I absolutely loved Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig. The way she weaves a compelling narrative about the complexities of family, identity, and the search for truth kept me completely hooked from start to finish. The characters were so richly developed, each with their own flaws and nuances, making them feel incredibly real. The story’s setting, which oscillates between rural and urban England, added another layer of depth to the book, creating a strong sense of place that felt almost like a character itself. Craig’s sharp social commentary, coupled with her emotional storytelling, made this novel both thought-provoking and deeply moving. I couldn’t put it down and found myself thinking about it long after I finished. It’s definitely one I’ll recommend to others!

I enjoyed reading this book, but felt more engrossed in it during the second half than the first. The first half felt okay, but I could easily have put the book down and not finished it. I kept wanting Lottie to get a backbone and shove him out - surely she could have changed the locks at any time even after his return?
But the second half of the book really got going, and then it did become hard to put the book down. I found the realistic portrayal of rural life to be pretty accurate, and should be portrayed more - everyone hears about urban poverty but not rural. I found myself really rooting for some characters, not necessarily the main ones.
There were some good twists, although the main one was pretty obvious, the exact reasons for it were not. Most lose ends were tied up, my only remaining feeling was that Lottie should have stuck with her original plan. Back to my first impression of her...!

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

I really wanted to like this book. I started reading it but it wasn't engaging enough for me. Thank you for sending me the book.

A lovely read about a family who make a stressful move. The writer has written intelligently and with feeling and you come to love the characters quickly. Lots of twists and turns to keep you interested.

The Lie of The Land by Amanda Craig examines the many facets of marriage and breakdowns of relationships.

If you love slow moving, atmospheric books, then you'll love this. Unfortunately, for me, I found it difficult to get through because so little happens and when the murderer was revealed, it was anticlimactic despite the care given to character building. I'm not quite sure why this didn't work for me but something just didn't click.

A story about modern times but it was so slow and I found it very predictable. This one wasn't a good fit for me. Sorry.

(3.5 stars) A funny and insightful state-of-the-nation novel set in post-Brexit England. It’s in the same vein as Jonathan Coe’s Number 11, Laura Kaye’s English Animals and Rose Tremain’s The Road Home, and some of the characters (the journalist father, especially) reminded me of ones in Francesca Hornak’s Seven Days of Us. The central couple, Quentin and Lottie Bredin, want to divorce but can’t afford to, so they rent out their London home and move into a suspiciously cheap place in a Devon village, where their oldest son Xan goes to work in the “Humble Pie” factory to pass the time until he can try applying to universities again.

The book turns on a lot of dichotomies – city vs. country, manual labor vs. artistic careers, cruelty vs. charity – and mostly handles them in a sophisticated manner, not resorting to easy stereotypes. There are affecting pictures of a number of secondary characters, including Hugh, Quentin’s dying father, and Sally, a health visitor and farmer’s wife who’s desperate for a child. A few too many subplots mean that the book is overlong, and the final 60 pages or so get pretty silly due to a murder and its ramifications. The mesh between issues book and plotty mystery is not perfect, but on the whole I still enjoyed this very much.

amusing satire of town v country, with depth to the characters. The premise intrigued me: a high-powered London couple on the verge of divorce lose their jobs, so have to move- together - into a dilapidated cottage in Devon until they can sell their flat and get divorced. Oh, and there’s a dead body. The result was a witty and intelligent exploration of town vs country in Britain today, with enough of the relationship and murder mystery to keep the story moving.

If you’re middle class, then it is a painfully-accurate read, and she has some very astute insights into the privileged angst of those with money. This is a grower - in the middle it was a little slow, but the ending was satisfying, and the themes and characters have really stayed with me. Highly recommended.

DNF
This was just to slow for me.
I could not connect with the characters who were dull with no depth.

I read this in a week and thought it was very interesting and a nice read

This is a superb novel about the state of Britain in our turbulent modern world. But it’s also about a family in trouble; a move to the rural ‘idyll’ of Devon, from the hubbub of London; and, it’s a murder mystery. Amanda Craig has written a highly addictive, well-written novel which is multi-layered and enjoyable. The characterisation is deft, too. The stately nature of Marta is written as beautifully as the tragically dumpy Dawn - both testament to Craig’s evident skill as a writer for our times.

At the heart of this book is a really, really great story. The situation that Lottie and Quentin find themselves in is symbolic of the times we live in and the realities of the messed-up housing market – Lottie and Quentin are privileged, yes, and spoilt in some regards, but they are property rich and cash poor, and when their marriage breaks down and they find themselves out of work, they can’t afford to live in London anymore. They rent out their house and, with their twins and Lottie’s son Xan, they move to a rented cottage in Devon. But there is a reason the rent on their cottage is so cheap, and a mystery about the former occupant that leads them into danger.
Their life in Devon provides an opportunity to explode the myth of the false idyll of country life. It’s hard work, and it’s cold and damp and the shops are too far away. The local economy is based on zero hour contracts (as so much of the work in this country now is) and most of the time life seems fairly miserable. But Lottie slowly finds herself relaxing and enjoying her new life, away from the social hothouse of the capital.
Lottie has the potential to be a warm and sympathetic main character, but she is little too perfect to feel truly real. Quentin does behave badly, and he deserves her anger, but she surely must have some faults of her own? Xan is lovely, a real strength of the narrative, and twins Stella and Rosie are really well-written, as are Quentin’s parents. Quentin, who I should have hatted, I actually warmed to, although he does verge slightly on the stereotypical.
There is a strong cast of supporting characters, but again I did find some of them too perfect – health visitor Sally , for example. And I couldn’t quite believe in the denouement at the end.
I also found the use of present tense quite off-putting, especially as there were a few times when the tenses did seem all over the place.
That said, I really did enjoy reading this, which is, I suppose, all that really matters. It’s a great book to curl up with and sink into – and despite the fact that some of it seemed hard to believe, I can’t fault it for sheer enjoyment. I became involved on the characters’ lives despite myself and it was a book that I looked forward to picking up at the end of each day. So while it isn’t a perfect book, it is a very good one indeed, and I will definitely read more of the author’s work.

