The Uninvited Guests

The stately old English country home Sterne may be about to host its last social event for the Torrington family, who can't imagine living anywhere else.   But they may be forced to if  Charlotte Torrington's new husband (who is barely tolerated by his stepchildren) is unsuccessful in his attempt to borrow enough money to allow them to keep Sterne.  Meanwhile, daughter Emerald is celebrating her twentieth birthday and the tiny staff is struggling to put together a meal worthy of the occasion for her, the beautiful Charlotte, older brother Clovis, and much younger sister Imogen, known as "Smudge".  Also joining them for the birthday dinner will be John Buchanan, a possible suitor, and Emerald's dearest friend Patience Sutton with her mother. On the way back from picking up Patience at the railway station, Robert the groom is stopped by a railway agent and told to prepare to receive passengers involved in an accident on the nearby branch line.  These third class passengers are The Uninvited Guests (#187) of the title in this novel by Sadie Jones. But there's another passenger from the accident who also arrives at Sterne: one Charlie Traversham-Beechers.  He joins the rest of the guests at the dinner table, as it seems that he is known to both Charlotte Torrington and her housekeeper, Florence Trieves.  Traversham-Beechers turns the conventional dinner party on its head  his brash talk and disquieting parlor games.  In the meantime, the passengers closed up in the morning room are demanding attention from their reluctant hosts as the tension mounts and secrets are revealed that threaten to destroy the lives of everyone present.

Sadie Jones has managed to meld bits and pieces reminiscent of a number of my favorite authors into a work of fiction that is uniquely its own in The Uninvited Guests.  The opening section brought to mind Jane Austen, Nancy Mitford and Barbara Pym; not particularly much happens except for establishing characters and setting the scene, but the descriptive language was enough of a reason to make this an lucious read for me.  There were also hints of P.G. Wodehouse and Alan Bradley's deliciously warped Flavia de Luce in Smudge's subplot.   As the story progresses, there's more than a whiff of Wilkie Collins and Henry James.

I received The Uninvited Guests as a GoodReads First Reads book, but I know it is currently available, as I have seen it on the shelves of bookstores. If you're a fan of Downton Abbeyesque type books with an unexpected twist, get yourself a copy of this book and enjoy!