The Secrets of Mill House

By: Anne Wyn Clark

Narrated by: Becky Wright

The chilling, stay-up-all-night suspense thriller for fans of C.J. Tudor, Riley Sager and Stephen King.

A missing child. A broken community. A horrifying secret.

When a baby is kidnapped in broad daylight with no witnesses, a sleepy suburb is rocked to the core and ten-year-old Flora Lanyon is left terrified.

Decades later, Flora takes a job as a live-in carer for elderly couple, Agnes and Abraham, moving into the decrepit watermill where they live. As strange and inexplicable occurrences start to happen, Flora grows increasingly suspicious.

What dark secrets are hiding in the house? Is Flora safe there? And can she unearth the truth before the past catches up with the present?

This chilling, haunting and twisty thriller about how far we go to protect our darkest secrets is perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Cass Green and C. J. Tudor

©2023 Anne Wyn Clark (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

Authors love Anne Wyn Clark!

‘Creepy, claustrophobic and compelling! A beautifully written thriller that kept me glued to my Kindle’ Miranda Rijks, author of The Visitors

‘Haunting psychological suspense… Will send shivers down your spine’ Alice Hunter, author of The Serial Killer’s Wife

“Whisper Cottage was a dark and atmospheric thriller that pulled me in from the very first page.” Stephanie DeCarolis, author of The Guilty Husband

'Chilling and wonderfully atmospheric, with an ending that took me surprise – I couldn’t put it down' Amanda Brittany, author of Her Last Lie

Entertaining but disappointing ultimately

I’ve read a couple other books by Anne Wyn Clark and absolutely loved them.
This book could’ve been a classic, but it is so dreary, the main character is so full of self loathing, so weak willed and finally just such a victim in every sense of the word (and there’s no real redemption for her) that I almost had to force myself to become immune to hearing about about her suffering.
Every woman in this book is suffering in extraordinary ways, and there is no silver lining or karmic retribution, ever.
The reader hangs on because one hopes that there will be some incarnation of justice or redemption.
But (without spoiling the ending) there really is no such luck.
The ending is weak, the Mill House could’ve had such a sense of atmosphere, it could’ve been so loaded with descriptive language and a sense of place could’ve been established.
Instead the village, the house remain two dimensional and never become fully animated.
The reader is not transported to this quaint little hamlet with it’s creepy undercurrents.
The reader is not drawn into the mill, this alone should’ve warranted pages of descriptions (a mill house is infinitely interesting).
It just fell flat and sad.
I will not be reading this book a second time like I have her others.
I love this author and the narration is wonderful but the book is missing something crucial.
Hopefully her next offering is more atmospheric, more moody, creepy, etc.
Hopefully her next book has a protagonist that is able to get past her sad beginnings, her mistakes, her grief, rather than being totally defined by these things.
It just made me sad.