First published 2019
A mother stands at her door, remembering the warning not to open it for strangers. But what happens when the person on the other side isn't a stranger at all? In these paired stories, Celia Fremlin explores the charged territory where mothers and daughters meet again after time apart. Each reunion takes place in what should be familiar, safe spaces, ordinary homes that become stages for long-buried tensions to resurface. Fremlin writes with the psychological precision of Patricia Highsmith and the domestic unease of Shirley Jackson, crafting tales that expose how women's everyday lives can turn sinister without warning. These are stories about the things families don't say, the secrets that fester in silence, and the way the past can invade the present through the simple act of answering a door. In Fremlin's hands, the most mundane domestic moments become charged with dread, revealing how thin the line is between the comfortable and the threatening in women's lives.
Genres: domestic-fiction, suspense, horror, contemporary, psychological-thriller, gothic
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: domestic-unease, unreliable-narrator
Period: 20th-century
ebook · Faber & Faber