I LOVE a good friend group thriller and when it's a locked room mystery too, I am in heaven!

There Should Have Been Eight took a minute to get going as I had to get a handle on this group of friends and their relationships. But once it took off, it was twisty and suspenseful. The New Zealand setting was amazing.

This is my first Nalini Singh book and I will definitely be checking out more of her books!

4.5 stars, rounded up. This one was a slow burn for the first half, while still being really interesting and letting readers get to the meat of the characters and the backstory between them. I was on the edge of my seat with the back half of this one, though, and it gets pretty intense and hard to put down. Excellently done.

3.5 rounded up to 4

I am prefacing this review with the statement that Nalini Singh is one of my favorite authors. I feel I must now change that to one of my favorite paranormal authors. IMHO her mysteries do not deliver the same level of writing that her paranormal romance do. I cherish her world building and her character development. I did not find that in this novel. This novel seemed very small. The setting was small and the characters were small. I had no idea where they were or who they were, and nor did I really care.

This is in a sense a locked room mystery, or in this case a abandoned on an island mystery. New Zealand geography is amazing, yet there really was minimal description given of where they were. The best developed character was the creepy mansion they were trapped in. These 7 people were supposedly really good friends, yet, that never came across. I just really did not like any of these people.

The mystery itself, was pretty obvious. There were tidbits dropped throughout the story leading you to the conclusion. Truthfully there always seemed to be only one answer. While, the ending itself may have seemed to come out of thin air, it was referenced throughout the story.

Received as an ARC from Netgalley for an honest review.

Thank you @berkleypub and @prhaudio for my complimentary copies. My thoughts are my own.
#penguinrandomhousepartner

A reunion of friends at a creepy gothic mansion with secret rooms and hidden passages, a winter storm, flickering power, strange events, and a couple of murders…these elements include EVERYTHING I love in a thriller! This book starts out as a slow burn as the author takes time to develop the setting and the characters, including their histories and a past tragedy. The action definitely picks up during the second half as a suspicious death occurs and one of the group goes missing. The conclusion may have been a little unrealistic, but I definitely enjoyed the ride.

I checked out both the audio and print versions of this book and I enjoyed both. There are a lot of characters with (for me) unusual names. I had difficulty at first figuring out who was male/female and which characters were couples, but once I made a few notes to myself I was able to keep them straight! This is the first book I have read by Nalini Singh and now I definitely plan to check out her other books! Read this if you love gothic thrillers with lots of drama and atmosphere!

Massive thanks to NetGalley & Berkley Publishing for the gifted copy, which I voluntarily read & reviewed.

There Should’ve Been Eight by Nalini Singh is an ominous & perfectly captivating mystery novel about a group of friends reuniting years later in a remote mansion for one unforgettable weekend. This group of friends is bonded through the years of love & friendship from school & sadly still reeling from the loss of one of them from years prior. There’s marriage troubles, life-changing diagnosis, terrifying events & so much more coupled with the fact that they are gathering in a gigantic house in the middle of nowhere with quite a dark past. Cue the sinister soundtrack & buckle in for one haunting ride!

There Should’ve Been Eight is great for fans of…
🖤Twisted Mystery
🖤Isolated/Remote Location
🖤Haunted House
🖤Reunion of Group with Tragic Past
🖤Disability/Chronic Illness Rep.

If you’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a group of your oldest & dearest friends & horrific things keep happening, who do you question? What is happening? Who is the culprit? These are the thoughts that were constantly racing through my mind as I hurriedly flipped through this story having to know what happened next. The gothic house in the isolated location with rough weather set the perfect tone that had my stomach clenched with nerves as I read.

The beginning starts at a slower pace as there are more than a handful of friends & both their pasts & presents to establish. Once the story is set up, the mysterious events begin & I was beyond intrigued.

The main character telling the story has a recent life changing diagnosis & the chaotic feelings & anxiety from recent chronic illness felt so realistic. As a disabled person, I am always grateful to see representation.

If you are looking for a clever & secluded surprising mystery, There Should’ve Been Eight is a fantastic recommendation!

It took me a minute to figure out a rating for There Should Have Been Eight by Nalini Singh, and that may have just been me, but this is a hard one y'all! The overall pacing of this book is very slow, and it would be extremely easy to lose focus, especially if you are listening to a bad audiobook. Luckily for me, the audiobook for this was very good, and despite Saskia Maarleveld having a very odd mix of fast and slow narration (no idea what this is due to but not her fault), she 100% kept me glued to the story and on the edge of my seat. I did love the hidden passageways and the general eeriness of the atmosphere, it just took a little too long for the action to hit.

