The House on Rye Lane — Susan Allott

‘Sublime, elegant and exciting. The House on Rye Lane is beautifully written and entirely gripping. I'm a big fan of Susan Allott' CHRIS WHITAKER

‘The lovechild of Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests and Lisa Jewell's The Family Upstairs… confirms Susan Allott as a huge talent' ERIN KELLY

They thought they'd found their dream home. They were wrong.

2008. The house Maxine and Seb have just bought was a bargain â€" a huge Georgian townhouse on the edge of Peckham Rye, it needs a lot of work but Max couldn't resist it. Now they are in, though, nothing seems to be going right â€" and as the problems mount up, Max starts to doubt her relationship as well as her decision. Is Seb all he seems to be? And why are the neighbours so evasive about the house's previous owner?

1994. Cookie and his parents have been forced by his dad's gambling debts to move into the attic room of a big old house, as lodgers. Tensions run high between them and their elderly landlady, and there's something odd about the place that Cookie can't quite put his finger on…

1843. Horatio built this house for his beloved wife, who then died in mysterious circumstances. After a second death on the premises, both his servants and the locals are starting to talk. Horatio's grief is tinged with shame and guilt. What is he hiding? And will the house ever be free of his legacy?

THE HOUSE ON RYE LANE is a tense, taut, beautifully crafted novel about the treachery of secrets and the many ways the past can echo into the present, from the acclaimed author of THE SILENCE.

About the author

SUSAN ALLOTT finished her first novel, THE SILENCE, after completing the Faber Academy course. It was widely acclaimed and longlisted for the New Blood Dagger. THE HOUSE ON RYE LANE is her second novel. She lives in south London with her two children and her husband.