Nine Dolls

By: Rupa Mahadevan

Narrated by: Avita Jay, Safiyya Ingar, Paula Masterton, Krupa Pattani

My first holiday with my husband's friends. A remote Scottish manor. Nine sacred dolls. One brutal murder.

We find the doll shattered on the floor, its broken pieces scattered like a warning. That's when everything starts to fall apart.

Now the power is out. A storm has trapped us here. And someone is dead.

We've only been married three months. And our first holiday as man and wife is spending ten days in a secluded Scottish manor with my husband's old friends. I've never met them before.

From the moment I arrive, I feel like an outsider.

And it's not just his friends. Things haven't been normal since the first day, when someone moved the dolls.

I told them not to — never move the dolls before the tenth day of Navaratri, the Hindu Festival of Dolls. They're not toys. They're part of a sacred tradition.

But no one listened. Even Dhruv — my husband — told me to stop being silly.

I know they're hiding something. I can't trust any of them — not even the man I married.

Now one of us is dead. One of us is a killer. Am I going to make it out of here alive?

©2025 Rupa Mahadevan (P)2025 Audible Ltd.

Gripping mystery

Loved the humor. I did guess who did it, but was such fun. Really 15 word minimum. Will no longer leave review

Confusing…

I have no idea who did what to who and why. There was way too many plot twists and so confusing. You can guess who was behind the moving dolls quickly but it gets frustrating after that.

A Good Book With Too Many Characters

The premise of this book is unique and held my interest enough for me to finish it.
But there were so many characters and so many timeline shifts without clear delineation that it was extremely frustrating at times.

I almost put the book down about half way through for this reason.

But it is well written and the location and the plot were interesting enough that I wanted to know what happened.

The narration is really good and that helped a lot.

At least there were no cheap tricks or boring tropes.

The location is fascinating and the characters were well developed.

Worth a listen.

Twists

Bad flow chapter to chapter but you can feel the author trying to trip you up in the rabbit hole of the story. Evidence by the long epilogue

Engaging Karma

This is an engaging story with twists, turns, relationships, and issues. Each chapter usually introduces you to one of the characters and their perspective. Pay attention to the first few chapters so you get to differentiate all the characters. I liked the humor…subtle and true. The women were strong and resilient within their own lives. Learning about the Indian holiday tradition was interesting and added to the mysterious air.