A first class drama of modern middle class life, this is a real page-turner from an author happy to take her characters right to the edge, and occasionally off it. You don't need monsters to create a proper horror scenario - having a couple of social workers turn up during a kids' party is scary enough. There is also a neat little paragraph a couple of pages from the end that playfully summarises what has gone before. I can't quote it here as it's one big spoiler but it raised a smile at the end of a pretty traumatic tale! ( )

A secret is only a safe secret when known by one.

Vicky has a life that many would envy. She’s been married to her husband since she was in her early twenties. She has three beautiful children; is still on maternity leave from the job she enjoys as a teacher after the birth of her last one. Their family lives in a beautiful home, much of which she renovated herself. She has friends, especially Amber, who has been her best friend since before the birth of her first child. But with all she has, is it enough? Having and raising Emily and Polly seemed so easy, but after the birth of Josh she is tired and frazzled, out of sorts and a bit discontented. And all that leads to the mistake that threatened all of that. Yes, Vicky has so much to be envied for. And someone does; someone who thinks she doesn’t deserve to have what she has.

Do you know the people around you? Do you have someone you trust with everything? We all think we can trust our friends or our spouse or family and that they will never betray us. But that can be dangerous.

It’s an interesting character study. Does a bad childhood excuse anyone’s behaviour or do the things that happened to us as children influence how we will behave as adults? Does a mistake or two make us bad people or bad parents? It’s easy to sit back and judge but maybe we should examine everything we’ve done first.

I love this genre of books. So many of these psychological thrillers have come out in the last few years; some better than others. For me, this one is five stars! It’s a fast paced quick read that I flew through although there were times I momentarily didn’t want to read further since I was afraid of what was coming. We as the readers can see where things are going and I was actually verbalizing to warn people of tragedies and betrayals ahead and yes, I may have accused some of the characters as being stupid for not seeing what was right in front of them. And I am a little crazy? Well maybe a little but I got so involved in this story and was dreading of what lay ahead.

This book really had me intrigued. Little by little more things were revealed that gave me further insight and some surprises made it make sense. Maybe none of us can ever really escape our pasts.

This will definitely be one of my favourites this year and I look forward to more by this author. ( )

The blurb for this book is quite vague so I wasn't at all sure what to expect plot wise from this novel, but boy, it is packed full of story, twists and punchy characters.

Focussing on two women, Vicky and Amber, we follow their journey of consequences following a gargantuan error of judgement on the part of the former. Vicky then finds herself getting entangled in a thick web of lies and deceit, eventually being left not knowing who she can actually trust.

The writing is very good and the plot is well woven and time-framed, moving along at a steady pace. We are told the story in both first and third person, dependent on whose viewpoint we are looking at and in between that we are also taken back to the early 1990's, and told the very sad and traumatic history of one of the characters. Eventually all of these things tie up together at the end for an explosive finale.

The author has done a great job with the characters, they are well developed and, particularly one, complex. For me an excellent balance of both like and dislike for them has been created and I flip-flopped my sympathy around all over the place.

This is a really good psychological suspense novel from Emma Curtis and I look forward to future reads from her. ( )