The narrator, a con artist, previously worked as a sex worker giving handjobs behind an associated fortune-telling establishment called 'Spiritual Palms'.

She meets wealthy housewife Susan Burke, who believes that the Victorian house she has recently moved into, Carterhook Manor, is inhabited by a malevolent spirit.

Natasha Tripney writing in The Guardian has some reservations: "Flynn plays around with the conventions of the ghost story, albeit in a rather heavy-handed way.

In this shortened, condensed format, it’s harder to embed the background and clues to a twist without the reader noticing, though that doesn’t stop them being a lot of macabre fun when they arrive.

'[3] Katie Law praises the story in Evening Standard: "The good news for Flynnies is that in its way this is another mini-Gone Girl: once again she employs unreliable narrators and re-introduces us to the idea that women can be nastier and more vengeful than men, especially when powered by corrosive sexual jealousy.

"[4] It 2016, it was reported that Universal Pictures was adapting the story, with the author and Michael De Luca to produce the film, and Natalie Krinsky to write the screenplay.