The Hidden Hours by Sara Foster

4 Stars from me

Eleanor, our lead character, is staying with her uncle Ian and Aunt Susan in the UK, having travelled all the way from outback Australia. She doesn’t really know them and this little house share arrangement feels pretty awkward at times!

They have arranged a job for her as an office temp at Parker & Lane, where her aunt, Susan is CEO. At an office party, Eleanor feels like a fish out of water and is about to head home when she is pulled into drinking with one of the senior partners – the beautiful and enigmatic Arabella Lane. The next day, much of the previous evening is a blur for Eleanor and she vaguely remembers Arabella adding drugs to their drinks.

So when she arrives at work to hear along with all of her new colleagues that Arabella has died she can’t help but wonder what happened – and how involved she is.

What follows is a delicate unravelling of the night, along with some snippets of Eleanor’s past and the reason that she has crossed to the other side of the world to escape it. Family secrets come to light along with family trauma and Eleanor soon doesn’t know who she can trust when fragments of memory start to return.

I really enjoyed this book and loved Sara Foster’s writing style. It is a gentle and thoroughly engaging read with lots of clever diversions.

My thanks to Legend Press and Sara Foster for letting me be a part of this blog tour.

Blurb: Arabella Lane is found dead in the Thames on a frosty winter’s morning after the office Christmas party. No one is sure whether she jumped or was pushed. The one person who may know the truth is the office temp, Eleanor. Having travelled to London to escape the repercussions of her traumatic childhood in Australia, tragedy seems to follow Eleanor wherever she goes. To her horror, she has no memory of the crucial hours leading up to Arabella’s death – memory that will either incriminate or absolve her. Caught in a crossfire of accusations, Eleanor fears she can’t even trust herself, let alone the people around her. And soon, she’ll find herself in a race against time to find out just what happened that night – and discover just how deadly some secrets can be.