Book review: The House At The Edge Of The World

WHEN twins Morwenna and Corwin Venton were 18, their father John fell off a Devon cliff while stumbling home from the pub. 

Julia Rochester

Viking, €22.50; ebook, €11.99

They and their frustrated mother grieve and move on, while their grandfather cocoons himself in the family home, endlessly painting a personal map.

But 15 years later, emerging secrets about their unhappy home lives mean the Ventons must re-examine that fateful summer.

Rochester gives first-person narration to Morwenna — a blunt, dislikeable character clinging to teenage misanthropy — and so her debut novel is a slippery tale of perception and manipulation.

Trying to distill truth from Morwenna’s skewed opinion gives the text echoes of a thriller, though it is really a character study in how much people can alter themselves to meet the wills of others; for marriage, family or the bond of twinship.

Its pacing is a little off, dragging in places, but there’s a great twist and the mystery papers over the cracks.