Two and a half star rating.
The story of what happens to one family when the husband has an affair with the wife’s best friend and then leaves her and the two children. Loved the description, but not so much the actual book as it was quite slow going despite the various themes, having to read 4 characters version of events. A sensitive book but not totally gripping.

I was expecting great things from The Betrayals based on the synopsis of the book but in reality I found it to be quite indifferent.

Rosie Rankin’s husband has an affair with her best friend. This causes many relationships to be torn apart and friendships to be ruined.

Then after a letter arrives for her, old wounds are opened and this causes serious issues for her daughter Daisy.

The book tackles some very sensitive issues but I didn’t find that the story really gripped me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK Michael Joseph and the author for the chance to review.

The Betrayals by Fiona Neill is an interesting premise of how flimsy our memory is and how it has the possibility to change everything. This book was engaging and I read it incredibly quickly, strongly forming links with the characters. Daisy has been so traumatised by an event that it lead her to develop very serious OCD, which she spent many years battling. Her mother Rosie is the sort of woman I aspire to be (helped by my love of science), engaging and successful and empathetic. Yet when we join the story she definitely is not the heroine that she potentially deserves to be. Then there is Nick, you can't help but feel sorry for him, despite the fact that much o the misery that is afforded to him is all of his own making. Lastly there is Max, lovely and damaged Max, who has spent so long holding his family together that he has lost who it is that he is.

When the past comes back to haunt the family it's no wonder that everything starts to unravel. But what's most intriguing is how our perception of events can change things entirely. I really liked the premise of the book, but I felt that the ending was rushed. Whilst I appreciate books that leave you wanting more I also feel that there's limits to this, and I personally felt I had far too many questions unanswered at the end. Perhaps as well I felt that there was too much emphasis on this great tragedy, which fell a little flat at the end.

A book with a lot of potential and was a good read, but needed a little more for me to love it. Really I'd like to give it 3 1/2 stars.

Really loved this apart from the ending. I do like closure in a book and felt I didn’t get it in this. Very interesting subject matter. Well worth a read.

A family drama told from four different points of view - Rosie, her husband Nick, and their two children Daisy and Max.

An event that occurred on a family holiday in Norfolk eight years before appears to have been the catalyst for a number of changes. However, the events of the holiday are remembered differently by the four family members - they all blame themselves in various ways, but what is the truth? Or, does the truth even matter?

This was an interesting, thought provoking read, though at times I found it hard to distinguish between the different narrators - I found Rosie and Nick quite similar, and was only able to recognise Daisy because of her OCD rituals. I would have liked a chapter from Lisa's perspective, but I'm not sure it would have done any good given how unreliable the other POVs were. Nick, in particular, I found hard to follow because he had a tendency to dripfeed information and I'd get confused about what happened versus what he said happened. I suppose that's the whole point, though - can everyone have their own truth? Can several truths exist? Does the truth even matter, or is it how we deal with our memories that's important?

I received a copy of this book in return for my independent honest review. This is a difficult one to rate and review for me as there were elements I really liked if considered in isolation from the book as a whole. The main theme is a family drama about two families where an affair splits up the two families and how this affects the four adults and their children. This as a whole was OK, nothing new for me. As a fifty something reader I can understand both sides to this happening in a long term marriage. However I really loved the portrayal of one daughter who develops OCD as a result. I think her story is particularly well written and gives an excellent insight into this condition. The medical student son handles the situation differently. I liked these two children, the other two were quite nondiscrpt really and would have liked more development of their characters too.
Generally I found the book disjointed at times, a little mundane, however I rated it 4* overall as it has some beautiful characterisations and gives a very good insight into how people cope within broken families and OCD

OH MY GOD! What a great story, full of suspense and description of how an affair can destroy and make every part of a family question themselves! If you were thinking of having an affair this book will make you stop and think. Great book

This is not a hearts and flowers read, it is gritty and reflective of human life with all its flaws. I really don’t want to give a great deal away because this one needs to unfold to be appreciated. If you like books bordering on intense about family dynamics, the behavior of humans and how we all effect each other, then this is for you. I found it incredibly well written with characters that i felt i knew. The coverage of OCD is extremely convincing. I have no trouble recommending this one.

