The Cuckoo House follows The Other Lotus Girl. Ebook, £3.99, ASIN B0GX2V3171. Twenty-three chapters.
Cuckooing is when somebody takes over another person's home and runs criminal business out of it. Section 65 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 makes it an offence in its own right. That section is not yet in force.
The house in this one is Number 34, and it belongs to Iris.
Iris
Seventy-eight, barely five foot, bad hips and worse knees, a stick, and a shuffle-tap across the lino. Her right hand is bandaged to the wrist with gauze and yellowing tape she wound on herself. She calls everyone love, the postman and the girl on the Tesco till and Keith.
Keith Ellison
Iris's grandson. He does not move from the chair. There is foil on the armrest and a blanket over his legs. Months before, he was living in an off-white caravan on the clifftop when two Vietnamese girls came up off the pebble beach at first light, off a boat. He said 'Christ', fetched blankets, carried one of them in, splinted her broken arm with a wooden spoon, made tea with three sugars in each mug, and would not call anyone. 'Been here three years, seen the boats. I know what happens.'
Brick
One of those two girls. Five foot four, a silver stud in her left nostril, and hair someone else took kitchen scissors to, shorn to the skull in patches. Brass knuckles sit out beside the cash and there is a knife in the kitchen drawer that is not a kitchen knife. She runs Number 34 now, and Keith is frightened of her. Her name was Mai.
Vân Lê
Still looking for her sister. She knows by now what Mai is into. She keeps calling her Mai anyway.
Rubie C, reviewing on NetGalley on 21 July 2026: 'I picked this book up because the premise of two sisters fighting to reunite after surviving unimaginable trauma immediately caught my attention.'
Priya
Newly arrived. Sits on the spare bed holding an Adidas bag with a broken zip and asks the two questions that show how the house works.
Danny Cortilo
Danny Cortilo owns the operation. 'It's an arrangement,' he tells her, and he says it twice. He is Tony Cortilo's younger brother. Josh drives and barely speaks. Tyler is seventeen, tall, too tall, all elbows, one of the county-lines boys who come through the back with phones on them worth more than the lot of them put together.
Henry Clarke
He owned the paper that brought the MPs down in the first book. 'When that seat opens, I intend to stand for it. I intend to win.' Red wine at three in the morning in his own restaurant, and a bruise gone dark high on his left cheekbone that nobody is going to bring up.
Stuart
Stuart and Martin are back, and so is Barbara Patterson, Martin's mother, and John Phillips from next door. Barbara's husband George is in hospital when the book opens and the doctors think he can come home soon.
Ashton Clark, Goodreads, 21 July 2026: 'A haunting follow-up to The Other Lotus Girl, The Cuckoo House reunites readers with married couple, Stuart and Martin; Martin's mouthy and somewhat homophobic (but she is growing!) mother-in-law, Barbara; the nosy next-door neighbor and IT Consultant, John.'
Richard F, NetGalley, 21 July 2026: 'an engrossing and atmospheric novel that blends suspense with a strong sense of place, creating a story that feels both eerie and emotionally grounded.' Another NetGalley reviewer the same day: 'ive heard of Cuckoo houses and how they are becoming quite a problem. the act of taking over someone vulnerable home feels even more sinister.'
Ebook £3.99. Read The Other Lotus Girl first.
