Gilly Macmillan’s books are generally pretty fun so I was looking forward to The Manor House. I do enjoy books set in weird giant houses in England!

This one focused on two couples–one living in a garish smart house on the former grounds of a historic house the other couple lived in. Lots of twists and turns as expected and I actually enjoyed some of the twists of the victim’s final day. All of that really made sense and lined up with the rest of the story.

However, there were some odd timeline issues. Was this book set 20-30 years in the future? In my opinion, this is the only way having Anna be born in 1966 makes sense. Or was it a typo? In the flashbacks, she would have been about 51 but she talks about having moved to the house many years before as an “older couple” with her husband and seems worried she has dementia. The other characters, like her friends and acquaintances act as though she is elderly and infirm as well not just the people who are trying to manipulate her.

It was very strange. If a twist was supposed to be that she was so young, making her worry about early onset dementia seems like a foolish way to gaslight someone because they would just go to the doctor and be taken seriously! If a woman of about fifty goes to the doctor saying she fears she is losing large chunks of her memory, no one is going to put it down to “aging” and the whole scam would fall apart. Even a much older person would be given a battery of tests if the doctors are competent. I get that she was supposed to be extremely insecure but there are limits to what one can believe especially since she pulls herself together in the end of the book.

All in all it was a fun book to read but a lot hinged on a plot point that simply didn’t make a ton of sense.