Andrea Mara is a novelist from Dublin, Ireland, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her novel, No One Saw A Thing was a Number 1 bestseller in Ireland and on Kindle. Her 2022 novel, Hide And Seek, was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the year. Her 2021 novel, All Her Fault, was Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Month, and was an Amazon number one bestseller in Irish Crime. Andrea also runs multi-award-winning parent and lifestyle blog, OfficeMum.ie.
You thought you were home alone.
Anya is enjoying a relaxing bath when she hears a noise coming from the ceiling. Through the open bathroom door, she sees the attic hatch swing down, and a masked figure drops to the floor. Thirty seconds later, Anya is dead.
You’re not afraid of being alone in the dark. You’re afraid you’re not alone.
Across town, Anya’s old school friend, Julia, sees an online video of a masked figure climbing out of an attic. She suddenly realizes why the footage is eerily familiar: it was filmed inside her own house in a luxury gated community, designed to keep intruders out.
And now your worst fears are coming true.
Why would a stranger target Julia? Unless of course, it’s not a stranger at all.
Someone In The Attic is a creepy, atmospheric, and highly original whodunnit mystery. The story is set in Ireland and follows divorced mother Julia, who sees her house featured on a viral clip of someone hiding in people’s attics. The story quickly becomes a calculated revenge story involving multiple suspects, both from Julia’s past and her new neighbourhood. The post-divorce dynamic of Julia’s family adds an additional layer of complexity to the story, as her ex-husband’s actions and whereabouts are often under scrutiny. The book also brilliantly showcases how easily people can become manipulated and exploited by modern-day social media and video editing technologies. As fictional as the story may seem, a real-life scenario is frighteningly possible.
There’s a large cast of characters in this story, many of which will have readers questioning their actions and motives. Mara cleverly crafts many scenes where characters appear to be helping Julia find the culprit behind the videos, but there’s always a piece of dialogue or specific action that appears suspicious. The book also includes many flashback scenes showing adolescent Julia and her girlfriends around the time of a suspicious death of their mutual friend. These flashbacks not only add entertainment value to the story but also include several cleverly planted clues in helping to solve the mystery.
The short chapters and chapter cliffhanger endings, typical of Mara’s writing style, definitely assist in keeping readers engaged. After the first few riveting chapters, the remainder of the first half of the story is slow-burn suspense, introducing the characters, their backstories, and their motives. The tension builds much more in the second half, culminating in a series of twists, a few of which are very predictable and others that aren’t. The ending does feel a bit anticlimactic, but the unconventional epilogue that follows includes almost every main character and provides some comic relief.
Overall, this book is perfect for fans of whodunnit mysteries and psychological thrillers where there is strong focus on characters and their secrets. If you enjoy stories with ominous atmospheres, whodunnit plots, and slow-building suspense, then this book is for you. Narrator Jessica Regan, who has narrated some of Mara’s other books, does a phenomenal job creating a suspenseful atmosphere from start to finish. If you’ve enjoyed other books from Andrea Mara, you’ll likely enjoy this one!
