ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Stranger in Room Six by Jane Corry

The Stranger in Room Six is published in paperback by Penguin Viking today! Happy publication day to the author. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy.

You may not know the stranger in room six. But they know everything about you.

It’s been fifteen years since Belinda was convicted of her husband’s murder. Now, she’s ready for her life to begin again, and she’s set on that happening at Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart.

The owner, Mabel, has spent her life here. First as an evacuee during the Blitz and now as the care home’s oldest resident, Mabel has held the secrets of this house for as long as she can remember. Secrets that could kill if in the wrong hands.

But history won’t stay hidden forever and someone is onto them both. Watching and listening from room number six, they’ll stop at nothing to find out the truth.

With a past this dark, is anyone as innocent as they seem?

I always look forward to picking up a new Jane Corry book and The Stranger in Room Six did not disappoint. It’s the story of two women, Belinda and Mabel, and how life brings them together.

Belinda has just been released from prison after serving time for the murder of her husband. She gets a job at Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart and there meets plucky Mabel Marchmont, the owner of the home but also someone familiar with it for many years after she went to stay with her aunt there in WWII. Belinda and Mabel hit it off and become friends, each sharing their life stories with the other, but the stranger in room six seems determined to wreak havoc on them both.

I so enjoyed this story and was completely gripped by it. Short burst chapters really kept up the pace and kept me happily to-ing and fro-ing between the two women’s narratives. There’s a fascinating WWII storyline to follow, an aspect of it I hadn’t thought much about, and Belinda’s tales of her time in prison were totally compelling. Put together they made for such a transfixing and absorbing read. I enjoyed it very much indeed and found it to be a fresh and interesting storyline with two courageous heroines at its heart. Highly recommended for those who enjoy psychological and domestic fiction.

Jane Corry is a former magazine journalist who spent three years working as the writer-in-residence at a high security men’s prison. This often hair-raising experience helped inspire her Sunday Times-bestselling psychological dramas, of which she has now sold over a million copies worldwide. Jane is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and My Weekly magazine.