The Uninvited Guests

Sadie Jones's The Uninvited Guests may initially appear to occupy familiar territory. The setting is Sterne: an Edwardian country house, in which eldest daughter Emerald is about to celebrate her birthday with her family and a small house party of friends. Yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from a cozy country house novel. A sense of profound unease soon becomes palpable: there is uncertainty about the future of Sterne and its occupants and conflict among the family. This growing atmosphere of tension only increases when the uninvited guests arrive - the survivors of a dramatic railway crash on a nearby branch line, who have been directed by 'the Railway' to seek refuge at Sterne.

Clustered out of the way of the birthday celebrations, the uninvited guests begin to complain, clamouring for refreshments and singing plaintive songs. In spite of the chaos, Emerald's birthday dinner goes ahead as planned, but the guests are soon joined by a boisterous and charismatic gentlemen from among the railway crash survivors, who is already known to at least one of the house party. As his odd behaviour begins to provoke a strange sense of disquiet amongst the guests, Smudge, the youngest of the children, who is often forgotten altogether, determinedly sets about a peculiar artistic endeavour involving her favourite pony. But Emerald's birthday night is set to become even stranger…

Part classic country house novel, part surreal fantasy, The Uninvited Guests marks a very different approach for Sadie Jones. This is an unusual and intriguing exploration of class and history, in which the spectre of approaching war and tragedy never seems to be far away.