The Housewarming

Ava left her daughter Abi in a pushchair on the doorstep for a few minutes. When she came back down, the door was open and the pushchair was empty. A year later, Abi has never been found, and Ava is still living on the same street, unable to look at the end of the road.

When the Lovegoods finally hold the housewarming party they have been planning for months, Ava's husband Matt persuades her to go. Among the drink and the small talk, she hears a throwaway comment about that day that does not fit the story she has told herself a thousand times.

S.E. Lynes builds a domestic thriller out of a close-knit suburban street: the friendships, the renovations, the things neighbours notice and choose not to say. What Ava starts pulling at will not stop with one loose thread.