Dazzling and deeply deeply wonderful.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one but it's one of those books that slowly grows on you. The atmospheric writing perfectly captures life in a small village and the claustrophobia that can sometimes accompany living in such close circumstances. It's loosely based on a true story and thought-provokingly portrays how different people respond to a crisis.

I honestly could tell by the writing of the first 2 chapters that it wouldn't be a good fit for our box and had to put it down. I may read it again in the future!

This book is set in the Summer of 1984 in a small village where every day is ‘normal’ until it is discovered that someone is breaking into houses and moving and taking objects. At first intriguing and gossip worthy, the puzzling antics of 'The Fox' quickly becomes more dark and menacing when a young woman goes missing.
In the course of investigation, all of the neighbours who “all begin as strangers” soon learn about eachothers business, and it is these secrets – these faults and flaws that make the characters so very real, that earn the reader’s compassion. The four residents of the village that tell this tale are outcasts in their own way, and all have their secrets revealed. Of course this story isn’t just about the interplay between neighbours of a small village, it is about the threat of the intruder and the missing woman.

Essentially, it is a story about the themes of loneliness and trust, secrets and suspicion, and principally about what it is to be human in a small community.

Please note, it is based on the real life events in the 1980s of a much darker character called The Fox.

The author took her inspiration from the real life events that was a reality for her parents and other inhabitants in several Chiltern villages in the summer of 1984. An unknown figure, nicknamed ‘The Fox’ was slipping into people’s homes, evidenced by pictures removed from albums, clothing taken from drawers, warm teapots left on worktops and doors and windows left open on their departure. Thankfully the book does not replicate the more sinister and nastier actions which included sexual assault and rape, but limits itself to the mysterious and unsettling nature of the disturbances.

The action focuses on a handful or so of neighbours in a small, fairly generic English village. The newly married Deloris and Harvey, Stan, the manager of the local supermarket, Brian, the village police officer, Jim, the Lay Vicar, Cynthia a neighbour with her reclusive husband Ralph, and finally Anna, the quiet, unassuming church goer who causes great consternation when she disappears. The characters are all really well drawn, and I was easily drawn in to their lives as the plot developed.

I really enjoyed this book on several levels. It was a great period piece that really brought the mid 1980’s to life, for better or worse. The role of women in the home and workplace, the casual and institutionalised sexism, the fashions, the food, the decor and what everyone was watching on the TV. It was a time when a microwave or a water-bed was aspirational, and anyone who was anyone had a sodastream and a Magimix. Meanwhile no self-respecting kitchen cupboard would be without its Autumn Leaves crockery and Tupperware – branding was everything ( oh how little we’ve moved on).

However while the social and cultural mores of the 80’s provided an authentic backdrop, the characterisation and the prevailing village mentality provided another addictive level to the plotline. Before Anna’s disappearance I suspect if you’d asked the neighbours about each other, they’d have given a fairly consistent, if possibly often bland description of each other. Some were known better to some than others, but each would have said they knew their neighbour. With Anna’s disappearance all such certainties evaporate and suspicion and distrust becomes the order of the day. It seems they all have secrets they’ve kept well hidden, but whether they’ll be able to hold on to them remains to be seen.

While it’s based on real events, this book falls into my favourite category of read, which by dint of having no better description I tend to call quirky. It is a mystery, but so much more than that and I thoroughly recommend it.

I received an ecopy via NetGalley to enable this review.

A fantastic and engrossing read with rich writing
I can't remember the last time I was so lost in a story.

The quiet country town of Heathcote is being disturbed by rumours of someone sneaking into houses, sometimes even when the owners are at home. No one has seen this mysterious person, nick-named The Fox for his sneaky habits, and nothing has been stolen, but people report their possessions being moved, as if picked up and replaced in the wrong spot. In a small community where everyone knows their neighbours, it's a disquieting feeling. Then events escalate with the disappearance of Anna, a quiet young woman who lived alone, and everyone fears she's been abducted by The Fox. As the local police call in reinforcements, people hide indoors behind locked windows and chained doors, all fearing they might be the next victim ...