Around the 70% mark things do end up getting pretty wild, and I had to slow the audiobook down to make sure I didn't miss anything. Luna's vision problems started to make things pretty interesting, and it kept making me wonder if I was getting the full picture of what was going on. If you find yourself getting bogged down by the pacing of There Should Have Been Eight, I fully suggest you hang on because the end is definitely worth the wait! The twist was a jaw-dropper and added in with the secluded setting and the superb characterization made this slow burn still hit with a punch.

*4.5 Stars On My Instagram Account*

"We called ourselves friends but we were more ghosts of friends pasts."

Whew! There Should Have Been Eight by new favorite thriller author Nalini Singh took me on a twisty ride of red herrings, WTF just happened chapter endings, and reveals I never even thought of in my wildest imagination.

They have known each other since they were trouble making teens but have scattered over the last nine years since the untimely death of their friend Bea. Now the remaining seven are reuniting at Bea's family estate, high in the beautiful but often deadly Southern Alps of New Zealand, with her sister Darcie.

It's through Luna's eyes that this chilling tension filled thriller unfolds which is appropriate since no one knows she's slowly losing her eyesight from a genetic disease. Before she's blind she wants to look into the eyes of the remaining friends because something has never seemed right about Bea's death and her cremation with no funeral. None of them got to say goodbye.

To add to the gothic atmospheric mood of this creepy mansion with its hidden rooms and eerie paintings is the sudden freezing blizzard making them all trapped with their secrets, lies and after a fall (maybe push?) down the stairs, a dead body.

The writer sets us up during the first half explaining relationships, past loves, new lovers and revelations about Bea that are not just shocking to us but to Luna too.

Then in the second half the author blows it all up with turns that will give you whiplash of the brain. The last few chapters left me breathless and up until 3 am to finish it.

There Should Have Been Eight should be a limited series ready to be produced by Netflix. You should already be reading it.

I received a free copy of this book from Berkley Publishing via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

I adore 'locked room' mysteries. I think that author Nalini Singh does as well! Her new novel - There Should Have Been Eight - starts out with a get together of old friends - minus one.

What else does a locked room tale need? A 'been in the family for decades' old pile. Complete with hidden rooms. Oh, and it has a burned out wing. And....it's also way out on it's own, far from the village. Mobile signal? Good luck with that. A perfect setting. Loved it.

Our lead character is Luna. She her own issues, but isn't ready to share with the others just yet. She's also a photographer which works well for this character. I really liked her personally, her way of looking at things, her thoughts, and her decisions. The others are a mixed bag with many of them now coupled up. Lots of personalities.

Singh tells her book in a now and then timeline fashion. Again, a style I like and appreciate. Readers glean bits and bobs from the both time frames. Do they match? Do they remember it? Has someone got their own agenda? Who can we trust as readers? For me, they're all suspects. I started to narrow down my choice for 'whodunit' as the end drew near. I was (happily) surprised by a great gotcha.

Suspense is the name of the game in this book. It kept me interested and and invested from first page to last! I would happily pick up another book from Nalini Singh.

A spooky old house with a dark past isolated on the edge of the wilderness, eight guests who share a painful connection, and a storm closes them in right when the disturbing incidents appear to be more. Talk about the perfect set up for a modern gothic suspense, right?



Nalini Singh had the chills running up my spine and my undivided attention once things got rolling in her latest standalone thriller, There Should Have Been Eight.



Acclaimed photographer and slowly going blind, Lu, is the one narrating the story from the point she returns to New Zealand to join her six surviving besties and to meet one’s fiancée. The entire group, a diverse ethnic and socially, are conscious that they are missing one of their friend group- Beatrice. Bea was the lively member who held them all together and they split into their various careers and lives when she was gone. But, Bea’s older sister has opened up their old family home for the group to gather and events are set in motion. Lu is determined to use this trip back to get answers about the circumstances of Bea’s death.



There Should Have Been Eight starts slowly with a blend of present and past as the group of friends are introduced along with their connection to Bea. Meanwhile, they settle into the old rattling Victorian era house that was left empty for many years and is not modernized so generator power and fireplace heat. Lu is sensitive to the atmosphere of the place that is a photographer’s dream if one wants gothic. I liked how the disturbing incidents start as a trickle and then build so that they are all facing a drastic life and death situation, isolated and looking warily at each other.



