Very good plot, keeps you interested. I liked the mannerism the book has been written in. Approachable language and style. Well defined characters. Strong 5 stars.

This was a brilliant read. As soon as I started reading this book I just knew I was going to love it. Highly recommended

An unsettling novel with many characters with no redeemable qualities. Interesting to see how the character of Marion develops throughout.

With thanks to netgalley for allowing me to review this book.

The visitors is a dark crime fiction that I enjoyed reading. Lots of twists and turns.

Marion and John are middle-aged siblings still living together in the home they grew up in. The relationship isn’t health and John is rude and condescending to Marion while, in turn, Marion seems to have an unhealthy view of her brother and their love for each other. Told entirely from Marion’s POV, I actually started to go a little crazy. I couldn’t stand being in her head. It was so boring. It was definitely done in a way that was supposed to keep up the suspense, in that we aren’t totally sure what’s happening in the basement when John goes down there all day every day, but instead of feeling like it upped the suspense factor it actually just felt like a slap in the face. Like Marion knows that someone is reading her POV and is purposely hiding things. I just didn’t buy her POV at all. And what is actually going on in the house is so completely obvious that it just made the story feel way too drawn out.

I know it sounds like I hated this book but ultimately the ending saved it for me. Finding out who Marion truly is and finding out some of her past and her actions made it better and made me feel better about Marion’s POV as she seems to be hiding things even from herself throughout the course of the story. Rather than just being a too naïve idiot as she came off the majority of the time.

Received via Netgalley

I lost interest. This wasn’t the book I thought it would be. The writing wasn’t engaging and I felt it was written well but wasn’t as thought provoking as it could have been. DNF

I love horror, have read hundreds of horror books and watched hundreds of horror films, and I’m not usually squeamish about horrible things - but this book was really horrible! Not ‘horror’ exactly, as it wasn’t scary, tense, psychologically resonant etc - but truly horrible. All the characters were grubby and pathetic and generally unpleasant to spend time with. The brother in particular was a cartoon villain, bad to the bone for no reason. So I can’t say I enjoyed this book, exactly. But if you want something really unpleasant, this book provides it.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was a well written, original, addictive, dark, disturbing and creepy thriller.
I would definitely read another book by this author.

Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

"...she wrapped her arms around Mother's angular hips for comfort. Physical affection wasn't encouraged, however, in the Zetland family, and she soon felt herself peeled off with extreme delicacy."

In this compelling debut thriller we first meet Marion Zetland. Born to wealthy parents, she has always lived in the house where she grew up in a northern English seaside town. For the majority of her life she was unloved, sometimes tolerated, but never appreciated. Marion is plain and not very smart. Now that her parents are both dead, she lives with her brother John. She has never worked, and her practice of watching daytime television while munching on sweets has made her overweight. The large Georgian house has become dirty and neglected in the years since their parents death. The siblings meander through the squalor, hardly noticing...

At the age of fifty-four, Marion looks years older. Sadly, she still sleeps in the twin bed she has always had. She is accompanied only by the myriad soft toys that she calls her friends. She has never had affection, romance, or even the attention of anyone other than her older brother John. He in turn is sometimes tolerant of Marion, though he is also bullying and emotionally abusive. She adores him and fears him in equal measure.

"Her brother once said if the human race in general shared Marion's disposition, it was unlikely they would have evolved much beyond the level of jellyfish."

Incredibly lonely, Marion resorts to a colourful fantasy world of daydreams. She imagines being pretty, being loved, having children of her own....

Marion and John exist on a diet of canned food and store-bought bread and biscuits.

The siblings live together year after year. Since John lost his job as a school teacher, he spends even more time in the house. Birthdays, Christmas, summer, winter, it is just the two of them..... except for the visitors. John keeps his visitors in the cellar. Sometimes Marion forgets that they are there. Other times, like Mondays for instance, she is brutally reminded when she has to do their laundry.

"And if she was powerless to help, wasn't it better not to know what things were really like down there? Compassion for the visitors struggled with the desire for ignorance, producing in Marion a paralyzing anxiety that she could relieve by striking her temples with her knuckles as if physically expelling the verminous thoughts from her head."

Life carries on much as usual until John suffers a heart attack and is hospitalized. Never having run the house by herself, Marion is adrift. And what is to become of the 'visitors'?

MY THOUGHTS

Don't you just love it when you discover a new author that you plan to follow indefinitely? Well folks, Catherine Burns is just such an author. I loved her writing which kept me immersed in the novel throughout. Her characters were vividly drawn and the setting remarkably 'real'. The protagonist was pitiable yet fearsome. To render that dichotomy requires skill.

