The Open House

By: Sam Carrington

Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Annette Holland

Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

Everyone’s welcome. But not everyone leaves....

Nick and Amber Miller are splitting up and selling their Devon family home. But despite the desirable location, the house isn’t moving. Not a single viewing so far.

When their estate agent suggests an open house event, Amber agrees, even as she worries about their gossiping neighbours attending and snooping around their home.

But Amber has more to worry about than nosy neighbours. Because 13 people enter her house that afternoon, and only 12 leave.

Someone doesn't want the house to sell and is willing to do anything to stop it....

©2020 Sam Carrington (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"Lacing everyday life with menace is Sam Carrington’s greatest strength as a storyteller." (The Times)

"The premise grabbed me right away and the novel itself didn’t disappoint! It’s a creepy, compelling read, full of twists and turns with well-drawn, unreliable characters that kept me guessing!" (Sarah Pearse)

"A claustrophobic psychological thriller that had me double checking my doors and windows were locked!" (Vicki Bradley)

That Was Rough

I couldn't stand Amber for soooo many reasons. She is like somebody experiencing a mental health crisis. The last 4 hours were her ramblings and conspiracy thoughts. Going from one person did it to another. Most authors can pull it off decently, not this one. How she goes from a crazy idea through this web of thoughts, to end up even crazier. I wanted out of that woman's head. The narrator for Barb had a lisp that took a little to get used to her s words..

The overall story is blah and the ending is predictable. It wasn't horrible, those are the ones I get my money back. I didn't do that with this.

Really? Bizarre and over-the-top! Illogical!

My first audiobook by author Sam Carrington and most likely my last. As Kristin Atherton is a favorite narrator of mine, she is the reason I chose this one; she and Annette Holland expertly brought all these ludicrous, quirky and odd characters to life. Carrington’s plot starts out well enough until midway through. If you are intent on finishing, listen intently as there are so many absurd twist and turns, zigs and zags, ups and downs, you don’t want to miss anything, well, maybe you won’t care by then. The story becomes so confusing, far-fetched and then I didn’t really care anymore. It took me several rewinds as the book started to plod along... slowly. I have to admit that I rather did enjoy it at the very beginning, but rolled my eyes at the most unbelievable and ridiculous ending.
👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻

So-so. Not as good as some published reviews say.

This story would have benefited from some more brutal editing. It plods at a slow place, using many words when few are needed, introducing irrelevant details which neither add plot not character. The story is fairly predictable and frankly I struggled to get past the first few chapters.

The narration is quite good EXCEPT for when she does the children's voices, which are all strident, loud, and very uncomfortable to listen to. Audible's engineers should have picked this up in the studio.