I loved this book, and oscillated between tearing through it to see what happened next, and not wanting it to finish. Quentin and Lottie Bredin can't afford to divorce, or to remain in their London home. So they move to Devon with Lottie's teenage son, who has unexpectedly not got his grades for Cambridge, and with Lottie and Quentin's two small daughters.

Both major and minor characters are well realised and compassionately drawn and the plot is suspenseful and credible until the last 50 pages or so. This portrait of a marriage, and of townies uncomfortably re-located into the countryside is involving and engaging. A real page-turner. ( )

This felt like something that was intended to be gritty but which ended up being chick-lit with a dodgy whodunnit tacked onto the side. I have always enjoyed Amanda Craig’s writing, she covers “issues” head on and in an entertaining way. I suspect what was intended here was an expose on rural life - it’s not as idyllic as we think, full of exploitation and social injustice etc etc. The trouble was this time it felt a bit forced, and the characters flat. I smelled a rat from the start - married couple, lost jobs in recession, can’t afford to divorce. Are we meant to believe the *only* possible solution would be to decamp to rural Devon and still live under the same roof together? And why was Lottie losing her job such a catastrophe? Are we to believe that in the whole of London there are no jobs for qualified architects at all? Did she even look?

For me the most interesting bits were those concerning the factory and farming (as a vegetarian it’s a thumbs up from me for the head-on tackling of the realities of the slaughter process). The twee interplay between the characters I found boring, and the “mystery”, theoretically there to keep the reader hooked, was great only if you like your villains suitably villainous and one dimensional. It was very much a case of “good” and “bad” characters, nobody had much in the way of light and shade (and since this is the first book I’ve read to mention Brexit let me say that I bet Sally voted remain). Even when Lottie started musing about her tendency to fall for the wrong men (exciting ones who cheat on her) we ended up being led down a street where (to extrapolate) all the sensible ones are dull and have furry teeth. I still think she’s a great author, but this one didn’t do it for me. ( )

A captivating novel that combines a darkly comic portrait of a family forced to leave London for the Devon countryside and their subsequent problems of settling into a new environment; an unsolved murder; and the reality of the hardship and poverty of some areas of the country. Allied with this, Craig explores the challenges of contemporary marriages and how different couples act to make their partnership work, or not.
Amanda Craig’s deft writing combines all these strands in a rewarding novel that challenges any preconceived thoughts as the main couple of the story, Lottie and Quentin attempt to negotiate their separation and divorce and their changing feelings for each other. All this, added to the suspense created by the murder, make for a riveting read.

This was a strange one. A family moves from London to Devon for financial reasons - Lottie and Quentin have both lost their jobs and move out of their beautiful London home into a rented cottage with no central heating. Their daughters leave their private school and go to the village primary. Xan, Lottie's son, having failed to get into Cambridge, works night shifts at the local pie factory. Quentin is forced to spend time with his terminally ill father, whom he has always hated.

Most of this novel read a bit like "women's fiction"/a coming of age story for Xan, but then Lottie and Quentin find out what happened to the last tenant of their cottage, which introduces a mystery strand. This seems to be coming to nothing for a good chunk of the story. Then you get to the ending, when all hell breaks loose and story goes completely bonkers. It's a pity, because I was set to give the book 5*, but those last few chapters were just too much. ( )

This is supposed to be a black comedy, but the abridged audio skipped the comedy part and portrayed it as a mystery/drama. (A dramastery?) It was done in 10, 13-minute segments. The presentation was just okay; I can see it would make a good book for a cold, rainy evening, but I think it would make a good made-for-TV movie. Maybe even in several parts. One of those great British crime dramas. It has plenty of intrigue, disturbing (and disturbed) characters, and personal conflict. The ending was hokey enough to pass for TV (which is perhaps where the comedy came in), but I must say I was pleased with Lottie's final determination. ( )