House of Glass – Book Review

On the outside they were the golden family with the perfect life. On the inside they built the perfect lie.

A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying?

Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny – in the midst of her parent’s bitter divorce – and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under thirteen due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella’s mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help.

From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far more troubled, than she feared. And there’s something eerie about the house itself: It’s a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found.

As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny’s murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny’s boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella’s supposed to protect the one she may need protection from?

Stella is a lawyer, specialized in representing the children whose parents are going through the divorce and helping them with the custody battle. Stella’s mentor and father-like figure, Charles asks Stella to take on an unusual case–a nine-year-old girl named Rose Barclay had witnessed her nanny’s death and has been silent since then. Her parents are getting divorced and her nanny, Tina has been having an affair with Rose’s father Ian. Stella is a bit hesitant to take over the case as Rose reminded her of her own childhood and past–Stella was seven-years old when her mother overdosed to death. Stella reluctantly takes over the case. As Stella spends more time with the Barclays and Rose, she notices an unusual thing–there are no glass items in or around the house, even the windows are made of plastic. Rose also seem to be having a habit of picking up short objects and hiding them in her room. As Stella dwells deeper, is Rose a disturbed child and maybe responsible for her nanny’s death?

This book to me was a page turner. The entire story is told in Stella’s POV and while investigating and helping Rose, she revisits her own traumatic childhood. Reading this book reminds me of Lizzie Borden case–a child who killed her own parents and Rose is an extremely gifted child while at the same time a disturbed child. All the characters except for Stella are unrealistic characters. The final twist at the end was little bit unexpected.

Overall, this was an entertaining read, and worth four stars.