The Tinderbox

Laura Elliot

Published date: December 1st
by publisher: Bookouture

Rating 4Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Mystery & Thrillers

Blurb: In the small hours of a cold winter morning, charcoal grey clouds gather in the sky over Hyland Hall where a young teenage girl is about to make an emergency call to say her life is in danger …

With her marriage in pieces and desperate to find work and a new home for her and daughters, Isobel and Julie, Sophy accepts a job as a live-in nurse for Jack Hyland.

Once a magnificent house, Hyland Hall has fallen into disrepair and its owner, Jack, disfigured in a terrible fire that broke out on the property years ago, is now a recluse.

As Sophy’s daughters struggle to adjust to their new surroundings, exploring every forbidden corner of the house, Sophy does her best to care for Jack and her broken family.

But Jack has secrets of his own and Sophy’s arrival is about to set in motion a chain of events that will uncover the devastating truth of Hyland Hall’s past. A truth that will put her daughters in harm’s way.

An intense and emotionally engrossing read that will keep you compulsively turning the pages late into the night. If you read one book this year, make it The Tinderbox. 

My thoughts:
The Tinderbox is a fantastic psychological thriller, and I really enjoyed it.
You are straight into the storyline when a young girl makes a call to the emergency services, then we go back in time a bit to learn the story of Sophy and her two daughters Julie and Isobel, who are starting a new life after divorce. Sophy is a nurse and Jack needs care following an accident so Sophy moves her family into Jack’s home.
I really enjoyed getting to know the characters, and felt they were well written, and I really got to know them well. I loved the rural Irish setting of this book, and felt the author did a brilliant job building this storyline, and I enjoyed this book more and more with each page.
This was my first book by this author, and I very much want to read more of her books. 

Thank you to Laura Elliott, Bookouture and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy of this book.