The Darkening Hour

by Penny Hancock

Mona, a migrant domestic worker is employed by London housewife, Theodora. At first Theodora only asks Mona to clean and cook for her, but as unwanted pressures begin to take their toll, she deflects these onto Mona. Slowly, imperceptibly, Theodora's demands increase until she is treating Mona as nothing better than a slave. Mona is going to have to take extreme measures of her own to escape the control of her increasingly abusive employer. So when a murder is committed, who is to blame?

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Audiobook

416 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2013

About the author

Penny grew up in South East London and then did an English degree in Newcastle Upon Tyne. For several years she taught English as a foreign language in Italy, Greece and Morocco. She then took a PGCE, got a job as a Primary school teacher in an inner city London school, and moved into her partner Andy’s short-life house in East London, which is now part of the hardcore under the M11 that links their new home in Cambridge with her birth place in Greenwich!

While bringing up their three children, she continued to teach in primary schools, taught English to asylum seekers, and ran adult education classes in writing. She also wrote articles for various papers (The Independent, The Guardian, The Times Ed, The Sunday Express magazine, and Child Education, amongst others) specialising in family and education. Penny has also written readers for English language learners for Cambridge University Press, and a Primary English course for children published by Longmans. It was an Arvon writing course and an MA in creative writing at Anglia Ruskin University that encouraged her to complete her first novel.

Source: http://pennyhancock.com/bio/

Reviews

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A middle class woman at her wits' end.
A struggling migrant worker with few options for survival.
When tensions boil over, who will be the first to snap?
Will it be Theodora, finally breaking under the pressure?
Or Mona, desperate to find a way out?

I do love a psychological thriller and this was a great one - for once I didnt spend the entire novel waiting for a huge twist in the tale or something completely unexpected (although there was plenty of unexpected things along the way!) because I was so immersed in the differing views of these two women on their relationship - it was fascinating how they reacted to each other and to events in the story.

Dora is absolutely full of a sense of her own importance - she takes on the care of her elderly father after the death of her mother, and I really disliked her holier than thou attitude about it all. Great! We love a character who makes us mad. On the other hand she does struggle to get any free time and it is a tough job so you can kind of feel sorry for her.

Enter Mona, a migrant worker hired by Dora's ex husband to help with the care of Dad. Mona has other reasons for wanting to be in the country - she is super efficient and soon has everything running smoothly. She is also not above helping herself to bits and pieces that don't belong to her, nor to ingratiating herself with Dora's son Leo.

Initially these two think that they are helping each other...but slowly yet surely the relationship between the pair falters.

The very clever thing about this novel was looking at each event through two pairs of eyes - neither of them are utterly faultless and both have a way of making things worse through assumption. Mona's assumption that Dora won't miss a bit of face cream here and there and Dora's assumption that Mona is more slave than employee - expected to work all the hours God sends and then some, it is unsurprising that Mona feels she is entitled to something extra. But then she has other things to hide.

The story ebbs and flows in a terrific manner and the sense of place is amazing. I've tried not to give too much away on where this tale goes - it really is a journey of discovery. Jealousy, resentment, sheer audacity will take you to the ultimate outcome. And I very much enjoyed every minute of it.

Happy Reading Folks!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Setting: London, UK. The book tells the tale of Theodora (Dora) - divorced radio presenter living with her teenage son and elderly father suffering from Alzheimers - and Mona - brought to the UK from Morocco by Theodora's ex-husband to help in the house and with looking after her father. Dora needs Mona to take the strain of her father's care; Mona needs to look for her husband Ali who left her and their daughter Leila and never returned, but has been reported to be in London. Dora thinks quite highly of herself in her job and is hoping for a promotion; Mona is trying to make enough money to send home for her daughter's education and her mother's medical needs.
As the story is told from each characters perspective, you see the selfishness of both - although Mona does try to do a good job for Dora and becomes popular with Dora's father, Charles. Dora however gets increasingly obsessive and suspicious of Mona, thinking she is sometimes insolent and is stealing things from the house to sell (with some justification). But the darkening attitude between the two of them comes to a head when Dora's part-time American lover, Max, flies in and asks to stay in the house one night....
I really enjoyed Tideline by this author yet hadn't picked up another of her books for several years, despite having this one on my bookshelves and a couple more on Kindle, to my shame - as this one was comparable with Tideline and again featured the River Thames as an important part of the setting. It was great having the two characters' different perspectives on what is essentially a tale of modern slavery - Mona has a work visa but only for working at Dora's house: she is not allowed to work anywhere else so must either work for Dora or go home. Hence Mona's quandary when Dora's behaviour toward her becomes more insufferable (to her, but reasonable to Dora). Mona's attempts to search for her husband Ali are often thwarted by Dora, partly because she refuses to let her have time off and partly because Mona hasn't been honest with her, telling her that she is in fact a widow. The ending could have been a bit stronger, some unanswered questions but still another great read from this author - 9/10.

