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Title: The Heights

Author: Louise Candlish

Rating: 5/5

Blurb (taken from Goodreads):

The Heights is a tall, slender apartment building among warehouses in London. Its roof terrace is so discreet, you wouldn’t know it existed if you weren’t standing at the window of the flat directly opposite. But you are. And that’s when you see a man up there—a man you’d recognize anywhere. He may be older now, but it’s definitely him.

But that can’t be because he’s been dead for over two years. You know this for a fact.

Because you’re the one who killed him.

Review:

I always feel quite lucky when a book gives me a solid plot twist that actually catches me off guard. What a treat to have enjoyed a book that gave me several of them!

I was quite surprised when I found out that The Heights is over four hundred pages (according to Goodreads), because I read it in two days. It was one of those that kept me up at night just so I could read a handful more pages, and then made me get up before the sun so I could continue it. The protagonist is an unreliable narrator and I have rarely seen a thriller execute the concept as well as this one. I really believed Ellen throughout the story, and the jarring shift to her husband’s point of view made the balance in narration excellent.

I was surprised at first to read the style. I found a book within a book – as the reader, we are reading both Ellen’s story as she narrates it for her memoir, but also seeing beyond the pages when reading her husband’s point of view. It was a clever shift in styles and I ended up enjoying it immensely.

The ending was superb. Without saying too much, I thought we had reached the end at some point before realizing I still had about 10% left of the book: just long enough for Candlish to throw another twist my way!

This was a compelling story from beginning to end. I recommend picking it up on publishing day, March 1st, 2022.

I’d like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada, as well as Netgalley, for the free advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.