The Visitors: Gripping thriller, you won't see the end coming

by Catherine Burns

Overview

Perfect for fans of Paula Hawkins and Ruth Ware.

Can you escape the darkness within?

Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John in a decaying Georgian townhouse on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her fifties who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to shut out the shocking secret that John keeps in the cellar.

Until, suddenly, John has a heart attack and Marion is forced to go down to the cellar herself and face the gruesome truth that her brother has kept hidden.

As questions are asked and secrets unravel, maybe John isn't the only one with a dark side.

REVIEWS

'Once you start Catherine Burns’s dark, disturbing, and enthralling debut novel, it’s hard to stop. The Visitors is bizarrely unsettling, yet compulsively readable' Iain Reid

'Burns blurs the line between crime fiction and horror... Deliberate pacing, a claustrophobic setting, and vivid, wildly unsympathetic characters complement the twisted plot and grim conclusion' Publishers Weekly

'An insightful study of loneliness and evil' Daily Mail

'Must read' New York Post

'Atmospheric, eerie and affecting. Catherine Burns has created a complex and chilling world in which nothing is as it seems. A very clever confident novel, beautifully plotted with multiple twists and turns. I couldn't stop reading it' Suellen Dainty

'Burns combines a study of a middle-aged woman, a tale of a highly dysfunctional family and slow burn of a mystery, creating a compelling read that's at once highly entertaining and wholly disturbing ... A dark and thrilling debut novel: disturbing, gripping, and hugely impressive' The Bookbag

'Burns combines a study of a middle-aged woman, a tale of a highly dysfunctional family and slow burn of a mystery, creating a compelling read that's at once highly entertaining and wholly disturbing ... A dark and thrilling debut novel: disturbing, gripping, and hugely impressive' TM Logan

'Absolutely loved it. I would advise any nail biters to sit on their hands while reading this book because they will chew right down to the knuckle. By far the creepiest novel I have read in a long time ... a highly original and intriguing mystery so compelling that I abandoned my own work to finish it' Liz Nugent

'Compelling and wonderfully dark, choked with suspense and yet leisurely in the telling. I enjoyed it immensely' Emma Curtis

'A dark exploration of evil in its many forms, this is an uncomfortable and disturbing yet utterly compelling read' SJI Halliday

'A dark, compelling story with a few twists and turns that will keep the reader glued to the pages ... I found myself completely engrossed in Marion's disturbing world, which was well drawn by Catherine Burns. A very strong debut' Sarah Denzil

'An insidious, creepy novel, with a slow burn that leads to a horrifying revelation' Literary Hub

'Beautifully written… [a] dark, gritty and inviting tale that explores the darker side of human nature' Review Corner

'A wonderfully dark and suspenseful read from a talented debut author' Damp Pebbles

'The writing, the characters and the mood of this book were absolutely superbly done' BookBum

'A deeply disturbing and unforgettable novel, dripping with evil and horror… furiously gripping, addictive and absolutely impossible to put down' The Book Babe

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787199859
Publisher:	Legend Press
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Born in Manchester, Catherine Burns is a graduate of Trinity College Cambridge. She worked as a bond trader in London before studying at the Moscow Institute of Film, and teaching film theory at Salford University. 'The Visitors' is her debut novel.

Read an Excerpt

IN THE NIGHT — 1

Like a white bird, the scream flew up from the depths of the cellar, then became trapped inside Marion’s head. As it flapped its wings against the inside of her skull, she wondered how it had got through three floors of the big strong house to her dusty little room in the attic? If the scream managed to reach her, surely it could find a way to someone else: Judith next door or old Mr Weinberg opposite, who liked to walk his little Pomeranian dog along Grange Road in the small hours. Lying on her side made her hip bone ache, so she turned onto her back, but this position strained her knees. The sheets had wriggled to the bottom of the bed, so the woollen blankets scratched her skin, but when she pushed the blankets off, she was freezing cold. She tried to stop herself from wondering what had caused the person to scream and what it might be like down in the cellar in the middle of the night. Don’t think about it, she warned herself, or you’ll go mad, just like Great Aunt Phyllis. They’ll send you to one of those places with bars on the windows, and you’ll have to eat your dinner with a plastic spoon. Then she heard Mother’s voice: John is doing what is best for them; you have to trust him—he is your brother and a very clever person, an Oxford graduate, no less. If you can’t trust John, your only living family, then who can you trust?

But what if Judith or Mr. Weinberg did hear the scream? What if someone called the police and they came to the house in the night? Would they bang on the door and wait for someone to answer, or just knock it down and come right in? Would they be dragged from their beds?