Set in the 1980s and inspired by real events of the time, We All Begin As Strangers is a really impressive debut. Although revolving around a crime, it isn't quite a crime novel, and although it's a psychological study of what goes on behind the net curtains of a small, fairly prosperous English town, is definitely isn't a psychological thriller. It's closer to Joanna Cannon's The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, or Jon McGregor's Reservoir 13, both of which use the whodunnit format to explore the relationships and secrets of a small community.
The story is told in the third person, with each of the four parts of the novel being told from a different character's point of view - that of Deloris, who's been married for only a year, but is finding the reality of married life doesn't live up to her hopes and expectations; Jim, the lay preacher who knew Anna through her help at the church, and is running from something shameful in his past; Brian, the local policeman, whose life revolves around caring for his older brother disabled in a freak accident; and Stan the supermarket manager, another person hiding a guilty secret. Anna herself, around whom everything revolves, remains an enigma - pleasant, kind, always busy with charity work, or helping at the church, well thought of by her neighbours, but not really close to any of them.
The author shows a real understanding of her characters' emotions and thoughts, their strengths or flaws, and brings them to life with care and sympathy - any or all feel like they could be your neighbours.

It is the Summer of 1984 and in the village of Heathcote things are not what they should be. Someone appears to be breaking into houses and taking things, only small things but it disquiets the residents. Then one day sweet, quiet Anna disappears and suddenly the actions of 'The Fox' take a sinister turn, has he kidnapped her or worse? These events bring to the surface secrets involving many of the residents from the frustrated newly-wed Deloris to the repressed Stan.

I found this book quite hard going for the first part until I settled into the gentle rhythm of the writing. There is no great sensationalism the the writing but it lulls the reader with its gentleness so that the events and the revelations are not shocking, they just feel logical and part of the narrative. Although this book is based on a true case, the original Fox was an altogether more unpleasant character and whilst that would have been an interesting story, it would not work in the cadence of this novel. Even the unpleasant twist at the end is played so delicately that one almost doesn't realise what is actually happening. I was really impressed by this book.

A slow burner, this one. Anna, a young lady mourning her mother, goes missing and the small village she lives in, is desperate to find her. We hear the story from 4 different angles: Doloris (an unhappy housewife who tried to befriend Anna just before she disappeared), Jim (the stand-in local clergyman), Brian (the policeman in charge of the investigation into Anna's disappearance) and Stan (one of the locals). Running alongside Anna's disappearance, is the story of someone who keeps entering people's homes, moving and taking items. This is based on true facts of a similar story during the 1980's.

This book definitely improved as it went on. The first part, Doloris was perhaps the hardest to plough through.
The ending was rather good actually and made up for such a slow start so definitely worth persevering.

This book had great appeal for me as soon as I heard about it. Based around a true story of somebody who, in 1984, crept into people's homes and observed them and sometimes kept a little souvenir of their visit, I loved the premise of a community dealing with such an unusual situation.

I don't know why but I thought Anna, the person that goes missing during the fox's reign of terror, was going to be a child so I was a bit surprised when she turned out to be a fully grown woman. The community comes together to an extent as they deal with the events of the hot summer but yet there is a sense of mistrust as it could easily be any one of them.

The main characters are Deloris, Jim, Stan and Brian really. I liked Deloris. As the book starts she is watching Dallas and it took me right back to the era. She mentions having a video recorder and I remember clearly us getting our first one. There's a real sense of time, place and atmosphere in this book.

Actually, I liked Jim, Stan and Brian too. All have flaws but all are essentially good people. I did find it very hard to put ages on the characters, somehow expecting them all to be older than they eventually seemed to be. I don't know if I was missing something or whether the author intended to be quite mysterious about certain facts.

With the fox at large the book had a sinister undertone which freaked me out a bit reading with just a night light at bedtime. I kept hearing noises and in my mind it was the fox him or herself. It definitely had an impact on me!

As with lots of books based around true stories I think the author was constrained a little by trying to weave real life events into the story but overall it worked well. It's been billed as similar to The Trouble With Goats and Sheep, Elizabeth is Missing and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and I think that's accurate although We All Begin as Strangers has a darker feel to it.

This is an intriguing and well constructed story of a small village community who don't know each other as well as they think they do. We do all indeed begin as strangers.

A well-written and interesting read, something you can really stick your teeth into. Was not expecting the ending but it was all tied up neatly at the end - which is always a good thing! A wonderful read for lovers of mystery :)

Residents of a small village are alarmed to hear of some break-ins being reported in their village. Quickly nicknamed 'the fox' the intruder initially doesn't appear to take anything, just entering people's houses to seemingly look around. Then one of the villagers, a sweet girl called Anna, goes missing. Convinced that the fox has taken her the residents are determined to try and find out who the fox is and why he took Anna. As tension builds and accusations fly the villagers are soon forced to realise how little they know each other and how many secrets each of them are hiding.

