Review: The House Sitter by Mira V. Shah

If you're looking for a psychological thriller that will keep you guessing, The House Sitter is well worth adding to your reading list.

Two weeks ago, Aahnaya woke up in a hotel room next to a dead man with no memory of the night before. One week ago, desperate to escape, she accepted what seemed like the perfect opportunity: house sitting a gorgeous villa in a remote corner of Italy. Now the owners have unexpectedly arrived. The only problem? They are the family of the man she woke up next to. One of them knows her secret. They have come to find her.

The House Sitter by Mira V. Shah is a gripping, twisty psychological thriller that wastes absolutely no time in pulling you in. From the very first pages there is a creeping sense that nothing is quite as it seems, and that feeling never lets up.

The pacing is one of this novel's great strengths. Short, punchy chapters keep the momentum going at exactly the right pace, balanced with enough description and character depth to make you genuinely care about what happens next.

The setting of the Italian villa provides the perfect backdrop to a brilliantly constructed mystery, and the ending is the kind that makes you put the book down and simply sit with it for a moment. This is a book about relationships, honesty and the secrets we keep, and those themes run consistently throughout the story.

Mira V. Shah is a former City lawyer turned writer who began writing fiction during the first lockdown in 2020 after studying at the Curtis Brown Creative writing course. The House Sitter is her second novel, following the hugely successful debut Her. She lives in North London with her husband and three dogs. We look forward to seeing what she writes next.

The House Sitter is available in our shop.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)