Random Home presents the audiobook edition from the Snakes, written by Sadie Jones, go through by Abigail Thaw.

‘I wonder if it hurts them to shed their skins,’ she said. She didn’t feel afraid standing in the darkness, imagining snakes, even with the smell of death in the surroundings.

Bea and Dan, recently married, rent out their tiny smooth to escape London for some precious months. Driving through France they go to Bea’s dropout brother Alex at the resort he runs in Burgundy. Disturbingly, they find him about The Snakes alone and the ramshackle resort deserted, apart from the nest of snakes in the attic.

When Alex and Bea’s parents produce a surprise visit, Dan can’t understand why Bea is indeed appalled, or why she’s hardly ever wanted him to learn them; Liv and Griff Adamson are captivating, and rich. They are the richest people he provides ever met. Probably Bea’s ashamed of him, or maybe she regrets the secrets she’s been keeping.

Tragedy strikes suddenly, brutally, and in its aftermath the family is stripped back again to its heart, and then its rotten core, as well as Bea with all her strength and goodness can’t get away.