The author does a great job of setting the scene for this novel. You really get the feeling of being in a small village with everyone having known each other since school and therefore thinking they know everything about one another. The sense of claustrophobia is increased by the descriptions of the village being hemmed in by trees and the hot weather.

The story is told from the point of view of four residence from the village. Each of them are outcasts in there own way and all have secrets that they are hiding. I really emphasized with all of them and felt sorry for them when their secrets were revealed. I liked that they were all so normal, everyday characters that you might find in any village. The fact that they weren't perfect and all had faults made them seem more real and i could relate to them a lot more. The author adopts a fly-on-the-wall type approach to describing their lives which made for fascinating reading. It really felt like you were there experiencing everything alongside them. The tension in the book is gradually increased as the story progresses and the secrets of the villagers are discovered. The foxes remaining undiscovered also adds to this tension as neighbours start to accuse each other of being the intruder. This makes the book hard to put down as you want to continue reading to find out what happens next.

I thought the ending was brilliant! It took me completely by surprise and I have continued to think about it long after I have finished the book. The meaning behind it is quite poignant and should perhaps be something all of us could try and change in are lives.

This is Harriet Cummings debut novel and I look forward to reading more from her. Thank you to Ben Wills, Orion publishing and Harriet Cummings for the proof copy of this book.

Thank you to Orion Books and Harriet Cummings for allowing me to partake in this blog tour!

The cover caught my attention on Twitter, and then I noticed it was a tweet looking for #bookbloggers and I requested to join.

The idea of a lurker, taking things and causing no harm to the homeowners was intriguing, and then you throw in a missing girl, and it sounds like the perfect suspense novel. The secrets that come out about the villagers are very interesting. A very unique approach to the story. I love that the author loosely based this book off of real life events in the 1980's, and I'm glad she altered the story a bit. The real life events were pretty scary!

my one complaint is, the book didn't flow as smoothly as I would have liked, there was some issues with transitioning, but other than that, it was a good, quick read.

This would be perfect for fans of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep. Set in the early 80's and based loosely on real life events, I was hooked by the mystery surrounding 'The Fox' and what his intentions were. This is a character driven narrative-and I liked that. How well do we know our neighbours? What goes on behind the curtains? This book explores those questions in what felt like an intimate village setting. As the story progresses, the pressure builds until I was desperate to find out the identity of The Fox, and also expecting something awful to happen. I'll admit to being surprised by the ending. And not let down by it as such, but on reflection it perfectly reflects real life; we all probably imagine far greater things about those around us than what is real. It left me feeling sorrow and hopeful. I think a reading group would get a lot from this book.

We Begin As Strangers is inspired by the intriguing real-life criminal known as "the Fox" entered people's homes, rearranging objects, opening doors and, with thriller-worthy eeriness, building dens from which to watch the occupants. This sense of being watched is deeply unsettling and it's immediately clear why tales of this individual would continue to resonate with Cummings today. Unfortunately, the unease is quite soon dispelled in this fictional version of the Fox's career.

The story is related from 4 viewpoints, all residents of the village, from newly-married, newly-arrived Deloris to Brian the local policeman whose investigation takes a more urgent turn when shy Anna vanishes from her home. While the shifting perspective allows Cummings to ask what we can truly know about our neighbours the characters simply were not compelling enough to hold my interest. Many of their secrets were predictable or cliched and as the story moved on I found myself comparing it to the stock characters and small-town melodrama of Midsomer Murders, but without the tongue-in-cheek tone that makes you willing overlook these flaws.

Beginning the narrative with Deloris was probably a mistake, she's fairly dull and unsympathetic and squandered a good deal of my good will before I got to the more interesting sections of her neighbours. However, the rapid breakdown of relations as the residents turned on each other was well-observed and the early scenes where the Fox's intrusion were first discovered were genuinely disconcerting, a little more focus on the nature of his character and a little less on the narrators could have lifted an average novel into something a little more engaging.

