#Book Tour #Extract – The Girl Downstairs; I. Maitland

Book tour stop! Today I’m delighted to be the host for The Girl Downstairs, a psychological thriller written by Iain Maitland.

First thing first, let me thank Zoé and the publisher, Inkubator Books, for providing me with an e-copy of this book. Much obliged *hat tip*

MEET THE BOOK

Rosie is homeless and winter is closing in. So she can’t believe her luck when a total stranger, Mr. Adams, invites her to stay.

But Mr. Adams has a secret. He has chosen Rosie because she reminds him of someone very special from long ago. Maybe she can even help him recapture that distant happiness.

Of course, she might need a little encouragement, but that’s fine…

What he doesn’t realise is that Rosie has a secret too, a secret that will have horrifying consequences for them both.

So instead of the heaven he had hoped to find, Mr. Adams finds himself fighting to escape the special kind of hell created by… the girl downstairs.

The Girl Downstairs – the stunning psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Mark Edwards, K. L. Slater, Miranda Rijks.

330 pages
Psychological thriller
Publication date: 21/11/21
Purchase links

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

READ THE EXTRACT

Gone midnight, and I am back on the prom, heading to the pier. I am obsessed. I know it. There is nothing I can do. I will pursue this to the end. My own, most likely.

I lay in bed for ages, thoughts of the girl rolling round my mind. My body aching in agony.

And it came to me quite suddenly where she must spend her nights, sheltering from the cold and the strong wind. Beneath the pier. I do not know why I did not think of that last night. Sometimes I don’t think straight. I forget things.

It is quiet along the promenade. I can hear the odd shout and the roar of a car up and back and away towards the town centre, up Convalescent Hill. But there is no one around the prom, the pier and the faded leisure centre beyond it. Just rubbish, crisp packets and fish and chip wrappers blown about in the chill night air.

In the distance, the lights and the occasional noise and the tall, alien-like cranes of the docks form an eerie backdrop. It is as if Felixstowe is riven in two, the tired, broken-down town settled for the night and the endless, restless energy of the docks, twenty-four hours around the clock.

I stop where the prom meets the pier and look around me. There is a man, with a big dog – hard to see what it is – an Alsatian maybe, walking away and up the hill to the town itself. There is no one else to be seen.

I crouch and look under the pier as the pebbly beach rolls away and into the sea.

There is a body there, curled up beside one of the huge metal pillars supporting the pier.

It is her, the girl. And she must be wet and cold and frightened.

And I realise then what it is I am going to do. As I was always going to do from the moment I saw her. It’s not about giving her a five-pound note or a warm and waterproof coat. It’s more than that. I want to bring her back to my cottage in Bluebell Lane.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Iain Maitland is the author of three previous psych thrillers, The Scribbler (2020), Mr Todd’s Reckoning (2019) and Sweet William (2017), all published by Contraband, an imprint of Saraband. Mr Todd’s Reckoning is coming to the big screen in 2023.

Iain is also the author of two memoirs, Dear Michael, Love Dad (Hodder, 2016), a book of letters written to his eldest son who experienced depression and anorexia, and (co-authored with Michael) Out Of The Madhouse (Jessica Kingsley, 2018).

He is also an Ambassador for Stem4, the teenage mental health charity. He talks regularly about mental health issues in schools and colleges and workplaces.

Find out more about Iain at http://www.iainmaitland.net and twitter.com/iainmaitland

Follow him at:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/iainmaitland

Website: https://iainmaitland.net