Mischief Night
By the time my sister asks me to clean up the blood, I have already unpacked the good mugs.
My flat flooded, leaving me dependent on Lucy for a place to stay. Fresh flowers. Biscuits by the bed. A whole house to myself while she and her husband, Aaron, spend October in Cyprus. All I have to do is help with their Halloween attraction.
It’s only stage blood, Lucy assures me. But the tasks she sets me feel less like preparation and more like an elaborate disappearance. The wedding ring I find. The unanswered calls to Aaron’s phone. His daughter’s persistent questions. Lucy insists he just wants to be left alone, that I’m worrying over nothing.
Yet with every job I finish, another trace of Aaron vanishes. As Mischief Night approaches, the neighbors anticipate a fright. I’m starting to understand I should be terrified too. I’ve spent my life helping my sister. Now I need to find out what terrible secret I’ve helped her bury.
- Beth - Lucy’s sister
- Ruth - Beth’s friend
- Lucy - Aaron’s wife
- Aaron - Lucy’s husband
- Mia - Aaron and Elise’s daughter
- Elise - Mia’s mother
- Dev - Lucy and Aaron’s neighbor
- Natalie Reed - Detective constable
- Beth’s apartment floods, so she stays at Lucy and Aaron’s house while they are supposedly on vacation in Cyprus.
- Beth helps prepare Lucy and Aaron’s house for the haunted house they host every year on Mischief Night.
- Beth finds a pumpkin on the porch containing Aaron’s wedding ring and a note asking, ‘why do you have his ring?’
- Lucy tells Beth that Aaron took off his wedding ring during a fight.
- Mia tells Beth she hasn’t heard from Aaron since he supposedly left on vacation and is worried about him.
- Dev tells Beth that Aaron had been unhappy in his marriage lately.
- Mia tells Beth she found Aaron’s wedding ring on the floor of his office and put it in the pumpkin for Beth to find because she was worried about him.
- Mia saw someone loading things into a van in the middle of the night before Lucy and Aaron supposedly left on vacation.
- Beth leaves Aaron a message asking him to call her back, and he replies with a voice message asking her to leave him alone.
- Beth realizes Aaron’s voice message is identical to one he sent her the previous summer.
- Elise reports Aaron missing to the police.
- Lucy admits to Beth that she and Aaron fought, he said he was leaving her, and he did not accompany her to Cyprus.
- Lucy admits to sending messages from Aaron’s phone pretending to be him so that everyone would stop worrying.
- Lucy says Aaron was financially abusive and grabbed her once hard enough to leave a bruise.
- Police find an old phone belonging to Aaron containing messages between him and Beth that suggest they were having an affair and planning to run away together.
- The messages were not sent from Beth’s phone number, and she denies sending them.
- The Mischief Night haunted house at Lucy and Aaron’s house is cancelled.
- Ruth flies home and admits to Beth that she forged Beth’s name on documents and took money from Aaron’s account that he had promised to Mia.
- Aaron’s body is found at Braken Quarry.
- Lucy kidnaps Mia at knifepoint.
- Beth calls Lucy, who tells her they are in the workshop behind her house.
- Beth finds the workshop on fire, enters, and gets Lucy to release Mia.
- Lucy tells Beth that she and Aaron fought, she pushed him, and he hit his head on the radiator and died.
- Lucy and Beth escape the burning building.
- Lucy is arrested for Aaron’s murder.
- Lucy caused the flood at Beth’s flat as part of her plan to murder Aaron and frame Beth for his death. She also planned to kill Beth in a fire at the haunted house on Mischief Night and frame her death as a suicide.
Mischief Night is a good option if you are looking for some Halloween vibes. The plot itself, however, leaves a bit to be desired. Early on, Beth finds something suspicious, Lucy tells her to stop worrying, and Beth essentially does nothing, and this happens enough times that the beginning of the book was so repetitive I almost gave up on it.
I did enjoy watching Beth and Mia’s friendship develop as they both became increasingly concerned about Aaron’s whereabouts. Their relationship gave the story a more personal element and was one of the parts I found myself most invested in. I just wish some of the other pieces had been explained more clearly. There was always another reason to be suspicious or another lie to uncover, but with so much happening, some of the details became confusing or unclear. I kept expecting a big twist or a stronger explanation for why everything was happening, but neither really came together in the way I hoped.
If you like Halloween vibes, missing-person mysteries, and lots of secrets and lies, then you may enjoy this book.
- Aaron - Dead - Died after hitting his head when Lucy pushed him
- Lucy - Alive - Under arrest for Aaron’s murder
- Gaslighting
- Domestic abuse
- Murder
ASIN: 191739845X
Publication Date: September 26, 2026
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.
