I’d seen this described as a twisty, turny, dark thriller – and here’s the blurb:

“Two couples, best friends for half a lifetime, move in together. What could possibly go wrong…?
Harriet and Mark have it all: successful careers, a lovely house in a leafy London suburb, twin boys on the cusp of leaving home. Yvette and Gary share a smaller place with their two daughters in a shabbier part of the same borough.
But when the stars align for a collective move north, it means a fresh start for them all. For Mark, it’s a chance to escape the rat race; for Harriet, a distraction from her unfulfilled dream of a late third child. Gary has decided to reboot the Madchester band that made him famous, while Yvette hopes it will give her daughters what she never had herself.
But as the reality of their new living arrangements slowly sinks in, the four friends face their own mid-life crises, and the dream becomes a nightmare…”

Now up front I would question the description and the blurb – I don’t know if the storyline changed, but it just doesn’t make sense, particularly the line ‘Yvette hopes it will give her daughters what she never had herself’ is just odd – given neither of the daughters make the move North. And the move North doesn’t happen until quite a way through the book – I just felt the blurb and reviews from other authors weren’t quite on the mark and thus I felt a bit short-changed!

It’s an easy enough domestic drama to read – but I didn’t feel it was very dark with twists and turns. I also found the way it was written a bit strange, you’d jump forward quite a large amount of time with no explanation – and then the intervening period would be filled in a bit (although I often felt there were gaps in explaining why things had happened).

It felt to be like it was trying to be Cold Feet but without any of the history the viewer has with the characters – and I didn’t have a strong view about any of the lead characters. Sometimes a book is as intriguing if you hate a main character as much as if you love one – but I found Harriet, Mark, Yvette and Gary all a bit dull and thus was apathetic about what happened to any of them.

I was quite surprised by the twist towards the end of the book – but even that didn’t save it for me.

To be honest it just didn’t sit well with me – and whilst there was nothing specifically wrong or offensive about the book, it just didn’t really float my boat.

Thanks to the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.