Published By: Century
Pages: 400
Released On: 06/06/2024
TWO COUPLES
Elena and Adam are housesitting in Wimbledon and are instantly seduced by their new upscale surroundings.
Sophia and Finn are their beautiful, enigmatic neighbours who invite them into their world.
ONE TWISTED GAME
When Sophia proposes a wicked game to Elena whereby they will swap partners in secret, it’s not long before Elena starts to experience a sexual awakening that blossoms into an illicit love affair.
But Sophia’s plans are far more complex and dangerous than Elena could ever have imagined…
WHO WILL SURVIVE?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Century for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
Oh this had so much promise! I was so in need of a new thriller, but this one fell a bit short.
The premise confused me to begin with. I understood it, but couldn’t figure out the logistics as to how it worked or how it would become a thriller. And if I’m honest, it wasn’t much of a thriller for the most part, in my view.
But lets look at the characters first. Our main players are Sophia and Finn, and Elena and Adam. And they were all quite a bit boring, a bit too caricature-ish. I quite liked Elena. For starters, she’s a proofreader, which I am (ignore my typos 😊), so that was instant brownie points. She felt more familiar than Sophia, she was sort of mucking through life, working hard. There were a few catty moments, but my overall impressions of her were far more favourable than any of the others. And talking about Sophia, I didn’t like from the start to the end, she was very snobbish, full of name-drops, she felt like she was superior to the others, she was hiding things, and just really quite annoying.
And then the two men. It was harder to form opinions on them because they were sort of pushed to the background by the women. But Adam felt useless and Finn felt slimy.
I also got really confused because I kept forgetting which wife was with which husband, and the chapters flitting from THEN to NOW, and then Part 1 to Part 2 etc.
There were also other characters involved, such as Adam’s Mother, but they never felt like they were properly a part of the story. If you’re going to add other characters, then give them a reason for being there. They felt surplus to me.
I did read it very quickly, I was involved and it was enjoyable, but it seemed to be too slow, but at the same time, too frantic. It didn’t feel like a thriller, at least for the first half, it was just plodding along, felt a bit repetitive. But then towards the end it exploded, almost like a completely different book. But then I thought she had thrown too much at it, every thriller trope you could think of. I would rather have a handful of topics or goings-ons that were executed well, than lots of unfinished ones; it was just too jarring.
I didn’t find it very realistic. For me, what makes a good thriller is that it feels like it could happen to you. But this was a bit…you had to suspend belief a bit, which meant you don’t get that familiarity which makes it more thrilling – at least for me.
I’m not saying it’s a bad book, because it’s not, there were just a few things that hampered the experience. It felt like it was trying to reach something, achieve something that it never quite hit. I thought it was unique and interesting, but just fell far too short. It needed tidying up, cleaned up, made shorter, and then it might have been more of an enjoyable read. Perfectly fine, but falling short of my expectations.
Books By Your Bedside 