[Debumere · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good!! I enjoyed this book immensely. It had me gripped from start to finish. I was fickle, choosing sides all the way through. Mona or Dora? The scene is set in London and is based around a sibling who is sole carer for her Father until her ex husband sends a maid her way. Maid is fabulous but the relationship between Dora and Mona (maid) is fraught with tension right up to the end. Just fabulous!

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a slow start, I was gripped, then shocked by this psychological thriller. Masterful!

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and predictable.

I didn’t enjoy this at all but read until the end in the hopes it would pick up and SOMETHING would happen… something did happen but it was seriously predictable and just stupid, honestly.

Also, if I need to read grown adults referring to their parents as “daddy” and “mummy” again I will scoop my own eyes out.

[Jane Woodcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow start I thought, but once I got into it, started to enjoy it. Lots of little surprises, and couple of twists. You either loved the characters or hated them.

[A.J. Waines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent novel from Penny Hancock. I love her gentle lilting writing style and the personal voice, within domestic settings. Tragic story and not so removed from fact, which makes it even more poignant. Very clever twists and lots of 'heart in your mouth' moments. Thoroughly recommended.

[Steph A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought this was a corker of a novel, cleverly plotted. Plenty of twists and the tension is ratcheted up between these two women. Well written and thought provoking too. Will be looking for other works from Penny Hancock.

[Ruth Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it keeps you reading but I am not sure I like this one. The chapters switch between Dora (a radio presenter living with her teenage son and elderly father who is suffering from Dementia) and Mona who has come from Morocco to work for Dora as a Domestic Worker and carer for her father. Mona has a work visa, but only for working for Dora. It's cleverly written as we switch between the two characters and see the story from the view of both women, neither of which is completely faultless.

[Claire Wolffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a slow burner, with the writing style difficult to flow until quite a few chapters in, just for me personally, but I stuck with it and glad I did, as it did get better and the pace picked up. Interesting story, some shocks and some great detail!

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was written well, the storyline wasn't predictable and had some good twists. I felt the ending for one of the characters was left not completely finished but highlights that there is another chapter waiting, so had good underlying meanings overall.

[Gillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever story of modern day slavery. The only disappointment is that author didn't really wrap up the story.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Daily Telegraph recently (20/2/15) someone described as a ‘director of the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity’ informed us that immigration is necessary, asking rhetorically, ‘How else will we get enough nurses & carers to look after our ballooning population of elderly people?’ When this elderly person who was reading said article got over my being gobsmacked by the director of an institute for global prosperity’s recommendation to take up a new recreation I'd been missing out on (the hospice for which I work did indeed lay on a hot-air balloon ascent for a pt. who’d had one on his bucket list, but sadly I wasn’t invited to join him), I wondered what it said about Britain - and America too - that because we can’t be bothered to ‘look after’ our own parents & grandparents, we have to import foreigners to care for them.

Mona, in Penny Hancock’s The Darkening Hour, is one of those caregivers, personally selected by a member of the British diplomatic corps to look after his ex-wife’s father, a former restauranteur of irascible habits. As an Alzheimer’s pt, he did not seem entirely convincing to me. Tho’ dementia pts have better & worse days, when the short-term memory is shot, it probably doesn’t come back for the convenience of the author’s plot. The daughter, Dora (unlikely full name Theodora Gentleman) hosts a radio programme where people call call-in to complain about their neighbours, altho’ she’s demoted to a call-in where people call to complain about their defective purchases & lousy service. (Being a regular listener to LBC, I can well imagine what that’s like.) As we might expect from one of Penny Hancock’s characters, Dora is fairly off-the-wall & quite deluded about her abilities as a presenter, an employer, & as a mistress. (She’s having a long-distance affair with a married American doctor who has one of those silly little goatees & somehow manages to afford to fly New York/London/New York for 12 hour assignations - he must spend more time getting to & from the airports than he does in bed with Dora.) I’d diagnose Dora as having Borderline Personality Disorder - that's just this side of full-blown paranoia. She also has a teenage son who is supposed to be preparing for A-levels but does nothing but be a layabout, play video games, & smoke funny things. I can just imagine the comments I’d get from a director of an institute for global prosperity were I to suggest that he should look after his grandfather, so I’ll not.

