A review by xabbeylongx
The Guest House by Abbie Frost

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Spoilers Ahead: I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did, but I'm so glad I managed to read it. 
The story follows Hannah as she gets over the death of her boyfriend with alcohol. It has become an addiction, and she hasn't got very many friends. The one friend she did have said she wanted nothing to do with her until she sorted her life out. Her and her boyfriend had planned a trip ages ago, and she decides to go on it. 
From the get-go, it's very weird. The taxi stops outside the woods, and she realises she has to walk. It takes over an hour to get to the cabin, and when she gets there, she's the only one there. She tries to calm her nerves with a drink, but she feels there's someone there with her. 
She meets the other guests, after thinking she'll be alone there all week. Mo and Sandeep, are there, back in the area, then Lucy, who wants to work on her music, and a family consisting of Liam, Rose and Chloe. Liam is very flirty, and Rose is very angry, and Chloe is stuck in-between the two. 
As the week goes on, not very many of them get a lot of sleep, although it's mostly Hannah and Chloe affected. Hannah thinks the house is haunted, hearing wailing children and footsteps, and things going missing. They find Rob, the gardener, and he tells them about the child in the window. 
Hannah spends most of her time exploring the house. She gets locked in a room with a load of diaries, one about a girl called 'Maddie'. From the writing, Hannah assumes that's some sort of pet. 
Mo gets on very well with Hannah, but Sandeep is very ill. He says he doesn't want to be at the house anyway, because he has bad memories, and he's ill most of the time. They want to go to the shops, but that's somehow closed, and a storm comes in, rendering it almost impossible to leave. 
Things get weirder. They find Rob on the Earth, and he's been killed. Liam tells everyone to go back to the house, and he stays with Liam. After hours, he says he's going to stay with a friend, and the police will talk to them tomorrow, as the storm is too bad. Rosa is in uproar, as she knows Liam is cheating on her. 
Things get even weirder when Rosa shouts for Mo to come up, because Sandeep has died. Even though there's a storm brewing, Mo leaves, telling them that someone is killing them off, one by one. 
Hannah, Lucy, Rosa and Chloe are left now. As the power goes out, they try and find the switch to get the power working again, and instead find Liam's dead body. It's made to look like suicide, but they know it's murder. They start to suspect one another, and go their separate ways. 
When Hannah looks for the others, suspecting Lucy the most, she finds Rosa dead. She looks for Chloe, and then finds herself in the pool unable to swim. Hannah and Lucy suspect each other, but Hannah soon finds out that Lucy was trying to save her, not shove her in the pool. A few of Hannah's ghosts arise, and they're no longer left wondering who Maddie it. 
This book was so thrilling. I was gripping my seat the entire time, just the whole thing was amazingly written. Throughout, the pace was brilliant, and I was left feeling so curious about what was happening. I got chills from reading it, and the plot twist at the end - wow. I normally like to think I'm good at predicting the endings of books, but this one knocked me for six. I loved every minute of it, and I certainly think I will read more of Abbie Frost's work.