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The People Before

By: Charlotte Northedge
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Kitty Kelly
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Summary

An eerie new psychological thriller from the author of The House Guest

‘I adored it! I found it moody, propulsive, gripping and so terrifying you’ll need the lights on. GILLIAN McALLISTER

‘Charlotte Northedge turns the psychological thumbscrews with relish’ THE TIMES

‘I read through the night to finish this thriller… Spooky, tense, richly atmospheric and profoundly moving’ ERIN KELLY

–––––––––

What if your dream house became your worst nightmare?

Jess and her husband need a new start. So when the chance to buy a rambling old house in the Suffolk countryside comes up, they leap at it.

But not everyone in Suffolk is welcoming. The locals know a secret about the Maple House, and soon, Jess realises they’ve made a huge mistake.

Something bad happened in that house. Something nobody wants to talk about.

Something to do with the people before…

‘Twisty, claustrophobic and deliciously dark, this is the perfect winter chiller’ ELLERY LLOYD

'A tense, paranoid atmosphere and a satisfying and unsettling conclusion.’ DAILY MAIL

‘Tense and threatening, this is a great follow-up to Northedge’s debut, The House Guest.’ OBSERVER

'This taut new psychological mystery feels particularly timely.' MARIE CLAIRE

‘The author does a great job of creating a creepy atmosphere.’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

©2022 Charlotte Northedge (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers
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Critic reviews

‘This is every bit as accomplished as Northedge’s debut The House Guest, with the same precise and finely tuned use of language, by no means always a given in the genre.’ FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Charlotte Northedge creates a riveting psychological study of self-deception and creeping dread.’ THE SUNDAY TIMES

‘Creepy, atmospheric and cleverly plotted, an excellent winter read.’ CATHERINE COOPER

What listeners say about The People Before

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Lazy, clichéd & woefully unoriginal

The premise, the characters, the twist – almost everything in this book has been seen and done hundreds, if not thousands of times before. I imagine this is the book you’d get if Google invented a thriller writing AI. ‘Hey google, please write me a female led, domestic twisty thriller about a townie who meets a sticky end in the country’. Why the hell did this get published? I know exactly why, because numbskulls like me keep buying this nonsense.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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Boring

The content was boring and repetitive and I would not have bothered to read it if I had known that the story was so disjointed. I definitely cannot recommend this book.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Nothing much to like

Neither of the main characters sympathetic or likeable. Both do a lot of whinging.
Plot is thin and the ending is a boring shrug.

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