There's nothing more chilling than a psychological domestic thriller set in a possibly haunted manse on the atmospheric "wild and untamed" English moors during the depths of winter; that's where Sarah Pinborough sets the Edgar Allan Poe-infused We Live Here Now. Three narrators (one a raven committed to "forevermore") merge in her template for terror.
Freddie and Emily Bennett have left London for the remote Larkin Lodge, seeking a fresh start. Freddie harbors guilt and shame; Emily is recovering from a miscarriage and lengthy coma after an accidental (or perhaps not) fall from a cliff in Ibiza. Their marriage is also in free fall. Lying to each other doesn't help. Are these facile secret keepers also lying to readers?
The situation quickly goes awry. Solitude, fear, and inexplicable events overtake Emily. That omniscient raven startles her. She cuts her foot on an exposed nail, hears scratching and thuds from the supposedly vacant third floor. Windows open and shut, letting in frigid air. A rank odor permeates rooms. Books whose titles spell out dire warnings fall from shelves. Ledgers hidden in cupboards reveal past horrors.
The couple tries hard to acclimate. They frequent the "proper old-fashioned pub"; ingratiate themselves to previous owners of the estate; befriend the meddlesome vicar. Pinborough's expressive prose adds an edge of squeamishness to the accumulating terrors. It pulsates with the ever-present eerie sense of foreboding, holding the harrowing grotesqueries a heartbeat away.
A macabre resolution underscoring the darkly ironic refrain "Marriage is teamwork" culminates in a properly sinister ending. --Robert Allen Papinchak, freelance book critic