You heard people say that sometimes: ‘They dragged them from their beds in the middle of the night.’ But surely the police allowed a person time to get up and get dressed, didn’t they? Perhaps you ought to have something decent ready just in case, suggested Mother. Those baggy black trousers with the jam stain on the knee and that scruffy brown jumper you dropped on the floor before getting into bed would hardly do. While she and her brother were taken off to the police cells, the home she had lived in all her life would be ripped apart in search of evidence. The thought of strangers running around the house horrified her. What would they think of all the mess? The mould on the bathroom wall, all those broken appliances that John refused to let her throw away, yet never got round to repairing, the tins of food piled in the kitchen, and years and years of newspapers blocking the hall? And that Tupperware container on the top shelf of the fridge, the one full of black slime and greenyblue fur; she wasn’t even sure what it had in it to begin with, and now she was too frightened to open it.

If I weren’t already dead, I would die from shame that you let things get into such a state, added Mother. She saw herself on the front page of a newspaper (Marion had never taken a good photo; even in her eighteenth-birthday portrait she looked like a matron of forty), that frizzy brown hair sticking out in all directions like a madwoman’s, all the world judging her. What would Judith say? That she had always thought Marion and her brother were odd? And Lydia? The shame of Lydia finding out about all of this would be too much to bear.

‘It won’t happen, Marion. Nobody heard the scream. Nobody’s coming. Who’d be looking for them anyway?’ said Neil, holding her in his arms and stroking the hysterical hair.

‘But they will, if not tonight, then another night,’ replied Marion.’ And no one will understand that John only wants to help them.’ Marion Zetland was eight years old when she first discovered she was plain. If she’d had friends, someone might have pointed this out sooner, but Mother’s nerves, delicate as a glass cobweb, couldn’t stand the strain of other people’s ‘snotty-nosed scamps’ cavorting around the Grange Road house, dirty feet clattering down the oak staircases, squeals bouncing around the large wood-panelled rooms, the possibility of someone breaking or even stealing one of the many ‘heirlooms’, so aside from her brother, John, Marion rarely saw other children outside of school. Sarah Moss’s mother was young and pretty. She dressed in clothes bright as sweetie wrappers and her shiny blonde hair bounced as she bent over to talk to Marion outside the gates of Saint Winifred’s Primary School one Friday afternoon. Marion’s own mother’s hair was set into a mass of interlocking iron and steel curls at Pierre Micheline’s once a week and could withstand Northport’s sharpest seafront breeze without shifting.

‘Would you like to come over to our house tomorrow?’ she asked with her smiling voice. Marion saw Sarah over her mother’s shoulder. She was standing by a yellow car, her new grown-up teeth bared at Marion in a way that said, ‘I’d prefer you to drop dead than come to play.’ It was as if Sarah had grabbed her by one arm and the nice lady by the other, and they were trying to split her into two halves.

Reading Group Guide

This readers group guide for The Visitors includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Marion Zetland, a timid, middle-aged spinster, lives with her authoritarian older brother in the decaying mansion of their childhood on the edge of a northern seaside resort. Marion tries to live by her brother’s rules: doing the shopping and the laundry, preparing their quotidian meals, and staying out of his business. With only her teddy bears and imaginary friends for comfort, Marion does her best to shut out the shocking secret that John keeps in the cellar.

But when John becomes suddenly ill, Marion must open the door to the other side and come face-to-face with the gruesome truth—and her own darkness.

Topics and Questions for Discussion

1. Consider Marion’s warning to herself about the noises from the cellar on the novel’s opening page: “Don’t think about it, she warned herself, or you’ll go mad, just like Great-aunt Phyllis” (p. 1). Is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? Does Marion go mad?

2. How does Marion’s childhood, particularly her parents’ old-fashioned and aloof parenting styles, affect her later in life? How do Marion and John take after their parents?

3. Is John a good brother to Marion? How would you characterize their relationship? Are there any redemptive qualities in John’s actions toward Marion?

4. What was your first impression of Marion? What was your first impression of John? How are they similar and different from each other?

5. Is Marion as unlovable and unintelligent as her mother, John, and the other school children seem to think? How do you know?

6. Is Marion a reliable narrator? Why or why not?

7. What role do Marion’s daydreams and her imaginary relationships play in her life? Consider this passage: “In the same way a starving man might swallow rags to stuff his belly, Marion found it was possible to fill the emptiness inside her with daydreams” (p. 158).

8. Misfortunes seem to befall those who cross Marion—Juliet, for example, found “lying unconscious in the frozen mud of Albert Park” (p. 39). How did your understanding of these events and Marion’s role in them change throughout the novel? Do you think Marion is aware of her own role in these events? Why or why not?

9. Discuss the significance of the title—is there another, more apt word for the so-called “visitors”? Before you read the book, what did “visitors” in the title invoke for you?

10. Marion’s true nature starts to come out through her interactions with the lady in the grocery story and Brendan O’Brian, the psychic medium. Were you surprised by what is revealed about her?

