“We all have those moments we wish we could relive and do differently.”
It’s been a while since we’ve sunk our teeth into a classic whodunnit. And, after a few brilliant but undoubtedly demanding literary novels, we thought we would round out 2025 with a murder mystery fitting the chilly wintry season. Which is how we came across Hide by Nell Pattison. This snowy thriller features a group of bird-watching enthusiasts setting out on Boxing Day, only for one of them to wind up dead. From there, it’s the usual story of hidden motives, brewing resentments and unreliable narrators taking us into the heart of who’s behind this festive-time crime. But, just how good is Nell Pattinson’s mystery-thriller, both on its own merits and against some of the other thrillers we’ve reviewed? Join us at What We Reading for our Hide book review to find out!
Date Published: 2021
Author: Nell Pattison
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Pages: 400
Goodreads Rating: 3.52/5
Hide Summary
The winter hike is meant to bring the group together. Emily, the sister who never lets her hearing loss hold her back. Lauren, the sister who always feels one step behind. Morna, who doesn’t get on with Lauren. Ben, whose feelings for Emily border on obsession. Dan, the quiet newcomer to the group. Kai, who isn’t on the hike just to enjoy the wildlife. And Alec, who knows all of their secrets.
As the sun sets, a gunshot rings out in the nature reserve. One of the seven is dead. And one of their number killed them.
What Worked
There were a number of things that helped Hide stick out as a semi-original locked-room mystery. The setting of a sprawling nature reserve worked well, especially when paired with the festive time in which the story takes place. The descriptions of the environment and the starlings which the group were present to witness were solid, and did a solid job in setting the scene for a believably chilling thriller.
We enjoyed the inclusion of Emily, a woman who suffers from hearing difficulties. The descriptions of her hardships and the intricacies of living with hearing loss were all incredibly believable, and the authenticity with which Nell Pattison writes as a teacher of Deaf education shines through.
The pacing of the novel, overall, we thought, was decent enough. It trundles along a bit to begin with, but reaches a nice and pulsating finale where things are delivered at an express pace near the close.
What Didn’t
We’ll be totally frank here: Hide was not a book for us.
First up, let’s talk about Emily. Big plaudits for having a main character, but there’s so little done with it to actually serve the story. We were expecting some serious sensory storytelling and a new dimension on how the environment, the stakes, and the threats might have been perceived from someone with hearing loss. Suffice to say that never happened. A bit of lip-reading aside, there really was no point in having Emily have hearing difficulties, other than to point to Nell Pattison’s own experiences within this field.
All the characters are bland and unlikable. None of them has any compelling motivations that come across as shocking or unexpected, but what’s most disappointing is how similar they all sound to one another. A locked-room mystery depends on its characters to serve the story, especially when you choose to have all of their perspectives on show. Sadly, Hide is an example of a story where all the voices sound the same.
The reveals were all unbelievably easy to spot, save for the final one at the end, which is so unimaginably out there it genuinely made us chuckle.
Hide really does feel like a book that was rushed out. There are so many examples of poorly executed sections or passages that should have been looked over again. One example that sticks out to us is where a character is described as shifting away from another, and then their inner monologue claims they don’t trust them. Their action of moving away already tells us that we don’t need to hear it. Examples like this are rampant and make the experience of reading the story so draining after just a few chapters.
Wrap Up
We really hate being negative with our book reviews. Every published author deserves huge plaudits for getting a book to production and on the shelves of a bookstore; however, this was honestly one of the worst novels we’ve read this year.
We were looking forward to a nice palette-cleansing wintry-themed thriller to round out our 2025, but what we got with Hide is one of the biggest and least enjoyable slogs going.
All of Nell Pattison’s characters are overly archetypal, bland in their voice, and predictable in their secrets. The writing is bordering on amateurish at times, and the reveals that are meant to be the biggest pull of a story like this are either frustratingly predictable or so wildly out there we cannot take them seriously.
Underneath all of our unenjoyment, there’s potential for this to be a good book. We were psyched for a high-stakes, isolated winter-time thrill ride where our protagonist’s deafness would provide a unique new perspective. Instead, what we got was a cast of boring, unlikeable and indistinguishable characters and an author whose style of writing fell well short of setting any suspense or capitalising on the intrigue their premise might have conjured in us.
Sorry to end the year on a downer, but this is definitely one to skip.
Our Rating: 1.5/5
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
