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The Home – Karen Osman
About the author
Originally from the UK, Karen won the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature Montegrappa Novel Writing Award 2016 with her crime-thriller novel, the bestselling The Good Mother. When she’s not writing novels, Karen is busy bringing up her two young children and running her communication business Travel Ink.
Follow Karen
Twitter: @KarenAuthor
Facebook: @KarenOsmanAuthor
About the book
Angela was just a baby when her mum left her for the last time, and a children’s home is no place to grow up. The home’s manager Ray takes the girls off to his ‘den’ in the garden and the littlies come back crying, and Ray’s wife Kath has special wooden spoons which she saves for beating any of the children who dare to misbehave. So, when wealthy couple James and Rosemary come to choose a child to adopt, Angela is desperate to escape. But the scars of her childhood remain, and when Angela’s search for her birth mother Evelyn is successful, their reunion is no fairy tale. Soon strange and sinister events start to unfold, and Evelyn fears she may not survive her daughter’s return…
The Home is another devastating psychological thriller from the author of the bestselling The Good Mother.
EXTRACT
Evelyn
Fifteen Months Earlier
Evelyn climbed the three flights of stairs to her flat, trying to ignore the thump of music that drifted down the open stairwell from flat 3A. Charlie, her beloved Yorkshire terrier, was trotting behind her. It was only half-past eight in the evening but she knew the noise would go on to the early hours of the morning, as it had been doing since her new neighbours moved in a few weeks ago. If she was lucky, she would manage to get a few hours of sleep. She felt her teeth start to grind in irritation and her right hand twitched for a cigarette. She had done everything possible to get them to turn down the volume. Everything except calling the police, but she knew she was never going to get them involved. It was an unwritten rule amongst her lot to leave the filth out of it. Get in some muscle, pay a gang to rough them up a bit, but never, ever call the police.
Reaching the small landing of the third floor, she delved into her handbag for her key while shooting a murderous look at the flat opposite her own. The noise was making Charlie cower behind her legs. Picking him up, she held him close while unlocking 3B, where she had lived for over fifteen years. She slammed the door behind her, gave Charlie a comforting kiss on his head then put him down and watched him as he went into the kitchen, no doubt in search of some treats. Lighting up a cigarette, Evelyn followed, putting a few dog biscuits in his bowl before grabbing the ever-present bottle of vodka from the countertop. She drank it straight, letting the clear liquid soothe her.
Satisfied, she replaced the top and debated whether to tidy up a bit but decided she couldn’t be bothered. If she was lucky, she might just catch the second half of Brookside but, turning the television on, she heard the rolling credits sing out to her tauntingly. Evelyn swore. She loved her television shows. If she hadn’t spent so much time listening to Joan go on and on about her errant husband, she would have been home half an hour ago, watching the drama in her comfy armchair, nightcap in hand.
The loud techno beats went up a few more decibels and Evelyn swore again. It wasn’t even decent music – what was wrong with The Beatles, Frank Sinatra or Elvis? She knew that dance music was all the rage but to her ears there was no enjoyment to be had from listening to the hammer and clobber of a synthesiser.
Evelyn felt her patience finally snap and she stormed out of her flat across the hallway to 3A and knocked loudly on her neighbour’s door. When nobody answered, she started banging, shouting every obscenity she could think of, releasing her frustration, tiredness, and irritability with every thump of her fist.
‘Oi! Shut it! You’re making more racket than them, you silly bitch!’
Evelyn stopped abruptly and leant over the railing. Billy, who lived in the flat beneath hers, was standing in his doorway wearing only a pair of greying, saggy underpants.
‘For God’s sake, Billy, will you put some bloody clothes on? As if I don’t have enough to put up with without you parading around in your undies,’ shouted Evelyn.
Billy turned round and bent over, pulling down his pants. Evelyn rolled her eyes and ignored him. At the foot of the stairs, she saw a couple of druggies light up spliffs and she turned away, silently counting to ten. She’d been clean for a number of years now, but it was still a struggle, especially when surrounded by it on a regular basis. She had begged the council to give her a flat in a more reputable postcode, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Once a month, she went to the council office to follow up and every time, the advisor – Alan, his name was – told her the request was in the system and he would be in touch if anything became available. Every. Single. Time. She wondered if Alan was as bored by the interaction as she was. He didn’t even pretend to check the file any more. Either way, she was pretty certain Alan didn’t live on a rough council estate like Harrington.
Giving her neighbour’s door one last thump with her foot, she felt only slightly mollified when some of the paintwork fell off. Back inside her flat, she went into the kitchen and decided that the only way to drown out the noise was with another shot of vodka.
Buy links
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2LmFsya
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2JwcDgS
iBooks: https://apple.co/2wi8ngo
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2Npi9of
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