My first holiday with my husband’s friends. A remote Scottish manor. Nine sacred dolls. One brutal murder.

We find the doll shattered on the floor, its broken pieces scattered like a warning. That’s when everything starts to fall apart.

Now the power is out. A storm has trapped us here. And someone is dead.

We’ve only been married three months. And our first holiday as man and wife is spending ten days in a secluded Scottish manor with my husband’s old friends.

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I’ve never met them before. From the moment I arrive, I feel like an outsider. And it’s not just his friends. Things haven’t been normal since the first day, when someone moved the dolls.

I told them not to — never move the dolls before the tenth day of Navaratri, the Hindu Festival of Dolls. They’re not toys. They’re part of a sacred tradition.

But no one listened. Even Dhruv — my husband — told me to stop being silly.

I know they’re hiding something. I can’t trust any of them — not even the man I married.

Now one of us is dead. One of us is a killer. Am I going to make it out of here alive?

My Review

I’m not sure why I am finding this so hard to review. Maybe it’s because the plot is so twisty and intense. Maybe it’s because there are a lot of characters, and I initially struggled to remember who was who. But mainly I think it’s because I gave up trying to work it out and let myself go with the flow.

Firstly, I must say that I find festivals from other cultures really fascinating and I had never heard of Navaratri, the Hindu Festival of Dolls, and as we are told in the book blurb, the dolls ‘are not toys. They’re part of a sacred tradition’. Once set up, they must not be moved till the festival is over, so when someone starts moving them, and the scenes playing out represent each of the character’s deepest, darkest secrets, it becomes very sinister.

Leela and Livi are the newcomers. Both are partnered with men who formed part of a tight group of friends from university. Except they all seem to hate each other, so why they have agreed to have a reunion at a remote Scottish manor, I have no idea. I’d rather poke out my own eyes with a stick than stay with this toxic lot for 10 days.

Moving on, Leela is married to Dhruv and has never met any of his ‘friends’ before. Livi is in a relationship with Shravan, but Nancy is still obsessed with him. This doesn’t make for a happy dynamic. Everyone thinks Nancy must be moving the dolls, but nothing is ever that simple. And when you think you’ve discovered the twist, there’s another and then another. I’m exhausted, but I loved every minute of it.

Many thanks to @ZooloosBT  for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

Rupa Mahadevan is a writer of psychological thriller and a passionate dancer.

She grew up on the south-eastern coast of India and has called the south-eastern coast of Scotland home for over 15 years. She currently lives in Edinburgh with her husband and two children.

When she is not grappling with Excel in her day job, she loves to read and dream up stories of her own.

Book Links
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/240302991-nine-dolls
Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/ninedolls-zbt

Social Media
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