Apparently surviving a fatal accident at an isolated house is the perfect reason to book a return trip. I respectfully disagree.
The House Beyond the Dunes had all the ingredients for a suspense novel I should have loved: An isolated beach house on the North Carolina coast, a tragic accident, long-buried secrets. Unfortunately, I never fully bought into the story.
The synopsis promises a creepy atmosphere, but I found the setting more remote than unsettling. A lonely house on the dunes certainly has the potential to be eerie, but I never felt that delicious sense of dread that keeps me turning pages long after I should have gone to bed. As it turns out, there is a neighbor across the street keeping an eye on our main character, so it really wasn't all that isolated (or creepy) as the synopsis suggests.
Let's talk about that main character, though. Talk about questionable choices...
After knowing a man for only three weeks, she agrees to spend a romantic weekend with him at a secluded beach house. Following a tragic accident, she voluntarily returns to that same house, not just to collect her belongings, but to investigate the man she barely knew in the first place.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I prefer to do the background check before the secluded romantic getaway.
That decision set the tone for the rest of the novel. I never felt like the protagonist was reacting the way a real person would. Instead, many of her choices seemed designed to move the plot where it needed to go. Once I stopped believing the character, it became difficult to stay invested in the mystery, and several of the twists felt more predictable than surprising.
That isn't to say there wasn't anything to enjoy. Mary Burton keeps the story moving at a steady pace, and I was curious enough to finish to see how everything fit together. Fans of domestic suspense with family secrets and a coastal setting may find more to like here than I did.
In the end, this was a three-star read for me. The premise was intriguing, the North Carolina setting checked a box on my reading challenge, but the characterization kept me at arm's length. I wanted to be immersed in the mystery. Instead, I spent too much time questioning the decisions that got the characters there in the first place.
