The House Swap – Rebecca Fleet

Psychological Thriller
4*s

Now the thought of strangers staying in my house when I’m not there isn’t one that appeals on any level but for Caroline and therapist husband Francis the house swap gives them an opportunity to take a cheap break in Chiswick, close to London. So they make a folder of important information and leave their Leeds apartment to be enjoyed by a stranger in their absence.

Francis and Caroline leave their young son Eddie with her mother and drive to Chiswick and the boxy house which will become their base for exploring museums and the like in the big city for the next week. As they walk inside the lack of personal possessions is immediately apparent. Who’d live in a house like this?

This is a domestic thriller and as such a portrait of a marriage under an enormous amount of strain. Francis has suffered with an unspecified addiction while Caroline, the breadwinner, cook, bottle washer and parent, eventually snaps and starts a lurid affair with a younger colleague. The affair is hot, as are both Caroline and Carl, her paramour and the sections of the book set in the past are full of sex and the excitement of new passion. Caroline believes the lies she tells herself and her enjoyment of the attention in contrast to her empty marriage is very well done. But all this is in the past, two years before the trip away. So when Caroline notices things that remind her of times passed and she becomes spooked, as you would.

This is a good debut novel although not suitable for those readers who need to like or admire the characters. I would have liked to know more about the background to Francis’s addiction but as The House Swap is mostly told from Caroline’s point of view, we hear her thoughts on him but little of what makes him tick (when he’s not out of it on whatever pills he’s addicted to) In fact the woman who seemed most ‘real’ was the intense neighbour but that is probably because we know Caroline is hiding, from herself as much as Francis.

What The House Swap does really well is to shine a spotlight on how one person’s behaviour can cause a ripple effect, and it does it well. It’s also a lesson in how lack of communication can cause huge issues that can’t be overcome without a level of trust.

Caroline has only just made herself at home before a neighbour introduces herself and becomes a little bit keen to spend time with her which is just odd considering she’s only staying for a week.

There is plenty of intrigue that kept me turning the pages of this novel which is the ideal beach read. After all we all like to peek behind someone else’s curtains, even if the thought of the favour being returned makes us recoil in horror. The plotting is accomplished so even though I could think of various ways the storyline could play out, I wasn’t right in any aspect at all.

I’d like to thank the publishers Transworld who allowed to me read a copy of The House Swap before publication on 3 May 2018. This unbiased review is my thanks to them and Rebecca Fleet for an entertaining read.

First Published UK: 3 May 2018
Publisher:Transworld
No of Pages: 320
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Amazon UK
Amazon US

This Week in Books (April 18)

Hosted by Lipsy Lost & Found my Wednesday post gives you a taste of what I am reading this week. A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words

I have started my fourth read from The Classics Club chosen by the spin which chose Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon so I’m going back to the Victorian times to meet this far from insipid lady.

Blurb

‘Lady Audley uttered a long, low, wailing cry, and threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture of despair’

In this outlandish, outrageous triumph of scandal fiction, a new Lady Audley arrives at the manor: young, beautiful – and very mysterious. Why does she behave so strangely? What, exactly, is the dark secret this seductive outsider carries with her? A huge success in the nineteenth century, the book’s anti-heroine – with her good looks and hidden past – embodied perfectly the concerns of the Victorian age with morality and madness. Amazon

The last book I finished also featured a far from insipid female, this time  WPC Florence Lovelady who takes us back to 1969 in Sharon Bolton’s brilliantly creepy The Craftsman – my review for this book will follow soon.

Blurb

Devoted father or merciless killer?
His secrets are buried with him.

Florence Lovelady’s career was made when she convicted coffin-maker Larry Glassbrook of a series of child murders 30 years ago. Like something from our worst nightmares the victims were buried…ALIVE.

Larry confessed to the crimes; it was an open and shut case. But now he’s dead, and events from the past start to repeat themselves.

Did she get it wrong all those years ago?
Or is there something much darker at play?

Next on my list is The House Swap by Rebecca Fleet which will be published on 3 May 2018 – not sure if the female protagonist in this book is insipid but I sincerely hope she isn’t!

Blurb

‘No one lives this way unless they want to hide something.’

When Caroline and Francis receive an offer to house swap, they jump at the chance for a week away from home. After the difficulties of the past few years, they’ve worked hard to rebuild their marriage for their son’s sake; now they want to reconnect as a couple.

On arrival, they find a house that is stark and sinister in its emptiness – it’s hard to imagine what kind of person lives here. Then, gradually, Caroline begins to uncover some signs of life – signs of her life. The flowers in the bathroom or the music in the CD player might seem innocent to her husband but to her they are anything but. It seems the person they have swapped with is someone she used to know; someone she’s desperate to leave in her past.

But that person is now in her home – and they want to make sure she’ll never forget . . . Amazon

So what do you think? Have you read any of these? Would you like to?

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (April 10)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Vicky from I’d Rather Be At The Beach who posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

This week I’ve chosen a book that I’m looking forward to reading – The House Swap by Rebecca Fleet will be published on 3 May 2018.

Blurb

‘No one lives this way unless they want to hide something.’

When Caroline and Francis receive an offer to house swap, they jump at the chance for a week away from home. After the difficulties of the past few years, they’ve worked hard to rebuild their marriage for their son’s sake; now they want to reconnect as a couple.

On arrival, they find a house that is stark and sinister in its emptiness – it’s hard to imagine what kind of person lives here. Then, gradually, Caroline begins to uncover some signs of life – signs of her life. The flowers in the bathroom or the music in the CD player might seem innocent to her husband but to her they are anything but. It seems the person they have swapped with is someone she used to know; someone she’s desperate to leave in her past.

But that person is now in her home – and they want to make sure she’ll never forget . . . Amazon

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

Away

Caroline, May 2015

When we turn into the street, my first thought is that the houses around here all look the same. Neat, whitewashed rectangles with boxy little windows and flatly sloping roofs. They almost all have window boxes, too – lined up along the lower sills and filled uniformly with white-and-purple pansies, like they are subject to some sort of dress code. There must be around thirty of these houses, all prettily popped off the production line.

A fairly innocuous opening, and we’ve all been in places like that but I really want to know what happens when Caroline turns the key.

What about you? Would you keep reading?