Reading this book was quite disturbing yet I felt compelled to rapidly turn the pages to discover Marion's ultimate fate. If you read this novel, you will be as absorbed as I was. Poor, poor Marion.... but yet....

I cannot wait to read the next book by Catherine Burns. She has made a fan of me with her debut novel. Highly recommended!

"Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John in a decaying Georgian townhouse on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her fifties who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to shut out the shocking secret that John keeps in the cellar. Until, suddenly, John has a heart attack and Marion is forced to go down to the cellar herself and face the gruesome truth that her brother has kept hidden. As questions are asked and secrets unravel, maybe John isn't the only one with a dark side."

I was allowed to read this book via NetGalley and Legend Press, which I was grateful for, but I found the book far too dark and disturbing for me to actually enjoy. It was a hard slog to get into the story and actually understand the characters and although I guess I was not supposed to like them, they irritated me and I did not bond with them in a way that made me want to keep going with the book. I did finish it, however, as I felt compelled to discover the ending, but was left a bit flat and disappointed.

A dark and disturbing read. Not likeable characters but I don't think the aim was to like them. A bit too slow paced for my liking but a generally good read.

Lots of suspense and it’s a very hard book to put down once you start reading. Very well written and I really enjoyed it .
I will be keeping my eye out for other Catherine Burns's novels now.

It is one disturbing novel. It is dark and will definitely leave you unsettled. Still, it is an engaging piece and I was so engrossed that I breezed through the pages despite it being a slow burn. The storyline is absorbing and the characters are definitely interesting and well-developed. If you’re looking for an action-packed thriller, this is not that as it’s more of a character-driven plot kind of novel. The suspense in the story is perfectly paced. The readers were in on the secret early on and we immediately know what to expect as the blurb pretty much spoil it for us. But regardless of knowing what will happen, the author still managed to build anticipation on what’s to come. There’s no big reveal or mind-boggling twist either.

Told in present time with flashbacks of the past, I find Marion and her story fascinating but at the same time, pathetic and slightly depressing. She and her brother were raised in an unconventional manner, where showing love towards each other is not encouraged. She was led to believe by her own mother at that, that she’s stupid, a disappointment, and that no one will ever love her. And as I was reading through her perspective, getting to know more about her, I believed the same thing. The sympathy is also there but only for a while. Through her, we also get to know her brother, John and how creepy he is, how his secret started and what Marion’s got to do with all of it it. Marion sure is the type of character that will stay with you for a long time.

Overall, a brilliantly written debut about a dysfunctional, twisted family. Dark and disconcerting. Unexpected ending but satisfying read just the same.

The Visitors is an extremely dark, chilling and disturbing read. It gets under your skin making the dark and any noises heard at night take on extra significance and creepiness!

I didn’t know what to make of the two main characters John and Marion. They are definitely two very messed up, cruel individuals who seem to be aware that what they are doing isn’t right but don’t seem to care. The fact that John is considered very clever and, as a doctor, a respectable member of society made my skin crawl as I wondered how many other similar people might have also been overlooked because of this. Marion is another very interesting character. I did feel a little sorry for her at the beginning as I felt people judged her without really knowing her and the lack of love or support she got from her mother was heartbreaking to read about. However the fact she just follows John blindly, believing his lies and continues to lie and cover for him after his death is very chilling. It definitely made me uncertain or her and believe there was more to her then I initially thought.

The author cleverly makes the cellar a character in its own right as it’s oppressive, creepy presence is always there lurking in the background and effecting those around it. Not much is disclosed as first about what could be down there so the reader’s imagination goes into overdrive imaging what the secret could be. It definitely lead to some very creepy dreams!

The secret of the cellar is gradually revealed throughout the book and the tension is almost unbearable at times. I simultaneously wanted to keep reading to discover what happens and stop as I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. If I could have read from behind my fingers I think I would have.

This is Catherine’s debut novel and I definitely can’t wait to see what she comes up with next. If you like dark, chilling thrillers with some very messed up characters you’ll love this book.

Huge thanks to Lina and Legend Press for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

If you are looking for a fast paced action packed thriller then this is not the book for you. If on the other hand you like a novel that is full of suspense, and hints of something truly sinister with characters who are dark and chilling then you are going to love The Visitors.

Before that I became immersed in the story of Marion, an almost childlike fifty something with low self-esteem little confidence and totally ruled by her elder brother, John.

Marion does everything for John, cooking, washing and generally pandering to his every demand, with an awareness that what he does in the cellar is not nice burying the knowledge deep within herself, denying its existence. What intrigued from the outset was how Marion ended up in her present situation, the reasons for her lack of action and lethargy, and what a back story she had!

