This was my first time reading work from this author and it was such a treat.
I found The Housewarming to be a slow build but needed to be to absorb us into the life of the young couple at the centre of this story.
Try to imagine your child vanishing into thin air, disappearing without a trace.
The hurt and the pain of losing your child. Now imagine if it was your fault, the child disappeared because of something you did or did not do. 
The guilt alone would eat you up.
We meet Matt and his wife Ava in this story. Ava is upstairs in their home one day while her daughter Abi sits in her buggy downstairs. Ava gets slightly distracted with her phone and when she comes back downstairs, the front door is open and her daughter has disappeared.
The police are called, searches ensue but to no avail. Abi has vanished without anyone noticing.
Both Matt and Ava are devastated and deal with their loss differently. Ava can't believe she would have left the front door open but what other explanation is there....
She questions everything around her including why their friends and neighbours Neil & Bella are distant all of a sudden. Are they hiding something?
Suddenly her marriage is in trouble. 
Lies are being told and Ava must hold it together to try piece together all the little snipets she hears and sees and find out what happened to her beautiful daughter on that fateful day...
It's a shocking read, completely absorbing and you won't want to leave it down until you discover what really happened.. 
Well worth your time 💕

This was the most harrowing and painful book I have read in a long time! Every single feeling that Matt and Ava feel caused me to feel their pain in my heart!
When 2 year old Abi disappears after mum Ava leaves her strapped in her pushchair, Ava falls to pieces! Not knowing what happened has meant she has no closure. When she finds out something a year later at a party - she spirals into a frenzy of suspicions, accusations and even more pain! I can’t say I enjoyed it - because it was terribly sad and tragic, but it was brilliantly written, as always and even after the book has finished I am left with an anxiety and sadness as if I were living on that street! That is a rare talent!

Ava left Abi in her pushchair, all was quiet so she grabbed a few moments to herself. When she came downstairs the door was open & Abi was gone! She'd never been able to undo the clip before. Where could she have gone? Frantic with worry, Ava gets in touch with Matt, her husband & goes searching. Soon the whole neighbourhood is involved. Where could the two year old have got to? A year on. Matt & Ava have another baby, but the disappearance of Abi is still all consuming. Ava no longer socialises. They no longer see their close friends. When the next door neighbours hold a housewarming party Ava is persuaded to go.  The party sparks a memory- can they finally find out what became of Abi?

I am a big fan of S. E. Lynes's books, I found this rather slow going at times, which is why I couldn't give it five stars. However once it got going it was a breakneck ride to the end. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

A good and interesting read!

I would recommend this to everyone who loves a good story with captivating characters! Definitely a good read!

I really don't like sharing Publisher's synopsis because I feel as if a lot of times they give away what the reader should really experience for themselves. The synopsis for this book gives enough, yet, doesn't spoil it for anyone.

Ava's world is rocked when she finds her front door open and her two-year-old daughter, Abi, is nowhere to be seen. What would that feel like? I have had this feeling without a front door open, yet, I found my child under his bed asleep between the dust ruffle and the wall after 40 minutes of frantically searching on my own and then calling the cops where they knew exactly where to look for him. Mind you, I looked under his bed, He was just covered by the dust ruffle it was a nightmare, one that when I started reading this book slammed me to the floor and sucked me dry all over again.

The Housewarming is full of twists and turns, heartbreak and more heartbreak and yet the love of friends old and new don't let you down until... well until it does.

Ms. Lynes does a masterful job of telling Ava and Matt's story, their friendship with Matt's oldest friend Neil and his wife Belle, and the neighbor who tries to help Ava move on over a year from her grief of never knowing what happened to Abi.

I didn't see the book arc even when it was coming, I just didn't see it. Which is to be said the perfect way to create a psychological thriller.

My one complaint is that on the cover of The Housewarming it says that this book is "unputdownable" and yet, I had to gather up my emotions again and again so I step away for an hour or two before I could go back to reading. Because of this claim I had high expectations and about 30% in I lost a bit of focus as the story moved a little slower than the rest of the book, or maybe, just maybe, it was my shared grief with Ava that made the reading slower, I am not sure. I will let you make that decision. If you read this book and agree with me let me know. If you don't agree with me, I'd like to hear that too if you'd be so kind. 😉

The lesson that I learned from this book is we can never underestimate the growing abilities of a toddler so we have to watch them like a hawk does a mouse: every second of their waking moments, which makes for a very tired and distractible mommy. Also, honesty is everything!