Penny Hancock has done a lot of research on immigrant workers, & one does feel that Dora is indeed exploiting Mona, whose resident status depends one continuing to work for Dora. But we learn that Mona has her own agenda, hoping to find her ‘husband’ Ali, whom she believes to be practising medicine in Britain, to become a citizen & to bring over her mother for ‘free’ (her word) cancer surgery. Mona indeed has her own delusions as well. She is also busy ripping off Dora’s money & possessions. I feel that both a Ukipper & a Guardianista would find much to agree with in the presentation of the characters' motivations & situation - a sign that Penny Hancock must be doing something right.

For about 2/3 I thoroughly liked The Darkening Hour but unfortunately when we reached the actual crime itself, I was totally incredulous; the denouement depended on Dora's fearing a witness, her father - who I believe couldn’t actually see the crime in the dark, & as an Alzheimer's pt surely couldn’t remember it or the identity of the victim as he claims, much less possibly ever - should he live long enough - testify or persuade a jury. there is actually no chance things could happen the way the plot requires.

There’s a long list of editors, agents, & friends who are thanked in the author’s afterword, & I wonder how they all could have been so preoccupied with helping the author strain the gnats out of the book that no one saw this herd of camels marching though. Still, I shall continue to be a Penny Hancock fan. I love her settings in Greenwich & on the Thames & her dotty protagonists. So let’s say 5 stars for characters & setting, 4 for plot, but only 2 for execution (literal & figurative). As I like the author, I’ll round off in her favour.

[Petra Donatz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Klappentext
Dora Gentleman lebt allein mit ihrem Sohn und ihrem dementen Vater in einem alten Haus an der Themse. Als sie merkt, dass ihr die Situation über den Kopf wächst, engagiert sie eine Hilfskraft. Für Mona ist es die einzige Chance, ihre bedürftige Familie in Marokko zu unterstützen. Aber dann verdüstert sich die Stimmung. Mona merkt, dass Dora nicht die gutherzige Arbeitgeberin ist, die sie sich erhofft hat. Dora dagegen misstraut Mona und fürchtet, dass diese ihr schaden will. Immer mehr entspinnt sich zwischen den beiden Frauen ein Machtkampf, der am Ende ein tödliches Opfer fordert.

Die Autorin
Penny Hancock wuchs in Südost-London auf und unternahm ausgedehnte Reisen als Sprachlehrerin. Heute lebt sie mit ihrem Mann und drei Kindern in Cambridge.

Meine Meinung

Story
Ich habe hier wirklich Probleme euch meine Meinung über dieses Buch kund zu tun, denn es hat meiner Meinung nach nicht den Titel Psychothriller verdient. Die Handlung ist zwar fesselnd, aber ich würde das Buch unter Kategorie Roman einordnen.

Dora holt sich die Marokkanerin Mona ins Haus, die sich um ihren Demenzkranken Vater und den Haushalt kümmern soll. Zuerst denkt Mona sie hat eine gute Stellung erwischt, bis zu dem Zeitpunkt als Dora austickt und sie und Dora sich anfeinden. So könnte man es aus dem Klappentext ablesen. In Wirklichkeit ändert Dora ihr Verhalten Mona gegenüber erst, als diese anfängt sie zu bestehlen und ihren Sohn Leo gegen sie aufhetzt.. Daher kann ich Doras Verhalten, zu Anfang, wirklich gut nachempfinden, finde aber bis zur Seite 300 keinerlei Anzeichen die berechtigen, dieses Buch als Psychothriller einzuordnen.

Dennoch hat das Buch etwas an sich, was den Leser packt und ihn dazu bringt, das Buch zu Ende zu lesen. Leider gibt es auch einige Passagen, die etwas langatmig waren, aber diese überwiegen nicht.

Das Ende war sehr abrupt und es blieben zu viel Fragen offen, was ich wirklich schade fand.

Schreibstil
Das Buch ist leicht und flüssig zu lesen. Es wird immer abwechselnd, mal aus Doras und mal aus Monas Sicht erzählt, was dem Leser ermöglicht, sich mit beiden Charakteren anzufreunden und ihre jeweiligen Handlungen zu verstehen.