11. How does the reclusive and antisocial Marion manage to maintain a relationship with Lydia, and tangentially Judith, over twenty years? Why is Marion’s relationship with Lydia so important and unique to Marion?

12. What prevents Marion from helping Violetta and the other visitors? Is Marion a heroine, villain, or accomplice?

13. Whose transgressions are worse: John’s or Marion’s? Why?

14. Does Marion get what she deserves in the end? Why or why not? How is she transformed from the beginning of the novel?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. The dilapidated mansion of Grange Road and eccentric cast of characters would make a fascinating film adaptation, in the vein of the infamous Grey Gardens documentary. Who would you cast as John, Marion, Judith, and the other characters in the film version of The Visitors?

2. The novel is told through the eyes of Marion Zetland. How would it be different if the story was told from John’s, Judith’s, or Sonya’s perspective? Reimagine the novel’s telling with your book club; discuss how key events would change when told from the other character’s points-of-view.

3. The Visitors is Catherine Burns’s first novel. Learn more about the author by following her on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cburnsbooks/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/c_burnzi).

Editorial Reviews

"Atmospheric, eerie and affecting. Catherine Burns has created a complex and chilling world in which nothing is as it seems. A very clever confident novel, beautifully plotted with multiple twists and turns. I couldn't stop reading it."

Suellen Dainty

"Burns combines a study of a middle-aged woman, a tale of a highly dysfunctional family and slow burn of a mystery, creating a compelling read that's at once highly entertaining and wholly disturbing ... A dark and thrilling debut novel: disturbing, gripping, and hugely impressive."

Luke Marlowe

‘Once you start Catherine Burns’s dark, disturbing, and enthralling debut novel, it’s hard to stop. The Visitors is bizarrely unsettling, yet compulsively readable.’

Iain Reid

"I made the mistake of starting this one night before going to bed... It’s not an all out creepfest, but somehow through the use of these dichotomies, Burns has created a story and characters that are even more horrifying as they feel thoroughly realistic."

Read. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

"A dark, compelling story with a few twists and turns that will keep the reader glued to the pages ... I found myself completely engrossed in Marion's disturbing world, which was well drawn by Catherine Burns. A very strong debut"

Sarah Denzil

"Burns combines a study of a middle-aged woman, a tale of a highly dysfunctional family and slow burn of a mystery, creating a compelling read that's at once highly entertaining and wholly disturbing ... A dark and thrilling debut novel: disturbing, gripping, and hugely impressive."

TM Logan

"I absolutely loved it. I would advise any nail biters to sit on their hands while reading this book because they will chew right down to the knuckle. By far the creepiest novel I have read in a long time and I mean that in a really good way."

Liz Nugent

The Visitors is an insidious, creepy novel, with a slow burn that leads to a horrifying revelation.

Literary Hub

"A dark exploration of evil in its many forms, this is an uncomfortable and disturbing yet utterly compelling read"

SJI Holliday

"Compelling and wonderfully dark, choked with suspense and yet leisurely in the telling. I enjoyed it immensely"

Emma Curtis

With its two unsympathetic main characters, chilling atmosphere and grim dénouement, this is an insightful study of loneliness and evil.

Daily Mail Online

"The Visitors, is dark and atmospheric, and its imagery is quite evocative... Through vignettes from Marion's point of view, Burns slowly layers morbid details as she unravels the disturbing Zetland history."

Shelf Awareness

"Shades of Room."

The New York Post

"An insightful study of loneliness and evil"

From the Publisher

2017-07-17
A socially awkward middle-aged woman learns some dark truths about her family in Burns' debut psychological thriller.Marion Zetland has always been lonely, and now, in her 50s and living with her brother, John, in a pigsty of a house, she has no one but her stuffed animals and imaginary friend to turn to when she's frightened. And there is reason to be frightened in that house—she can hear occasional screams and cries coming from the basement, where John spends most of his time. These are the voices of the visitors, and Marion avoids any interaction with the visitors. But when John is injured in an accident, their care falls to Marion, so she ventures past the locked doors of the cellar for the first time, driven by the fretful cries of a baby to confront those who live there. The novel sets up plenty of creeps and shivers, but the revelation, the true nature of the visitors, disappoints rather than fulfills these feelings. Burns had the opportunity to play with and explore the haunted-house genre, to explore the line between human madness and the supernatural, but there is something of a rush to give a logical explanation for Marion's fears, for John's behaviors, and while there is still a twist at the end, it leaves the reader feeling little sympathy for the characters because so few of them are developed beyond the surface. Even Marion, through whose eyes we get most of the action and description, is hard to feel strongly about. This leaves the experience of reading the novel hollow and unsatisfying. The creepiness begins as a slow burn, but logic ruins the sense of horror—despite the horrible truth that lurks in the basement.

Kirkus Reviews