S.E. Lynes's The Housewarming is a cautionary tale of the cost to family and friends when you hold secrets, and tell a year worth of lies...

An incredible read.
You.Must.Read.This.Book.NOW!
Not only is this an entertaining and totally engrossing psychological read, it is emotionally intelligent, conveying line after line the horror and panic of a mother whose child suddenly disappears. The depth of emotion experienced by Abi's Mum Ava, her husband Matt, neighbours Neil and Bella Johnson and other neighbour Jen is rich, diverse and utterly compelling. I literally held my breath for Ava, running around the streets of Riverside Drive, desperate and terrified to locate 2 year old Abi having discovered the front door open and the buggy empty. I had physiological symptoms of racing heart and nausea, connecting immediately with grief stricken Ava, and my affinity with her simply deepened as the story unfolds.
We meet Ava one year after the events of that fateful early September morning but frequently travel back to the day itself. The power of the past, present and future colliding, of the way in which grief builds and rips apart what once was, hits the reader from the outset. I thoroughly enjoyed the switches in time, back and forth and I liked the use of multiple narrators, hearing from Matt, and later on others too.
The sense of not knowing whether your missing child is actually dead rather than simply presumed dead, or whether she has been snatched and is living a different life elsewhere is all consuming and written about so compassionately by SE Lynes. The trying to continue with life, keep a marriage surviving and exist through the pain to live day to day and yet all the while the events of one day are circulating endlessly in your head, over and over and over, leaps of the page in a word or two. A torture no parent ever wants to endure.
The plot is tight, fast paced and written to hold on to every reader in a vice like grip whilst remaining sensitive and intuitive. This is what makes the book so readable, because every character, their actions, motivations, and relationships with one another are minutely observed and you feel as if you too live in the same road, part of the community who should have been able to help Abi but who ultimately failed to do so because of the way in which we become way too absorbed in our own little pockets of life.
Friendships will be tested and many tears shed as Jen and Johnnie's housewarming party acts as a catalyst for some shocking revelations which eventually bring to light some inconsistencies that are very hard to face.
I will not write any more for fear of spoiling the plot and undermining some HUGE twists. They left me open mouthed and incredulous at how clever this plot is. Not only does the final section of the book leave one gasping, the truths also get you thinking about human behaviour and for me that is what makes a good book GREAT.
Thank you to the publishers, the truly magnificent Bookoutre, the author and Netgalley for a read I will not be forgetting in a hurry.

If there’s one thing that Susie Lynes does really well, it’s domestic noir, and with her latest offering, The Housewarming, she just proves that she’s getting better and better at it!

The morning that Ava Atkins straps two-year-old Abi into her stroller, parking her at the bottom of the stairs before running upstairs to gather up some laundry, starts as mundanely as any other. As Ava hurriedly goes about her business, she listens out to hear if Abi is starting to fuss, and not hearing anything, decides to take a quick loo break (which mom doesn’t understand the utter relief of an undisturbed wee when there’s a busy toddler in the house?), during which she may have snuck a quick look at Facebook on her phone because … well, who doesn’t? She then dashes downstairs and to her horror, discovers that the stroller is empty! Abi is nowhere to be seen and worst of all: the front door is open!

How is this even possible? She couldn’t have been upstairs for more than 5 or 10 minutes (maybe 15 at the most), and anyway, Abi doesn’t even know how to unstrap herself from her stroller, does she? And Ava is absolutely sure she’d locked the front door as she always does, or actually … had she done it before rushing upstairs for that laundry? She remembers being a bit distracted, so did she lock the door before heading up those stairs? Or did her husband Matt lock it? Wasn’t he supposed to do that? These are the the thoughts that repeatedly haunt Ava throughout that day as the search for little Abi begins. They’re to become like a mantra to her, drumming through her head throughout the 12 months that follow, because Abi has disappeared into thin air!

