The Hiding Place

Abandoned as a baby in the hallway of a shared house in London, Marina has never known her parents, and the circumstances of her birth still remain a mystery.

Now an adult, Marina has returned to the house where it all started, determined to find out who she really is. But the walls of this house hold more than memories, and Marina’s reappearance hasn’t gone unnoticed by the other tenants.

One thing I absolutely love in a book is multiple narratives. Or books that follow the same character but over a pretty big length of time. This book had both. The story had three narratives and the narratives took place during two different periods of time. We had Connie in 1964, Eva in 1964 and 1991/92, and Marina in 1991/2.

Of the characters, the main character was of course Marina who was trying to find out more about where she came from. I really enjoyed her sleuthing and I enjoyed trying to piece everything together. The story also included Connie, a 17 year old girl in 1964 who was responsible for looking after her father and had dreams of being with her lover in Paris. I really enjoyed how Connie never gave up and was so brave and kind. The final main character was Eva who I think would have been around 30 based on her age of 3 in the earlier timeline. She was struggling after the loss of her mother and she suffered greatly from anxiety and was unable to leave their flat. She was my favourite character, a talented pianist with a love or Turkish Delight.

I really liked the interwoven narratives of the main characters. In the 90s, the story surrounded Marina who was found abandoned as a baby in a building that she then moved into as she had hopes of finding out more about where she came from. After 27 years I was so surprised by the amount of information that she managed to find. In the earlier timeline, with Connie and Eva, the story mainly surrounded Connie and her story broke my wee heart.

This book was a bit of a slow burn, the first 80% felt very slow and I suppose that’s setting the scene but I did find myself wanting the book to pick up momentum. Of course when it did, around the 80% mark, it was all go and reveal and reveal. I felt like all of my questions were answered which is something I enjoy in a book.

The atmosphere of this book was super creepy! There was just something about the shabby building that felt like it was full of secrets, as silly as that sounds. The building was ran down and honestly reminded me of some of the flats I lived in during my 20s! The broken boiler part especially.

This book was very much about the family history and the mystery surrounding Marina’s parents and I really enjoyed the mystery element of this story! The ending was very different to what I was expecting and I think I enjoyed it. Going into this book, I wasn’t sure what to expect as I don’t read a lot of family drama books but it was the element of mystery that pulled me in and I did enjoy this book.

For transparency, I took part in my first ever book tour over (on Instagram) and received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.