The Doll House by Phoebe Morgan

Tense. Suspenseful. Creepy. Spine-chilling. All words used to praise this thriller that was one of the worst I've read in a long time. Being stuck between these two sisters seemed endless, taking 350 pages for any payoff to begin.

Corinne and her boyfriend Dominic have struggled through rounds of IVF. She feels flat after the latest attempt is a failure. The IVF hormones make Corinne dopey, but she tries to make friends with a new mom who just moved into the building.

Her sister Ashley feels overwhelmed with a cranky newborn, a needy young son, and a fifteen-year-old daughter, Lucy, whom she can no longer control. Her husband James is always at work, so inattentive he may be having an affair. She feels guilty about giving her newborn to a childminder so she can work at a gallery café. They both have mommy trauma, feeling judged by others. Am I a good mother? Am I a good wife?

On the first anniversary of the death of their architect father, Corrine finds the blue door of the dollhouse he custom-built for his girls on her doorstep, followed by a rocking horse and a cradle. Someone knows how special these items are, but how did they get them? Someone is giving Ashley anonymous silent phone calls. Someone has put a dead rabbit on the hood of Corrine's car. Someone has been in her house. Someone is watching them.

It's not paranoia. Both Ashley and Corrine are actually hated—by another who watches them, who resents their dollhouse, who wants to destroy their lives. She has watched for years while her own mother ate pills to escape what she could not have.

In the background is the trial of a woman who killed her daughter, and Ashley's neighbor who is dating a married man (two more women to shame). This is filled with a desperation to not appear as a bad mother, a bad wife, not good enough, continuing for 350 pages before something of interest happens. Yes, someone was out to get them, but they were tedious to be stuck with. I did finish, but it wasn't worth it. Not recommended.

2017 / Tradeback / 416 pages