A year later, wealthy neighbours The Lovegoods, invite everyone in the street to their housewarming party. Their lengthy renovation is finally finished and they want to welcome everyone to their brand spanking new, sparkly home, now that it’s finally complete (and because they’re a bit showy offy)! Ava is adamant that she isn’t going to the party. Firstly because she still cannot bring herself to be anywhere close to anything considered celebratory, and secondly because she doesn’t want to be with all the people who live in such close proximity to her and who have been witness to her tragedy and continued misery.

Matt however, is convinced that getting out to a gathering with people who know and understand her will be a ‘soft landing’ as a first social outing, and talks her into going. He tells her that they won’t have to stay long. And so … off they go. And of course, it’s at this party where Ava overhears a throwaway remark that brinks the entire previous 12 months into sharp focus and she realises that the people closest to her are the exact ones she should be with if she wants to find out what happened to Abi.

Oh my word! I couldn’t put this down. It’s gut-wrenching, heart-breaking and altogether quite devastating. How well do people really know the people who live around them? Do people look further than the facades that people display to discover what’s behind them, and why they feel they need to disguise who they are? This is a well constructed commentary on community and the shelters that groups create for themselves. We hope that we are settled in safe havens and that we have created comfort zones for ourselves and our families but what happens when those foundations we hope we’ve established are shaken?

This is a 5 star read that I highly recommend. It’s a slow burner that I wouldn’t describe as a thriller as such, but probably more in the suspense category.

Such a sad book but what else could the subject matter be? It really is a clever very well crafted story and one that makes you question what you might have done in similar circumstances. 
I would have given four and a half stars if I could because my only small complaint is that I felt there was some slowing of the pace in places but this is a book I highly recommend. This is the second book by SE Lynes I have read and I will look out for her work in the future as she is such an intelligent author.

Toddler Abi is missing from her house.  Where is she? Did she wander off? Did someone take her? A year later and Abi’s mother, Ava, can’t move on. Needs to know what happened to her baby girl.  

The next door neighbor, The Lovegoods, have remodeled their home and are having a huge housewarming party.  Ava’s husband, Matt, has convinced her to go and afterwards has Ava questioning events surrounding Abi’s disappearance.  This book really accelerates towards the last quarter of the book with twists and turns that made my eyes go wide and say....”OMG! What?”

S.E. Lynes is a new author to me and I’m definitely interested in reading more of her books! I’m really enjoying quick psychological suspense books right now. Thank you Netgalley, Bookouture and S.E. Lynes for a digital ARC of The Housewarming in exchange for an honest review.  #TheHousewarming #NetGalley

Complex and complicated story of a child who goes missing and how the mother coped in the aftermath. No happy ending but a resolution. A difficult read.

Thank you so much for access to this ARC! 

I cannot imagine what this poor mother has been through and honestly how she continues to move forward each day. However, I found this book to be very repetitive, so much so that it lost my interest. I also did find it hard to understand what was past and what was current.

I will continue to be a SE Lynes fan and look forward to loving the next book!

A fantastic read. A missing child. A little girl who disappears without a single sighting or clue what happened.  Her devastated parents have no closure. A story of guilt, secrets, lies and love. Absolutely gripping with the most stunning conclusion that has you still thinking about the story long after you have finished.

So heartbreaking! The Housewarming cleverly portrays a mother's worst nightmare and had me sit up late into the night to finish the book.

Ava is still grieving the disappearance of her daughter, Abi, a year ago. Attending the neighbor's housewarming party is the last thing she wants to do, but she still goes heeding, the advice of her husband and her friends. But at the party, she learns the one tiny detail that changes everything she thought she knew about Abi's disappearance. Who can you trust?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Housewarming by S.E Lynes is a psychological thriller that definitely pulled on my heartstrings a few times. The author brings us a parents worst nightmare, a missing child.Her writing is so superb, I felt like I was living through this horrific event with her parents. 
Ava and Matt's two year old daughter, Abi vanished from her pushchair one morning. Ava had left her for five minutes, when she returned the door was open and Abi had gone. 
One year on and they are invited to a housewarming party for a neighbour, Abi is reluctant to go, still struggling with Abi's disappearance, she can hardly deal with the socialising. These people helped to look for Abi and she is paranoid about everything surrounding Abi's disappearance. Matt convinces her to attend with him. As the party undergoes the tension is palpable then, a chance remark makes Ava rerun everything she knows and doesn't know about her daughter going missing.
I cannot state enough how the emotions play such a large part in this book! From a parents perspective I was put the the wringer while reading this.The book really speeds up with the pace at the party and never lets up. All the secrets and every little confession begin to bubble to the surface and eventually the truth comes to light...make sure you have tissues at hand. Just when you think its over and all is done, in comes another twist to shock you again. 
Another fabulous addition to S.E Lynes spectacular books! Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the book in order to write my review.