I thought I was so clever to have figured out the who, but I only had the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in that I got part of the truth, but there was a whole lot more that I didn’t get. I loved that feeling of not knowing who to trust and this made for a fantastic suspense. The denouement even had a couple extra twists just when I was starting to relax.



In summary, this was superb and my favorite of Singh’s thrillers so far. If you’re looking for an old-style spooky atmospheric slow-build suspense, look no further.

God, I love an isolated thriller so much! They bring me so much joy. This was a fabulous read with many twists and turn. I really thought I knew who was behind it all and I was not correct which makes for a good book. Singh writes an atmospheric thriller that really pulls in the reader. I felt like I was in the burned wing of the estate while reading. I will be checking out more of her books now!

There Should Have Been Eight is a slow-burn atmospheric psychological thriller that took me on a wild ride in the book's second half. I've not recovered yet from all the twists and turns. However, I have managed to pick my jaw up off the floor.

The first half was difficult for me. I loved the gothic-like atmosphere of the old house full of hidden rooms and passages, but the slow pace almost had me giving up. Then I reached the halfway point, and things picked up so rapidly that there was no looking back. I love a wild ride, and this story did deliver that. I mostly predicted the ending, minus some details, which disappointed me. Still, more twists and turns came, and I quickly forgot about that disappointment.

Of course, the less I say, the better for your reading enjoyment, so I will stop here. I will end with the fact that even though I struggled with the slow pace of the book's first half, the book's second half was everything I could have wanted and more.

A new to me author but will be seeking more of their books.
‌
This thriller starts off slow laying the groundwork. A group of friends, minus one they lost tragically, get together for a reunion at an isolated location. A storm is rolling in. Strange things start to happen, including the appearance of a creepy doll!
‌
The tension builds. They all suspect each other. But no one can figure out what’s going on. You feel the creepiness in the old mansion. Great twists! Kept me guessing until the reveal!
‌
Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley pub for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

4.5⭐️ Seven friends reunite at a family estate to remember the one who is no longer with them. As a blizzard isolates them from the rest of the world, these friends are forced to confront the secrets of the past.

I am leaving the synopsis short and sweet because There Should Have Been Eight is the type of book that you really want to go into blind. This insanely atmospheric story took me by surprise in the best way. I was captivated from start to finish, not just with the story itself, but with every single one of the unique and very flawed characters, each carrying a multitude of secrets. It was as though Singh was slowly peeling back the layers of this story, giving us just what we needed to know at any given time, and no more. If you are a lover of locked room mysteries, add this one to your radar.

ʀ ᴇ ᴀ ᴅ ɪ ғ ʏ ᴏ ᴜ ʟ ɪ ᴋ ᴇ :
•locked room mystery
•secluded estate
•set in the alps of New Zealand
•single POV with ensemble cast
•atmospheric suspense
•Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware

Thank you Berkley Pub for my gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

If I would only use one word to describe this book it would be atmospheric. While I haven’t read any of the author’s romance or fantasy books, I love her slow burn thrillers. She really knows how to set the mood. An isolated house. And of course a storm. A group of close friends, well they used to be close, but they don’t see each other anymore. And not that we need anymore mood, but the MC is losing her eyesight, so I was never sure how reliable she could be.

There was the mystery that went along with the shady things happening at the house, but there was also a mystery surrounding what happened to one of the group. I felt the cold, I felt the MC’s isolation between her being single and the other couples and the eyesight.

I kept getting and then there were none feels which started with the name but also the vibe of the book. I could not figure out where this one would end and all my guesses were not correct.

This definitely needs to be on your radar if you are a fan of slow burn atmospheric suspense novels with deep characterizations.

A pretty good read if not a bit longer than I would have liked. I like this new look on this author. She is making her way into thriller/suspense genre and I'm not mad at it.

Overall, There Should Have Eight was an entertaining read and I look forward to seeing how far this author ventures in the genre.

This was a great read and I really liked the uniqueness of the main character, Luna, who had no partner and axes to bury, but who was also losing her sight. I kept wondering if it was a metaphor (along with her name) while I was reading.

If you like psychological suspense with a slight paranormal twist, don't miss this one!