I enjoyed reading this storyline full of suspense and I totally enjoyed the theme. Worth every minute.

A black comedy of middle-class manners meets murder mystery. Perhaps that's too succinct a sum-up for this epic novel - as well as being both those things, The Lie of The Land is also a terrifyingly accurate portrait of modern Britain, and Craig deftly weaves a compelling story as she shows how current political, economic and social issues in the UK impact on a variety of a different characters.

Lottie and Quentin are a middle-aged London couple in crisis - they have both lost their jobs in the recession, and Lottie has separated from Quentin after discovering he has had an affair. They can't afford to get a divorce, nor can they continue to afford to live in London with no income and three children to provide for. Lottie makes the snap decision to move with the children out to a farmhouse in Devon (the rent is so cheap! But why....?) where her disillusioned teenage son gets a zero-hours contract in a pie factory, the two young girls attend the local school and, grudgingly, allows Quentin to join them on the proviso that he contribute 50-50 to the housework and expenses. Quentin hires a cleaner to do his share of the cleaning - a fierce Mrs Danvers-like woman named Janet - and the idyllic fantasy of escaping the city for country life begins to turn on its head....

I won't spoil the ending but it's the reason this was 4 stars rather than 5 for me. I would have preferred something more definitive (but I know as a writer you can't please everyone!).

That aside, if you enjoy novels that hold a mirror up to the world you live in, that make you laugh and question a lot of things at the same time, then you'll likely enjoy The Lie of The Land. As well as being side-splittingly funny and horrifying in equal measure, this is a gripping tale of disillusionment and redemption, and a reminder that adversity can truly be the making of people.

Also, I don't think I'll buy or eat a factory-made pie ever again.

As wonderful as I’d hoped and expected. Bereft now it’s read. A long-term devotee of this author.

A simple yet deceptively nuanced story of modern times, ‘The Lie of the Land’ by Amanda Craig is full of the contrasts and comparisons thrown up by ordinary life. The Bredins, Quentin and Lottie, have agreed to divorce after his infidelity but cannot afford to. Unable to sell their London house, they rent it out instead and move to Devon to a dank dark creepy farmhouse where they must manage to live together. What happens over the next year is unexpected and changes all their lives forever. This is a funny, mysterious and sometimes sad story of a city family in the country where, instead of leaving their problems behind, they find they are magnified. There is truth in the old adage, you cannot run from your problems.
What happened to the previous tenant of Home Farm? Who is the mysterious tramp in the local pub? And is Lottie really having an affair with a local architect. Meanwhile, Quentin’s father is dying and his mother is stoically coping. Lottie’s son Xan works in the nearby pie factory where, as well as finding himself a Polish girlfriend, he makes friends with Dawn, the daughter of the Bredin’s cleaner. Dawn, who seems downtrodden, obese and introverted, can play the piano like an angel. Craig has written a character-driven novel with a community of characters to make Devon feel at once cozy and familiar while being secretive and insulated. Where contrasts are expected between urban and rural life, there are often likenesses. There are several sub-plots cleverly woven into the main family narrative, of caring for elderly parents, bullying, childlessness, rural phone and broadband reception, Polish workers and urban snobbishness about country life.
I particularly liked sheep farmer’s wife Sally Verity, whose job as a social worker sees her move around the countryside, cleverly knitting together people and stories. Lottie’s mother Marta, though she stays in London, is another link between generations, locations and storylines. Only when I had finished the book did I learn that some of the characters appear in other novels by Craig, something which did not affect my understanding or enjoyment of the book.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

A good read, if a little slow. The characters are well developed but the plot a little predictable.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a free copy of this ebook, but unfortunately I'm going to have to DNF this at 30%.

The author's portrayal of Devon as some kind of backwards community full of idiots and racists is doing my head in. I have lived in Devon for all of my 23 years and never, ever, known an entire community like that. There are, of course, a few backwards, racists locals in every small town or village, not just in Devon, but to suggest a while county of them is , quite frankly, insulting. I honestly feel like the only reason Alexander, Lottie'soldest son, is described as mixed race is so that ignorant locals can ask if he is made of chocolate.

Polish immigrants are also painted in a thoroughly unflattering light. Apparently all Polish immigrants must speak very little English, work menial jobs for less than minimum wage, and live in "slum-like" house shares with more people than there are bedrooms. Really? I know so many Polish people - including members of my own family - for whom this is simply not true. This kind of portrayal does nothing but add to the stereotype of European workers stealing English jobs.

I can't bring myself to care for any of the main characters, even Lottie. The reader is supposed to emphasise with her situation but the author doesn't devote enough time to Lottie's character for me to feel anything for her.

I also don't care for the suspense or thriller aspect of the story. The whole premise is that a terrible thing has happened in the house and that's why it's so cheap, but at 30% I've already found out what that terrible event is. I can only assume that the rest of the book is Lottie uncovering the details of the event.

I'm sure there are people who will love this, but I am not that person.