Absolutely heartbreaking story. Ava and Matt’s 2 year old daughter went missing almost a year ago, and apart from her coat being found in the river nothing else has been found. Is she alive or dead?

It’s hard to imagine the panic Ava must have felt when she realised her daughter was missing but Ms Lynes perfectly conveys all the emotions and makes the reader feel them too.  The book goes backwards and forwards from the present day to the day Abi went missing and the police investigation..  The story moves fairly slowly at first but the author does an amazing job building up the tension, and my mind was racing trying to work out what had happened to little Ava. The characters are all believable and my heart broke for Ava, and for Matt too.. When we finally find out the truth I was shocked and heartbroken.. This book will certainly stay with me.

Well blow me down with a feather….

This was not what I expected one iota. The author has managed to put her finger right on the pulse of a mother’s guilt and squeeze every gut wrenching emotion out until all that is left is a dry husk. So realistically written if you have small children you will go and check your own door and probably more than once.

This is a slow burning book often repeating the moments that lead to Abi going missing, the sitting on the toilet scrolling through Facebook is one that will resonate with a lot of mother’s who just want five minutes peace. The self imposed blame, questioning of her every action and the guilt is so rawly encapsulated it hits you in all the feels.

Told in first person by Ava and third person by her husband Matt, you see how both as parents react so differently. Ava refusing to see anyone, barely maintaining hygiene and depression gripping her while Matt is trying to hold strong, working and keeping social contact.

Then the party and this is where you need to pay special attention, the blurb mentions a throw away comment, there are a few so you need to work out which one is pertinent. I had an idea but I was desperately hoping I was wrong and I will leave it at that so you are intrigued enough to go and read it yourself…..

EXCERPT: Ava

When I think about that morning, it is beat by beat, like a heart - my own heart, my daughter's, at the time so enmeshed it seemed she was part of me: my body, my tissue, my bones. She is part of me. She will always be part of me.

When I think about that morning, I watch myself, over and over, as if from above. I watch myself like you watch your children in a school play or a sports match, silently willing them to succeed, to shine, to not get hurt. I watch myself bleeding on the sidelines of slowly unfolding disaster, alive with the pain I know is coming but she, the me of that moment, does not.

I do this every minute of every hour of every day. And I have done this for almost a year.

I watch myself: there I am, making my way downstairs with an armful of laundry. I can't see over the top. I take it slowly, both feet on one step before I lower myself to the next. Another step down, another. I am always so careful these days. I used to be carefree, but now I see danger everywhere: an electric socket is a hazard, a glass left too near the edge of a tabletop risky, a staircase perilous.

Another step. I call her name. Abi.

ABOUT THE HOUSEWARMING: Everyone is going to the housewarming party.
All the same people who lived on the street the day Abi vanished…
Will her mother finally learn the truth?

Ava only left her daughter in the pushchair for five minutes. The buckle was fastened, and she was sure it was safe. But when she came downstairs, the door was open and Abi was gone – she walked down the road, past the Lovegoods’ house, and was never seen again.

A year later, the Lovegoods throw a housewarming party, showing off the results of their renovation. Ava doesn’t want to go. She can’t bear to look down that end of the road, to see the place where Abi vanished, and she doesn’t want to spend time with people who don’t share her grief. Her husband Matt persuades her: he’s worried about her. A night out might do her good.

But as her friends and neighbours chat, and the drink and gossip flows, Ava learns something new about the day she has re-lived a thousand times. A throwaway comment which could change everything.

