Auld Acquaintance by Sofia Slater

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Millie Partridge desperately needs a party. So, when her (handsome and charming) ex-colleague Nick invites her to a Hebridean Island for New Year’s Eve, she books her ticket North.

But things go wrong the moment the ferry drops her off. The stately home is more down at heel than Downton Abbey. Nick hasn’t arrived yet. And the other revellers? Politely, they aren’t exactly who she would have pictured Nick would be friends with.

Worse still, an old acquaintance from Millie’s past has been invited, too. Penny Maybury. Millie and Nick’s old colleague. Somebody Millie would rather have forgotten about. Somebody, in fact, that Millie has been trying very hard to forget.

Waking up on New Year’s Eve, Penny is missing. A tragic accident? Or something more sinister? With a storm washing in from the Atlantic, nobody will be able reach the group before they find out.

One thing is for sure – they’re going to see in the new year with a bang.

Tense, moody and claustrophobic, Auld Acquaintance is the unputdownable debut by Sofia Slater

Auld Acquaintance has an incredibly intriguing blurb that attracted me immediately even though half of me thought it would just be “another island locked room mystery” (nothing wrong with that but I have read a few with a similar premise recently!) But I have to say that Auld Acquaintance really did knock similar books out of the water for me! It conveyed a fresh spin on the genre with its darkly humorous delivery and unreliable narrative and I absolutely relished every single page!

Celebrating New Year on a remote Scottish island with an attractive ex-colleague sounds like the perfect way to party for Millie Partridge so she packs her best winter wardrobe and travels via ferry to the cold, harsh landscape of the Hebrides. The journey itself doesn’t start well as Millie passes a nasty RTA and then has to share the ferry with other guests that she isn’t particularly thrilled to share her space with. And on arriving at the party venue, things get even more disturbing…

Auld Acquaintance definitely had “And Then There Were None” vibes but it was never predictable and the twist and turns felt organically conceived. Millie was a relatable character and I really liked her even though it became quite obvious that she was keeping secrets as were the other people invited to the New Years party. And the other guests were a very strange bunch indeed! Most were so unlikeable that I wasn’t even particularly bothered when they all started to get bumped off one by one-I was just waiting for the next gory death whilst trying to work out the clues that were subtly weaved throughout the storyline.

Auld Acquaintance was a gripping read that I read in one rainy afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed it-it was pure escapism from start to finish.

Out on 3rd November published by Swift Press.

Sofia Slater was raised in the American West, and lived in France, Scotland and Oxford before settling in London. As well as writing fiction, she translates from French and Spanish. Auld Acquaintance is her debut novel.

Advertisement