic, tension-filled psychological thriller that moves at a pretty fast pace. I found myself thinking about the family when I wasn't reading the book. Sarah is an unreliable narrator and a lot of what she witnesses can be explained in different ways, by herself, by Patrick, by the children. The details are drip fed to you and this helps spiral the tension ever upwards as the book goes on, and you begin to wonder, what is the truth? Is the house haunted? Is Patrick all that he appears to be? Is Sarah grappling with mental health issues? I loved this book and stayed up half the night to finish it, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ending too, a great twist.

This book is released in January 2019. Thank you to Ms Savage, the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity.

Loved this book & I never expected the twist. I enjoyed the ending but wished it didn’t end would love to know what happened next thanks for the review will read more from this author

If you want a good thrilling, gripping storyline that draws you in from the start, this is the book for you.
One person's lies manages to change so many other people's lives,
I found this book a fascinating read and hard to put down, especially near the end, I needed to know what happened, and the ending didn't disappoint at all.
Will be looking out for more books by Vanessa Savage.

What a great book exciting and a book you can’t put down really couldn’t guess the end either it ramped up the action all the way through

I can honestly say that this book will be next years must read psychological thriller of 2019.

It has it all, what appears to be the perfect family, but in reality they are facing underlying stress, a mental ill wife, self-destructive teenage children, deteriorating marriage and of course, the move into The Murder House!

As with all books in this genre, things are never as they seem but sometimes, just sometimes, they are exactly that! I mean, who would expect The Murder House to be a perfect family home and a fresh start for them all? But can a house really have influence over the occupants and their actions? How much influence does our upbringing and past have on our futures?

Sarah, a once young colourful aspiring artist looking forwards to her future painting her way around the world. Her best friend and fellow aspiring artist Caroline, never a fan of Patrick but who has supported Sarah as best she can. Patrick, the older professional career and family man, who had an idyllic upbringing, brought up in a perfect house by the sea and who loves his wife and children. Joe their 17-year-old son, also a promising artist who has yet to find out Sarah is not his real mother and finally, Mia, the 15-year-old daughter who has always been a daddy’s girl.

All have their own story, their own problems that all culminate and come to a head inside the murder house!

Although Patrick is the only family member that wants the move and the fresh start the family all agree that they will try to make it work and to make the house perfect again just as it was when Patrick first lived there. It will be a monumental task for them all, the house has been neglected since the family before were all murdered in that house, damp patches and mould on the walls, rotting window frames, cold spots in certain parts of the house, not to mention the noises an old house can make don’t go anyway towards helping the new occupants to settle in to their new house.

Sarah becomes convinced someone is watching the house ever since they moved in, but is that just her imagination as Patrick suggests? And then what of the odd items left on the doorstep? A seashell? Living that close to the beach doesn’t sound that strange but then things begin to escalate as both Sarah and Patrick’s sanity and reality being to deteriorate.

Who’s perception is in fact reality and who’s is reality slipping away from them?

Will the house always be The Murder House or can it become the perfect family home they wish it to be?

With some plot twists to be expected and some that come as a shock, this is a psychological thriller not to be missed!

The Woman in the Dark will be published in the UK on 10 January 2019

A big thank you to Vanessa Savage, the publishers Little Brown Book Group and NetGalley for my advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

All thoughts and opinions are my own.