Charaktere
Die Charaktere in diesem Buch sind bis auf Mona und Dora eher blass und unscheinbar geblieben. Sie sind aber nicht zwingend nötig um die Handlung spannend zu gestalten. Mona mochte ich nicht wirklich. Sie kommt sofort mit Lügen daher und bestiehlt Dora nach Strich und Faden und wundert sich dann noch, das die Stimmung und das Verhältnis zu Dora sich verschlechtert. Wer hat schon gerne einen Dieb im Haus?
Dora hingegen kann ich zuerst gut verstehen. Sie als jüngste von ihren Geschwistern, hat sich dazu entschieden ihren Demenzkranken Vater aufzunehmen. Sie hat Probleme im Job und ihr Sohn hört mehr auf Mona wie auf sie. Dann stellt sie noch fest, das Mona sie bestiehlt. Soll sie da allen ernstes noch freundlich sein? Ich konnte mich gut in sie hinein versetzen. Doch zum Ende des Buches passiert dann etwas, was den Leser umstimmt und ihn noch einmal umdenken lässt.

Mein Fazit

Ein Buch, welches eigentlich nicht den Titel Psychothriller verdient hat, aber durchaus fesselnd und mitreißend geschrieben ist.
Deshalb vergebe ich auch drei von fünf Sternen. Verschafft euch am besten selber einen Eindruck.

[Lainy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Time taken to read - 6 days

Publisher - Simon & Schuster

pages - 402

Blurb from Goodreads

Meet Theodora
And Mona
Two women, from completely different walks of life, forced by circumstances to live together under one roof.
Both women are at their wits' end, scared of losing the one thing that's most precious to them. So when tensions boil over, who will go to the most extreme lengths to survive?
Will it be Theodora, finally breaking under the pressure?
Or Mona, desperate to find a way out?
In a tale of modern day slavery and paranoia, two women tell their sides of the story.
Who do you trust?


My Review

When I read the blurb, I thought it was about two workers living together, perhaps forced into some kind of labour. However the story is quite different. Theodora is caring for her father who has dementia with little help from the family. She is trying to keep her full time career with her own local show, look after her son who has just came back to live with her after some issues and a brush with the law. Her husband gets her Mona, a live in carer to help look after her father with all of his care and the story centers around this and the relationship between the two.

Mona has left behind her sick mother and little girl, in her own country and with a secret agenda, she is looking for her husband although portrays herself as a widow. She has to juggle the increasing demands of her employer as well as trying to find her husband, in this strange country, with limited means to do so.

Mona is trapped and at the mercy of Theodora's increasing demands. It is a story of slavery and abuse, care, devotion and also a bit of a psychological thriller as you see the increasingly bizarre behavior and decline of one of the characters. The chapters alternate between Theodora and Mona so you can see the different view points on the same situations which works really well.

I think this story could have been fantastic and some of it is very well done, however, it took a while to build up. Some of the behavior I felt was too incredulous, there is a lot of questions left unanswered which I absolutely hate. My opinions of the two women changed quite a bit in the first few chapters and I didn't like either of them, as it went on I found myself feeling for Mona and total disgust for Theodora. It will be interesting to see how they were received by other readers. For the most part this book has had high praise and great ratings so I would definitely recommend it to people, for me though there was more I disliked that I actually liked. 2/5 for me this time, first time reading this author and despite not loving this book, I would read her again.

[Lucy Perry Griffiths · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read the opening chapter of this book once before and can’t think for the life of me where or when, but it’s such a dark couple of pages it came as a terribly creepy and morose de-ja-vu before the book had even begun… it set the mood very well.

Once again, like with her debut ‘Tideline’, Penny has set a novel in my local area where I grew up and lived until last year, so like in ‘I was able to visualise everything very easily.

Dora is struggling to cope with a layabout teenage son and an elderly father, both in her care, so her ex-husband (diplomat in morocco) brings a migrant worker into her life to share the burden. Her role is to help around the house but mostly to take care of the ailing father who is in decline following the death of his wife. Wheelchair bound and suffering from early signs of dementia, he proves a bit of a handful but nothing that hardworking helper Mona can’t deal with. But as Mona becomes more and more indispensable to Dora and her family she is called upon more and more to share other burdens, ultimately chores that should fall well out of her remit…

The story develops around these two central women and the tensions that build between them. If I’m honest I disliked both of them all together – I’ve read reviews where readers have been torn between who to root for: Dora the self-obsessed martyr or Mona the devious migrant worker – simple answer is don’t root for either. I don’t think the author wanted us to like either of them and although you can end up feeling sympathy for one of them certainly more than the other, this isn’t a story about goodies and baddies – it is a book about how we all have it in us to be tipped over the edge and the lengths two ordinary women will go to in desperation.

