Broken River

Domestic drama and gothic horror unite in upstate New York when a house with a history catches the eye of a Brooklyn family looking for a fresh start. While Eleanor, a novelist, and Karl, a philandering sculptor, wallow in their dysfunctional marriage and kooky creative projects, their precocious 12-year-old daughter Irina becomes obsessed with an unsolved double murder at the property a dozen years earlier that left a small girl orphaned. Ignore the ultimately puzzling presence of a metaphysical entity dubbed ‘the Observer’, and this is a cracker of a novel: sharp, dark and suspenseful. Hephzibah Anderson