She offered them a place to stay. They wanted so much more.
Hannah’s life is almost perfect. She’s a full-time mother to two young children and married to successful cardiologist Daniel.
The only thing missing is a project of her own. So she has poured heart and soul into converting their stone barn into a beautiful holiday rental.
Things take a dark turn when visitors Mike and Nadia come to stay. They are noisy, dirty and disrespectful. Hannah is incensed by their behaviour, worried they may wreck her lovingly restored barn.
But she gradually realises that property damage is the least of her worries. Nadia and Mike aren’t here just for a holiday – they have a deeper, darker purpose, one that threatens to destroy Hannah’s entire life.
Spiralling into a nightmare that grows worse with each passing day, Hannah has to find the courage to fight back. But Mike and Nadia are clever and ruthless and they know something that Hannah doesn’t – a shocking secret from the past…
The Visitors – the stunning psychological thriller from the best-selling author of Roses are Red and The Arrangement.
A long, long time ago, I studied handwriting analysis and wrote a self-help book called, How Compatible Are You? published by Bloomsbury. It was well-reviewed at the time and I was asked to analyse various famous people’s writing for newspapers (including a serial murderer!). Much to my amusement the book is now considered a ‘classic’ for graphologists. My latest fictional character, Dr Pippa Durrant, is a specialist in lie-detection, micro expressions and graphology. She uses a few of the skills I’ve gained over the years!
In all my books I’ve drawn upon what I know. There’s the bucolic countryside of West Sussex, which was home for the first twenty years of my life and has become home again. The places I love: Switzerland, South Africa and The Peak District (which was home for 17 years). I’ve taken inspirations from my world of work (setting up, running and selling businesses in retail and leisure) and in particular, what fascinates me most: family and friend dynamics.
The one thing I’ve left behind is my experience of having cancer. In August 2015, I was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma in my right femur. Apparently there is a one in three hundred million chance of getting that as a 48-year-old woman! It was undoubtedly the hardest year of my life. One day we left our home in the Peak District to move to London for treatment; I never returned. I went through eleven rounds of chemo and had my femur removed and replaced.
Knowing nothing about cancer but a fair bit about writing, I set up a blog (Brain Sparks). I was surprised that there were so few novels depicting the raw, realism of cancer treatments. There are a few fiction books out there about cancer, but they tend to end in death. Fortunately, that is not the reality for many of us diagnosed with cancer today. So I set about writing a novel that gives hope, and, drum roll please…, Don’t Call Me Brave was born.
I did a fair bit of writing before that novel. The Eccentric Entrepreneur, a biography, was reviewed in various newspapers and journals and was long listed for the cricketing book of the year. In between work, I studied for a masters degree in writing and was thrilled to be awarded a first! I’m a member of The Society of Authors and The Crime Writers’ Association.
One of the positives of getting so ill was being given the chance to re-evaluate what I really want to do. Hand on heart, I am LOVING writing novels full-time. If you enjoy reading them just a smidgen as much I enjoy writing them, I will be ecstatically happy!
Heidi Lynn’s Book Reviews
First, I want to thank Miranda Rijks, Inkubator Books and NetGalley for providing me this book so I may bring you this review.
Guaranteed you will think twice of who you let stay over after reading Miranda Rijks The Visitors! She captured my undivided attention from the very beginning to the end of the book. I could not put it down as I had to know how it would end.
WOW!! Miranda wrote an incredibly intense, extremely fast paced, very eye opening birds eye view of a world many of us don’t get to see prologue! The shock value and details she put into it were mind blowing. You could vividly see the scene play in your head but still at the same time you didn’t want to see that image!
Miranda described the renovations of the barn so beautifully and picturesque. It would definitely be a place I would like to stay at. Yes, I would leave a review on Tripfinder!
The Visitors dealt with some important issues such as domestic abuse, anger management, road rage, infidelity, and gluten intolerance.
I laughed at the blood sisters comment and scene. Like Hannah I too remember what it meant from when I was a kid. However, I don’t think the young girls took It like that.
Oh, those visitors were a very unique family that pushed a lot of people’s buttons including mine!! The more you got to know them the more they creeped you out!
Speechless...just speechless with the twisted climax of the jaw dropping climax! So many secrets revealed left and right. Some you never saw coming….some you had an idea of.
The graphics on the cover left you wanting to know more about this book as it was mysterious.
My heart goes out to the author Miranda Rijks for being diagnosed in August 2015 of Ewing's Sarcoma (a rare bone cancer). She mentions in the book that sarcoma is the loneliest cancer as many people have never heard of it. Sadly, many doctors don’t have much knowledge of it either. Miranda raises money for research for Sarcoma UK as there are very little treatment options available. She gives a link in the back of the book if you would like to help her efforts out.
I love how Miranda thanks her readers for reviewing her books. I appreciate knowing that I am helping her live her dream life as a full-time author. It is little things like this that give me great satisfaction for being a book reviewer.
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