Ava thought she knew every last detail of that day.

She’s about to find out she was wrong…

MY THOUGHTS: The opening chapters left me stunned and breathless. And it didn't stop there. The pace is relentless. The tension palpable. As is the grief, the despair, the guilt. Lynes has written a blockbuster of human emotion that left me exhausted, drained, wrung out, and absolutely certain that this is the best book she has ever written!

The characters are superbly depicted. They are complete. They are you. They are me. They are our husbands and wives, our friends and neighbours. They gossip and assume. They are horrified, and smug. They have their own pristine lives that they don't want touched by tragedy. Ava becomes isolated, a prisoner of her anxiety and her feeling of being contagious in her unresolved guilt and grief.

Her neighbour Jen is the only person she feels any connection with. Jen, who never pressures her, who lets her just be. So when Jen throws a party to celebrate the end of the renovations on their house, Ava reluctantly agrees to attend, just for an hour. And there begins the unravelling of everything Ava thought she knew about Abi's disappearance.

Gripping. Heartwrenching. Devastating. Dark. The Housewarming lives up to every promotional promise.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#TheHousewarming #NetGalley

'My eyes are incontinent.'

THE AUTHOR: After graduating from Leeds University, S E Lynes lived in London before moving to Aberdeen to be with her husband. In Aberdeen, she worked as a Radio Producer at the BBC before moving with her husband and two young children to Rome, where she lived for five years. There, she began to write while her children attended nursery. After the birth of her third child and upon her return to the UK, she gained an MA in Creative Writing from Kingston University. She combines writing with teaching at Richmond Adult Community College and bringing up her three children in Teddington, Middlesex.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Bookouture via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Housewarming by S.E. Lynes for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

This story was much slower than I expected it to be.  I found the first half of the book quite repetitive and I struggled to keep going with it.  The story picked up in the second half as secrets are revealed but I had already lost interest by then.  Definitely a slow burner which some people will enjoy - but not for me I'm afraid!

Thank you to Netgalley, Bookouture and the author for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A heartbreaking mystery that will have you checking your front door, especially if you have young children.

Ava went upstairs for just a minute, or it could have been 5 ....... maybe 10 at a push ........ at the most 15 !! But when she came back downstairs the pushchair was empty and her you d daughter, Abi, was missing.  The front door was open but Ava was sure she closed it, didn’t she ?

Ava searches everywhere - in the house, down the street, near the ducks ......... where  can Abi have gone, she couldn’t have got far.  But Abi is not found and Ava and her husband Matt must carry on as best they can.

Nearly a year after Abi’s disappearance there is still no answers and Ava is struggling to cope with life moving forwards.  An invite arrives through the door.  The neighbours are having a housewarming party.  Can Ava face all her neighbours ? How will she cope with everyone knowing that Abi is missing after Ava left the door open ?

After some persuasion Ava and Matt attend the party but what they couldn’t have anticipated was the secrets it would unearth.  Ava discovers a secret from the day Abi went missing and all of a sudden she starts to slowly put the pieces together.  Will she finally discover what happened the day that Abi disappeared ?

This is a great domestic mystery that will have you trying to put the pieces together along with Ava.  There are plenty of twists that will keep you guessing and questioning everyone’s version of that day.  A great mystery but will you uncover the truth ?

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

Ava is a busy mom on any ordinary day with a young toddler daughter. She is about to take her daughter to feed the ducks when she runs upstairs to do a few last minute things before they head off. Her daughter Abi was locked in her stroller so she’s perfectly safe. Right? When Ava comes downstairs a few minutes later, the door is open and Abi is gone. Never found. Ava is distraught and trying to cope with the help of her husband Matt. A year later their neighbors are having a housewarming party and since Ava has been a hermit since Abi’s disappearance, her husband thinks it’s a good thing for them to attend. But attending that party turns out to be a big mistake. It sets in motion so many things Ava thought she knew about the day her daughter disappeared. And now, Ava is ready for the truth.  I thought this book moved kinda slowly at first but it picked up. If I’m honest though, I could see the twists coming a mile away. Does this mean this wasn’t a good book? No. It was really good, really sad. And it’s a lesson learned for all characters at the end.