Catherine Burns

Grey Gardens meets Room in The Visitors, as a spinster must confront the horror that her brother has kept under lock and key in the basement of their crumbling mansion.

The Visitors

“Once you start Catherine Burns's dark, disturbing, and enthralling debut novel, it's hard to stop. The Visitors is bizarrely unsettling, yet compulsively readable.” —Iain Reid, internationally bestselling author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things With the smart suspense of Emma Donoghue’s Room and the atmospheric claustrophobia of Grey Gardens, Catherine Burns’s debut novel explores the complex truths we are able to keep hidden from ourselves and the twisted realities that can lurk beneath even the most serene of surfaces. Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother John in a crumbling mansion 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 live by John’s rules, even if it means turning a blind eye to the noises she hears coming from behind the cellar door...and turning a blind eye to the women’s laundry in the hamper that isn’t hers. For years, she’s buried the signs of John’s devastating secret into the deep recesses of her mind—until the day John is crippled by a heart attack, and Marion becomes the only one whose shoulders are fit to bear his secret. Forced to go down to the cellar and face what her brother has kept hidden, Marion discovers more about herself than she ever thought possible. As the truth is slowly unraveled, we finally begin to understand: maybe John isn’t the only one with a dark side....

Abbi Emens

Literally, never would have guessed this ending 😶

Tanya Sutton

This book is, at it's root, an in-depth look at the character of two abused children who grow up to be adults. Marion is child-like and anxious, having internalized that she was clumsy, stupid, and ugly. John is a tyrannical monster, raging at Marion over small slights in the childhood home they still share after the deaths of their parents. They live there, surrounded by garbage and rotting food, wearing thread-bare clothing, and something odd in the basement. Burns does an amazing job telling the story from Marion's point of view and I found her endlessly sympathetic. With denial as her primary coping mechanism, Marion refuses to acknowledge "the visitors" John brings to the basement. When she is forced to confront the truth we get to see another side of Marion. Often the ending of a suspense novel can either make or break the book. Not only did this book carry itself just on the characterization of Marion and John but the ending blew me away entirely. Marion is a character I still think about months later...and she still gives me the chills.

(Thank you to Legends Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)

Melissa M.

Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John in a decaying Georgian townhouse on the edge of an English 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.

Jessica De Hoyos

Peppe Sollerman 

Sian Wadey

With the smart suspense of Emma Donoghue’s Room and the atmospheric claustrophobia of Grey Gardens, this “bizarrely unsettling, yet compulsively readable” (Iain Reid, internationally bestselling author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things) thriller explores the twisted realities that can lurk beneath even the most serene of surfaces. What becomes of a child who grows up without love? Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother John in a crumbling mansion 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 live by John’s rules, even if it means turning a blind eye to the noises she hears coming from behind the cellar door...and to the women’s laundry in the hamper that isn’t hers. For years, she’s buried the signs of John’s devastating secret into the deep recesses of her mind—until the day John is crippled by a heart attack, and Marion becomes the only one whose shoulders are fit to bear his secret. Forced to go down to the cellar and face what her brother has kept hidden, Marion discovers more about herself than she ever thought possible. As the truth is slowly unraveled, we finally begin to understand: maybe John isn’t the only one with a dark side....

The Visitors

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