The Guest Room is the first novel by British author, Tasha Sylva. Four months after Rosie Hartley’s body was found on Hampstead Heath, her younger sister Teresa is living in her London flat. Although she works as a freelance translator, and does some shifts at the Barbican Gallery where Rosie used to work, financial pressures force her to bnb the best bedroom in the flat, Rosie’s.

Rosie’s mental state in the months before her death is in question: she inexplicably broke off with her boyfriend and began engaging in risky behaviour, wandering the streets late at night, alone. Numerous times, Tess would track her down and try to coax her back to her flat.

People grieve differently, and one of Tess’s ways seems to be to duplicate her sister’s risky behaviour: is she trying to draw out the person who might be responsible for her death? She also regularly harasses the police DS in charge of the case, much in a clutching-at-straws manner, every time she recalls another potential but probably innocent suspect.

And she can’t resist invading the privacy of her lodgers while they are out, going through all their belongings. Her latest lodger, Arran Cole keeps an intriguing notebook in which he details his attempts to find a stranger, a beautiful woman he saw in a café with whom he is clearly infatuated. Interspersed with Tess’s narrative is that of an anonymous person who seems to be stalking her.

As the story progresses, the number of potential suspects for what Tess believes is Rosie’s murder, increases: her ex, the rather creepy downstairs neighbour, the neighbour across the street, his one-time weird lodger, and a barman all attract her attention. Tess seems to do a lot of stalking, and she’s not the only one. There are lots of secrets and lies, and few characters who don’t behave a little strangely.

Is Tess an unreliable narrator? Her mental state does seem to be a bit erratic, and she’s not a terribly likeable protagonist. Is she being gaslit? The build-up to whatever is going to happen begins to feel interminable, and it’s only the train-wreck-like feel of watching her behaviour get more and more outrageous that keeps the pages turning until the final, riveting chapters. A twisty and, ultimately, compelling debut.
This unbiased review is from an unsolicited copy provided by Welbeck Publishing.