Burns Portrayal of a family with little or no apparent love and affection, particularly, for Marion was superb. It was almost as if the family existed in their own world, with their own rules, an oddity in an increasingly modern world. I loved the image Burns conjured of Marion’s mother, a woman who adored her son, yet remained indifferent to her daughter, her ideas somehow slightly warped, and you knew exactly why Marion was the way she was.

Marion herself, at first glance, seemed one dimensional, what you saw is what you got, but it wasn’t long before Burns began to drop little hints and subtle undertones of a woman with many sides, of something more sinister lurking underneath. I wanted to scream at her to stop aiding her brother, to stand up for herself and break away and when John had a heart attack, I urged her on, as she gained more confidence before recoiling in horror at subsequent events and the real Marion emerged.

I felt I had more questions than answers as the novel drew to a close, not in an unsatisfying way but in a manner that let my imagination run riot. I liked that I felt a distinct chill run down my spine as I read and the underlying menace in the narrative was superbly done. Its compelling and immersive and I am hoping that it will not be long before Burns’ produces another novel.

The Visitors, British author Catherine Burns’ debut novel is dark, chilling, and fascinating. Marion Zetland had an overbearing mother, was incessantly bullied in school by her schoolmates, and is now a 50ish spinster who has no social life and rarely leaves the house. She accepts the fact that she is a bit short on the intelligence scale and relies on her domineering brother, to run things now that their parents are dead. They have no need to work, since their parents left them plenty of money – John, who was considered brilliant was a college professor until being dismissed - but their mansion is deteriorating and things are in a general state of mess. Marion isn’t allowed in the cellar, and doesn’t go down there, even though she hears occasional voices begging for help. When John has a heart attack and is in the hospital, he convinces Marion to take care of his visitors who are in the cellar and she must now face what she has been avoiding for years.

Thriller aficionados who are looking for something different and like dark and riveting novels will welcome this spellbinding book. Burns is an excellent storyteller, and she does a good job of characterizing her characters. The suspense starts early on and doesn’t let up until the very end. Some of the scenarios in this book are bizarre, and they generate enough interest that readers will be kept on the edge of their seats and won’t be able to put the book down.

Although the novel is dark and shocking, there is little or no graphic violence; Burns creates the dark atmosphere skillfully, with inference to what is going on rather than graphic descriptions. The novel cannot be described as light or fun – it is intense, dark, and one that will keep readers’ interest throughout and till the very end.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

I like a book that makes me feel like i need shower after it, a really grimy read, and thats what this book did. My initial thoughts when reading the book description had been, A book about a brother and sister who live together, how bad can that be? Well it was that bad (in a good way) that i spent the whole weekend ignoring my children and life in general to find out how the story would end.
Recommended to all my friends and will stay with me for awhile to come.

Had I written this review as soon as I finished “The Visitors,” it would have been three stars. I’m glad I waited, because this is the sort of book that sticks with you and chills you to the bone whenever you think about it.

It isn’t fast-paced, and honestly some of the scariest moments come when you identify with the loneliness of Marion. Quite a bit of it is simply a slice of life type story with bits of the macabre tossed in. I really don’t want to spoil anything. If you are up for a slow-burn horror/ thriller, this is highly recommended.

Caution: There are some animal deaths, though none particularly graphic.

The book started out fine, but then it dragged along for quite some time without adding anything essential. We follow colorless spinster Marion, who lives with her brother John and leads the most unremarkable life I've ever read about. Okay, her creepy brother keeps some 'Visitors' in the cellar, but that's about him, isn't it? Marion just drags through her days watching TV, eating and sleeping. She's always dreaming about a better, more interesting life but never doing anything about it. And that's her big problem: she never acts, only barely reacts and everything happening out of order is a nuisance and strain. Only when her brother has to stay in hospital for a longer period of time, she is forced to take some action, whether she likes to or not. About three quarters of the book deal with the daily life of Marion, including flashbacks to her past, which is as uneventful as it can get. Even the small episodes where her brother's secret surfaces to her consciousness or threatens to be uncovered do not alter the slow and steady flow of the story. While this serves perfectly to describe Marion's character, at the same time it turns this story into a very uninspiring read.

There was not a single likable character in this book, maybe apart from Marion's aunt who is only mentioned as a background actor but as it turns out had great influence on her. During the middle of the book I was repeatedly tempted to give up out of boredom. Even the ending where John's horrible secret is finally laid open in all its horror was too predictable to surprise. Only Marion's transformation came unexpected and finally breathed some life into the story. This was an OK read but not a pleasant one.