Fi comes home one day to find a moving truck in front of her house, unloading the belongings of strangers. Only Fi didn’t sell her house…
Something horrific is taking place, she thinks. Knows. Knows in her bones.
This is not the type of book I’d usually read but the blurb sucked me in. I wanted to know Fi and Bram’s backstory, to figure out how and why this had happened.
Beginning with Fi’s discovery that her house is no longer her house, this story then takes you back to the beginning of where it all went wrong. Fi’s story is told via a podcast that she and her friends all used to listen to before her life became an episode. Bram wrote his own version of events.
I don’t usually finish books when I don’t like any of the main characters. I’m all for loving characters or loving to hate them, but don’t tend to want to get to know fictional characters I wouldn’t want to sit down and have a conversation with. I made an exception for Fi and Bram, neither of whom I’d meet for coffee.
After hooking me in the beginning, the story dragged in the middle. I decided to stick with it and am glad I did because it picked up towards the end. I saw some of the twists coming. The ones I didn’t see coming didn’t surprise me when they arrived; my response was more that how the plot was unfolding made sense rather than there being any jaw dropping.
I can see why people enjoy books like this one. There’s dysfunctional family dynamics, betrayal and people pushed beyond their limits. I still don’t think it’s really my type of book (if the characters had made the decisions I probably would have, there wouldn’t have been a book in the first place), but I like wandering outside of my reading comfort zone every so often to see what I’m missing. I probably need to do it more often.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this book.
Once Upon a Blurb
FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.
When Fi Lawson arrives home to find strangers moving into her house, she is plunged into terror and confusion. She and her husband Bram have owned their home on Trinity Avenue for years and have no intention of selling. How can this other family possibly think the house is theirs? And why has Bram disappeared when she needs him most?
FOR RICHER, FOR POORER.
Bram has made a catastrophic mistake and now he is paying. Unable to see his wife, his children or his home, he has nothing left but to settle scores. As the nightmare takes grip, both Bram and Fi try to make sense of the events that led to a devastating crime. What has he hidden from her – and what has she hidden from him? And will either survive the chilling truth – that there are far worse things you can lose than your house?
TILL DEATH US DO PART.
Schizanthus Nerd 