Book Review: There Should Have Been Eight | Nalini Singh

Nalini Singh’s psychological thrillers are always a hit for me. Dark, gothic, atmospheric, and suspenseful—There Should Have Been Eight is a new and captivating nod to the closed circle mysteries made popular by Agatha Christie in And Then There Were None.

In There Should Have Been Eight, seven friends reunite at an aging estate in the New Zealand Southern Alps, but soon find their eight friend who died nine years earlier may only be the first death in the close-knit circle…

About the Book | There Should Have Been Eight

Characters

Luna is the narrator of the book, a photographer, and the first of the eight friends. She has been diagnosed with a degenerative vision condition and will go blind soon. She has kept this secret from the others, worried it will change their friendship when they learn about her imperfection.

Darcie and her husband Ash are hosting the weekend getaway at Darcie’s family estate. They are the second and third friends of the eight. Kaea is the fourth friend of the eight, and is a handsome and charming lawyer.

Vansi is Luna’s best friend and is a nurse. Vansi’s husband is Pheonix, and he is a doctor in training to go into surgery. Vansi and Pheonix are the fifth and sixth friends of the eight.

Aaron is the seventh friend of the eight. He is sweet-natured, religious, and has recently become engaged to Grace, who is not a member of the eight. Grace is bubbly and kind.

Bea was Darcie’s sister and the eighth member of the friend group (the one that should have been there, but is not). She died tragically nine years earlier, though the circumstances of her death have never been revealed to the others.

Plot

In this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh, a remote estate in New Zealand’s Southern Alps hosts a reunion no one will ever forget.

Seven friends.
One last weekend.
A mansion half in ruins.
No room for lies.
Someone is going to confess.
Because there should have been eight…

They met when they were teenagers. Now they’re adults, and time has been kind to some and unkind to others—none more so than to Bea, the one they lost nine long years ago.

They’ve gathered to reminisce at Bea’s family’s estate, a once-glorious mansion straight out of a gothic novel. Best friends, old flames, secret enemies, and new lovers are all under one roof. But when the weather turns and they’re snowed in at the edge of eternity, there’s nowhere left to hide from their shared history.

As the walls close in, the pretense of normality gives way to long-buried grief, bitterness, and rage. Underneath it all, there’s the nagging feeling that Bea’s shocking death wasn’t what it was claimed to be. And before the weekend is through, the truth will be unleashed—no matter the cost… (Synopsis from Goodreads)

Review | There Should Have Been Eight

I love the slower pace of Australian and European psychological thrillers. They tend to be more character-driven than US thrillers and have twists that are elegant and finely woven compared to the mind-bending “WTF??” ones that we see in the US. As with the other psychological thrillers I’ve read by Nalini Singh (A Madness of Sunshine and Quiet in Her Bones), this is an atmospheric book that verges on gothic fiction. The characters are well-developed and multidimensional, and the story weaves together a past mystery with the present events.

The book is set in a single timeline occurring nine years after the death of Bea, one of eight close friends who have been a tight-knit group since they were teenagers. The group is reuniting (though all have been in one another’s’ lives to some extent in the intervening years) at Darcie’s family estate. The estate is grand but in some disrepair. However, the setting fits the mood as seven friends come together and truly feel the loss of Bea. Darcie and Bea are sisters, and Bea’s absence feels even more haunting at her family estate.

Bea’s death looms over the story. She died nine years earlier, though the circumstances of her death have always been vague. Luna, who is the main character and the sole POV for the story, was in love with Bea, though not sexually or romantically. Bea was a light who Luna describes as drawing everyone close to her. Throughout the book others mention the same thing, that though Darcie is aesthetically the more beautiful, intelligent, and successful of the two sisters, Bea had a magnetism that put her far ahead of her sister in every way.

Luna has also recently learned that she has a degenerative vision condition that will render her fully blind within the next year. Luna hasn’t told the others of her condition. Ironically, it is Luna’s gift with seeing what is right in front of her that helps her intuit what might truly be going on. Luna is a photographer and afraid of the dark, making her condition even more tragic and heartbreaking.

Luna often felt like an unreliable narrator, and I was never sure how much her perception of events was skewed by the loss of Bea. Though she was more intuitive than the others, her unshakable adoration for Bea feels like a pedestal that no real person could possibly live up to. Often, I questioned Luna’s take on the events, in part because Bea seems to be her blind spot. Having the book solely narrated from Luna’s perspective was very effective. Many locked room style mysteries alternate narrators, but here everything is told to the reader by Bea, and the reader is left parsing out what to believe and not believe.

Since Bea’s death, her sister Darcie has married their friend, Ash (though Luna suspects he always loved Bea more). Luna’s best friend Vansi has married her other close friend Phoenix. Kaea has continued to be a charming, handsome playboy, never settling with anyone. Aaron has met an equally kind soul in a person outside of their group, Grace. And Luna is still single, having never been able to get close to another person the way she did with Bea.

The first part of the book builds the characters, relationships, and context. We learn that Bea took her own life, but that Darcie has never shared the circumstance of her death. She also cremated her sister, which deeply upsets Luna who feels she wasn’t able to properly say goodbye. The family graveyard contains the gravestones for Darcie and Bea’s parents, but since Bea was cremated her body doesn’t rest there.

Strange events begin to happen. Darcie and Ash’s home was broken into shortly before the reunion. Multiple characters note an unexplained presence around the estate. A creepy doll that belonged to Bea appears in the house, though Darcie swore it was with Bea when she left for the last time. A storm hits during a hiking excursion and Kaea is injured in a strange accident after his shoes were deliberately damaged.

Luna finds a handwritten recipe book by Clara Shepard, one of Darcie and Bea’s ancestors who was married into the family and sent to live at the estate at nineteen years of age. The recipes are beautifully written and contain sketches, but on closer look they also contain hidden diary entries from Clara. Luna becomes entranced by Clara’s story, and tells no one about the book she has found.

Clara’s story, Bea’s death, and the strange occurrences all lead up to one of the characters meeting an untimely end after a storm has sealed them off from reaching town. Soon it becomes clear that this isn’t a ghost story—someone in their group is seeking revenge, and the only question is who and why?

Clara’s story was a great addition to this book. Between finding out how Clara’s story would end through her diary, Bea’s death, and the current events, I was engaged through the entire book start to finish. As with any good gothic novel, there is a haunted feel to the story and the setting that made it the perfect book to cozy up with on a cold winter evening. I loved the way everything ended and how Singh tied themes together through the different stories. This atmospheric book is a perfect book to curl up by the fireplace with!

Everyone has secrets, and this group more than most! A gripping and tense psychological thriller!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Author | Nalini Singh

Nalini Singh was born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand. She spent three years living and working in Japan, where she took the chance to travel around Asia. Nalini is back in New Zealand now, but always plotting new trips. If you’d like to see some of her travel snapshots, have a look at the Travel Diary page on her author’s site.

Nalini has worked as a lawyer, a librarian, a candy factory general hand, a bank temp and an English teacher, but not necessarily in that order. Some might call that inconsistency, but Nalini calls it grist for the writer’s mill.