Midway through, I felt the pace really lift and the tension between the two central women mounts wonderfully. The book takes a turn where it becomes incredibly dark and sinister but Hancock still manages to make it deeply moving. I felt hooked in so much in the end that although I felt a huge sense of relief on the last few pages, I also felt as though there could have been another couple of chapters to close things off but the author lets you make up your own mind on how things transpire.

‘The Darkening Hour’ could make a brilliant 3 part drama for TV – my fingers and toes are crossed in the hope that someone will at some point pick it up and do this. Highly recommend to any lovers of a psychological thriller and a big 4/5 from me.

[The Cannibal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deux femmes… L'une – Theodora – a le pouvoir et détient un quasi droit de propriété sur l'autre femme – Mona – une marocaine importée par son ex-mari pour la seconder.

La seconde femme est ce que l'on peut appeler une esclave moderne car elle est attachée à sa nouvelle patronne. Sur ses papiers, elle ne peut travailler QUE pour elle.

Nous ne sommes pas dans un trou perdu du monde à une époque lointaine mais à Londres, en 2015. Ceci n'est pas une fiction, cette horreur est bien inscrite dans le code du travail.

Si j'ai eu de l'empathie pour Mona, pauvre travailleuse qui ne sait pas ce qu'est devenue son mari et qui a dû s'exiler en Angleterre pour faire vivre sa mère et sa petite fille, j'ai tout doucement commencé à haïr Theodora.

Theodora… le don de Dieu, d'après l'étymologie de son prénom. Notre femme BCBG va sombrer, au fil des pages, du côté tellement obscur de la Force qu'elle en aurait fait pâmer de jalousie le grand Dark Vador himself !

L'écriture est assez simple et le fait d'être à deux voix – Theodora et Mona – va nous donner un point de vue plus élargit et faire monter crescendo le côté psychologique du roman ainsi que la tension qui, telle la petite bête, va monter, monter… jusqu'à l'apothéose des 100 dernières pages.

Tout le sel du roman se trouve dans ces deux personnages ainsi que tout ceux qui gravitent autour et dans cette putain de tension qui va s'insinuer entre Theodora et Mona.

Theodora est parano, j'ai d'ailleurs eu maintes fois l'envie d'aller la noyer dans la Tamise tant elle se prenait pour le nombril du monde, la chouchoute à papa et toussa toussa…

Si je ne l'ai pas fait parce que sa psychologie de cette Méchant Madame est magnifique ! Sa mauvaise foi, son déni… j'en avais les jambes coupées, la gorge nouée, le plexus bloqué et dans ma tête tournait ce « Non, c'est pas possible ».

Au début de ma lecture, j'avais cru entrevoir la fin, mais dans ces fameuses 100 dernières pages, l'auteure m'a asséné un coup de masse comme s'en prenait le pauvre Nicky Larson dans le manga (j'ai de la culture, moi, mâdame !).

Putain, quel duel… digne des meilleurs westerns, mais sans les révolvers… bien que les coups portés fassent mal. Très mal.

Un roman qui se déguste et dévore dans un divan confortable, un plaid sur soi car les frissons arriveront bientôt pour ne plus vous quitter jusqu'à la fin. Et encore après.

Un roman à l'ambiance aussi lourde que le buste de la maman de Theodora. K.O en 421 pages. Soigneur, venez me relever !

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into this book, nearly gave up but am glad I didn't. As others have said, it's a thriller based on the relationship between a successful career woman with an elderly father to look after, and a Moroccan migrant worker who is hired to look after the ageing parent, who quickly becomes a slave with no rights, no time off. and no privacy. This is the shocking part of the story: the modern-slavery aspect. The career woman's descent into paranoia is well documented, as is the hired help's concern for her family back home and her missing husband. The chain of events that unfolds towards the end is more than fanciful, but that's Penny Hancock for you! Nonetheless, the setting of the river Thames and Deptford in London is a great background, and almost an additional character, as it was in Tideline, Hancock's previous work. I shall probably be reading her third novel (there's a sample chapter of it in the back of the paperback edition of The Darkening Hour) which appears to be set on England's East Coast.