When I first saw this on Netgalley, I knew I had to read it. Loosely based on real life events and characters, this intrigued me. This has a mysterious character known as "The Fox" who breaks into peoples homes and watches them. This "Fox" person was real and struck the area I live in. Leighton Buzzard, St Albans, Tring and Dunstable and other surrounding areas were all in fear of this criminal, and in real life, he wasn't a people watcher, he was a serial rapist. My step-dad grew up when The Fox was around so he is always recalling stories about the incidents and when I connected the dots to this book being about that particular "fox" I instantly requested it!

This started off a little slow for me, and I didn't instantly love it, but it takes it's time to grow on you and in the end I adored this. It is a little sombre throughout, but sometimes, that's what makes a book so moving and great to read.

The atmosphere of the small village environment is absolutely spot on. I've lived in a number of small villages myself, and you do find that news travels fast, plus there is a certain distance put between locals and "outsiders". For this novel, the hostile village atmosphere has most certainly been amplified, but you can definitely feel that static-y tension in the air if you have ever lived "village life".

The writing in this novel is lovely. Very descriptive and picturesque. But where Cummings really shines in in her characters. Each one that we follow closely, Deloris, Jim, Brian and Stan, we become attached to, well, I did at least. You feel as though you know them and you get angry along with them, you sympathise for them and you cheer them on.

Even though I predicted the identity of The Fox, among other things, there are small twists in each person's story that surprise you, so I was still in awe during most of the novel.

This book is marvelous. It's sad, moving, witty and beautiful. Definitely try to get yourself a copy of it you love books about trouble in small communities.

Thanks to Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for giving me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

We all begin as strangers is told from several characters view points all leading very interesting lives. I loved getting to know all of them. I believe its inspired by a true story I must look into as not heard of before. A lovely cosy read for me

What a phenomenal debut! With a steady build of tension and outstanding ending, I'm excited to see what Cummings comes out with next. There's a psychological exploration of the characters which works in this book where you're constantly wondering how well you really know your neighbours. The characters feel real. The writing has a great flow to it. I enjoyed the 1980s time period in all its authenticity. The mystery kept me intrigued throughout. If you enjoy crime novels, I highly recommend you check out We All Begin As Strangers today.

We start this story with a stranger, dubbed "The Fox", his/her mission being sneaking into homes and messing with the owners' heads by moving things, taking things, leaving things, and generally leaving signs of being there. This character's becoming quite the topic of conversation of all the village's inhabitants. Even though appearing to "do no real harm", it's still a bit of a worry with respect to the whole invasion of privacy and feeling vulnerable thing.
Then, one day, a young woman from the village, Anna, disappears. Could this disappearance be linked to The Fox, could s/he have got bored of just fiddling with stuff and evolved and escalated? Could The Fox's antics be being used as cover, a scapegoat if you like? Or could it all be one big co-incidence? Dividing some neighbours and bringing others closer together as secrets get uncovered in the investigation, can they find Anna, is she really just missing, or is there a bigger crime to solve?
I do love mystery books set in small villages. Having lived in one myself, I can really relate to some of the themes depicted in the book. All the secrets being kept, the relationships between villagers, both genuine and forced for getting along's sake. The different characters you always find in a small village. They are all here in this book and I found them to be well represented. Especially as things started to unravel, as people once trusted became suspects, wedges driven between once good friends. How the empire started to crumble when faced with such adversity. With no clear front runner in the race to find both perpetrators, sit back and watch them start to suspect and then accuse each other. Great stuff to watch unfold. Small minds will out!
Told from the perspectives of various villagers, it was also interesting to see each one's take on the matter as well as getting better insight into their own place and secrets. Some of these were more interesting than others and I found some easier to connect to, but, I guess, that's true in real life too so, perfectly acceptable. To be honest, I am not really certain that I actually liked many of the characters at all.
It's also quite a clever book. Little clues dotted around throughout, small things that you don't quite get the significance of until they are all brought together and the bigger picture is seen at the end. It made the book quite a slow initial start for me, a lot of introduction and scene setting, but when I finished, I realise that all the things that had gone before had done so for a reason. The pace ramps up as the end of the book approaches and some of the reveals are quite shocking!
I must be "of the right age" for this book as I found quite a few memory links interspersed throughout the prose. Little things that had me smiling and nodding my head at times. I do like this sort of thing, it makes a bigger connection between me and the book and characters and makes for an all round better read.
All in all, a good solid read and another debut no less! I'll definitely be interested in seeing what the author serves up next time.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Unfortunately could not finish it. Writing style and pace was slow, and could not connect with any of the characters.