Thank you for my e-copy!
(full post on my blog)

As a devoted fan of Author Nalini Singh's Guild Hunter series, I couldn't wait to crack open her first offering in the suspense thriller genre. THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN EIGHT is an intense, locked room style mystery set in a partially burned-out gothic mansion in New Zealand during a storm that strands the cast with no contact with the outside world for the duration. We're talking secret panels and tunnels, mysterious attacks, people who disappear, murder. Are you spooked yet?

Nine years ago, a tight group of eight teenagers were the best of friends until Bea, the girl everyone loved, died, and the group drifted apart. Bea's sister, Darcie, organizes a reunion of the seven remaining now adults in her family's old, isolated mansion - an opportunity for the group to catch up with each other and reminisce about Bea and the good old days. Luna, our narrator, is a photographer who's just received devastating news that she has a genetic disease that will steal her eyesight over time, a diagnosis she chooses not to share with the others - a decision that elevates the tension and drama to come as readers soon learn. It's through her eyes and camera lens that readers learn about each of the other individuals in attendance along with their sordid affairs and dark secrets. Luna hopes to gain answers to troubling questions surrounding Bea's death as well as the shocking decision by Darcie to have her sister cremated before any of her friends could say goodbye. There's a lot of resentment, frustration and rage festering between members of the group, and it's soon painfully clear someone is seeking revenge. When a fall down the stairs results in one dead from a broken neck and a blizzard cuts off communication with the outside world, it becomes a game of survival. One of them is a murderer . . . who is it?

THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN EIGHT is a chilling, highly atmospheric gothic suspense thriller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats as they're charged with sifting through the multitude of secrets, lies and strange happenings to unmask a murderer. Singh excels at building intriguing, beautiful yet deadly worlds that take on the role of another character as is evident in the setting of this story. While some may feel the pace moves a bit slow in the beginning, I appreciate the author's diligence while introducing each player and setting the scene, affording readers a good feel for each character and their stake in the deadly game playing out. Readers will find it nigh on impossible to put this book down as the pace and tension increase dramatically as members go missing or suffer mysterious accidents and the full extent of their dire, life or death situation becomes a reality.

Author Nalini Singh has penned an intriguing, super atmospheric locked room mystery in THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN EIGHT. Strong characterizations, a tension laden plot line and spooky setting are all inducive to a creepy, gothic style who-done-it mystery. I'll admit to being surprised at the big reveal in an explosive climax that's sure to leave readers stunned, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else Singh will release in this genre. Highly recommended to fans of locked room mysteries and suspense thrillers.

Special thanks to Berkeley Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

There Should Have Been Eight was a good book, nice writing style. Especially for a book that has a plot that has been written over and over, but this book was more fresh. The plot was a group of friends from the past, minus one who had passed away. The place they picked for their reunion, was of course a secluded place, where weather conditions kept them from leaving.

The first half was slower, but the second half was much faster paced and had some pretty good twists and turns. All in all, I would've given this a 3.5 because this plot has been done over and over and so I'm tired of this plot, however, I enjoyed it, especially the last half. 4 stars.

Luna and her friends are reuniting at a remote estate, getting together after years apart, but one of them isn’t part of the group. Bea Shepherd, Darcie’s younger sister, died eight years earlier and it still doesn’t make any sense to Luna. Bea was a bright star in the group, with her magnetic personality, everyone loved her. Luna can’t forgive the way Darcie handled her death, brushing it and the details under the rug.

Luna has struggled with the loss, but now has an added reason to finally get answers about Bea’s death. She’s going blind and wants to be able to look her friends in the face, see their reactions to her questions. She wants the truth, even if her questions stir up anger and bitterness.

Their meet-up turns dangerous as a winter storm cuts them off from civilization, trapping them at the estate while things start going wrong. Tensions grow while they struggle to survive long enough to escape.

Oh, this was a twisty, atmospheric mystery! It took a little to get into it, getting to know the characters and history, but as soon as strange things started happening, I was hooked! The characters stuck together at a gothic-like, creepy estate upped the tension! There were a couple of surprises as all is revealed! I’m still thinking about the story!

This is a sort of "locked room" mystery. A group of friends are stranded on a remote estate in New Zealand due to unexpected weather. As unexplained things continue to happen, the narrator starts suspecting her friends and the one outsider among them, but what if there is someone else on the estate? What if the things claimed by the sister of their dead friend are untrue? And really, who is torturing all of them?

This may be slightly predictable if you've read a lot of these, but I don't think it takes away from the story. I definitely recommend it.