[Rialto Savage · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this psychological thriller although the ending was, I thought, bizarre and a bit of a let down. Almost as if the writer couldn't think what to do with the characters. However, the main body of the book kept me wanting to read, a bit of a page turner. The story is about a rich, spoilt, seemingly successful (won't spoil it for those who want to read) radio presenter, who hires an immigrant worker from Morocco, to look after her father who has Alzheimer's. The relationship with them all, starts off well but soon lapses into total control by the protagonist, and soon Mona, the immigrant worker, finds she has become a slave, with no passport, money or bed, totally reliant on the main character.
I would recommend this book as a good read. It also gave me a greater understanding of how someone as alone and vulnerable as Mona, can so easily become enslaved in 2013.

[Cath]

Set in London, a juxapositioning tale of class, family and society.

Mona - brought to London to work as home carer, leaving her daughter and elderly mother behind in poverty. Striving to support her family at home, whilst searching for her husband.

Dora - a divorcee, obsessed with social status, class and image. Seemingly grieving for her mother, caring for her father suffering from dementia and struggling with her relationships with her son, colleagues and married lover.

Shockingly achievable in today's society and one that all people of a certain class (in the so-called classless society in which we live) should read to encourage a bit of self reflection. Interesting reflection on the difference between America and traditional England, and their approach to social positioning.

Highly recommend.

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story covers domestic workers from abroad and their treatment (ill treatment in this case) by British employers. The tale is told alternately by Dora (the employer) and Mona (the Moroccan employee)which works well as a narrative device. She has been employed to look after Dora's ageing father who has dementia but quickly becomes the house slave.
Whilst I could (sadly) well believe how staff can be ill treated and taken off the radar, I found the chain of events completely unbelievable which then flawed the whole book.
There were touches of descriptive brilliance in the Deptford area and the urban landscape but I felt that the plot was far too over the top and less could have been more.

[Nicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a while to read this book unlike Tideline which i read quite quickly.I thought Theodora was so annoying,she had such a high opinion of herself and her idea of taking care of her father bordered on the lines of abuse,she only seemed interested in her son after everything went wrong.i felt really sorry for Mona who was the complete opposite of Theodora and was doing all she could for her family and you could understand and forgive the fact that she helped herself to a few things every now and again with some encouragement from leo.
It would have been nice to know what happened to both of the women but the ending gives the reader the chance to imagine that for themselves.

[Sal Noel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my regular reading material and did manage to get to the end. Good idea for a story and I liked how the relationship between Dora and Mona developed. I had a little empathy as my Dad came to live with me but that's where the similarity between me and Dora ended. It reminded me of some psychology unit I did at school where people are given a role, and they adhere to expected behaviours- but the writing style- Boy did she like to repeat herself. This book could have been half the length, or the same length with more depth. I started another book and was desperate to quickly finish this so I could get back to the other one- not a great recommendation.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is told in tandem, with chapters alternately told by Mona and Theodora. Both have their own secrets and hidden agendas so it's hard to know who to trust or feel sorry for, which leads to a really gripping story that will haunt you long after you've turned the final page.

full review on my blog : http://madhousefamilyreviews.blogspot...

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another brilliant psychological thriller from Penny Hancock evoking the darker side of human nature, portraying beautifully how far we are prepared to go to protect what we want, how easy it is to slip into madness. Like in Tideline, her debut, London and the brooding Thames play an important part in this tale. Loved it.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story opens with a body found in the river with the simple words 'Mona's gone'. We then go back three months and read the stories of Mona who is hired by Dora to look after her ageing father. I loved that the story alternates between Mona and Dora - we hear the events unfold from their viewpoints. The tension builds throughout the story, making me want to keep reading.

[Mihaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the story but there was a thing that was constantly bugging me. Everything that has happened, happened from lack of communication. Why did the maid ask for help from different people, but not from Dora? Why did Dora never ever talked to her maid?
It was so frustrating seeing how this lack of communication, of mutual understanding, can turn out in something horrible with no turning back.

[Nicola Townend · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me awhile to get into and I nearly gave up on a couple of occasions. Neither of the two main characters were particularly likeable. There was an excellent opportunity for a brilliant twist in the tale but it never materialised.

[Royboygeorge · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding picture of domestic slavery. With so much emphasis in politics about immigration, this is an example of the kind of exploitation of poor people's desperation which should be a government priority.