I read this book very quickly, as it intrigued me but it also saddened me too. I know nothing about OCD but felt Daisy’s pain, and that it affected her brother Max the most in the family, as everyone else was dealing with their own hurt from Nick’s betrayal. Each chapter was written telling each character’s story, and my favourite characters were Rosie and Lisa. Their friendship had been through more than most and I was left wondering was it all worth it for either of them at the end. A good story, good ending. Three stars from me as I felt the story was slow in parts.

The story is written in couple of people voices, it’s funny in dark way. Complicated people and you can see how everyone different take from the same situation.

Daisy mental illness (OCD)was very powerfully written, you can hear her thoughts and you actually want to understand more. it effect her and her family. Everyone feels guilty for the past. I was angry with everything that lead to intensifying daisy illness . Memories are fragile things, we are wondering in the book , if any of the memories we told are false.
very fascinating talking about how memories are different from everyone in the family, they saw the incidents differently.
The end was very sad , I didn't like the characters but it showed how weak human being .

The betrayals

Multiple voices normally is an excellent way to get a credible view of a situation but it does not work as well here as the age range and characters are too wide and varied.

You go from the sullen Daisie to Rosie, a consultant and abandoned wife, to Max the university student son, to Nick, the repentant father, in rapid secession, leaving you unsure as to whose voice is key.

You are left with fragments of character rather than latching onto a voice the reader can sympathise with. The signposts are names at the start short chapters and not fully signified by anything else in the tone of voice/use of language making it easy to become confused.

Perhaps an overly ambitious style that needs the voices to be extremely distinctive and signposted to support the narrative fully.

The plot is a good one and tackles modern life and mental health issues well. This would translate to the screen and make this a much more effective telling of how we all mentally cope with the break downs and losses in modern family life.

I received a free copy from net galley.com for my fair and honest review.

How when Rosie’s husband Nick has an affair with her best pal Lisa the fallout continues through the years especially on fragile Daisy and young Mark. This beautifully crafted novel portrays the realities of marriage breakdown, the alcoholism of Lisa’s ex and the repercussions on the children. Each character perceives how events unfolded in their own individual way - not least the children involved. It is a compelling read!

The Betrayals by Fiona Neill has been on my Kindle for some time and when I finally got round to reading it I was annoyed with myself for not picking it up sooner as this is an absolute cracker of a book.

Told via multi-person narrative The Betrayals explores the nature of memory and whether it is reliable. Touching on a plethora of issues including; cancer, mental illness and OCD, loyalty, trust, relationships and secrets this book is gripping, well-written and at times both funny and incredibly moving. The multiple viewpoints of Rosie, Daisy, Max and Nick helped to build a wonderfully multi-layered novel which kept me intrigued and interested in finding out what had happened all those years ago. Fiona Neill creates a suspenseful aura of mystery which is never obvious or frustrating – there are just enough clues and hints dropped to help put the puzzle pieces together.

This is a thoroughly modern book examining the fallout from an affair between Nick, wife of Rosie and her best friend, Lisa. Their affair and subsequent relationship causes a rift between the two families which seems unfixable. Daisy, daughter of Nick and Rosie is affected the most, suffering a mental breakdown and finding herself in the grips of OCD. We meet Daisy both as a young teen encountering her first stirrings of lust and as a young woman in her first serious relationship. My heart broke for Daisy, Fiona Neill has written a complex and multi-layered character and really examines the impact of the summer in Norfolk on this fragile girl. It would be easy to paint her as a victim or weak for her illness but we see the strength it takes her to try to overcome this illness and the ongoing battle she undertakes.

I loved the examination of memory and what we remember. This is a common theme throughout the book – memories are never far from the surface for any of these characters and the differing viewpoints over what happened were interesting and absorbing.

I was very affected by this book, it really gripped me and had me enthralled. There is a lot going on and at times it gets very heavy but there are moments of wonderful light relief, particularly with Nick whose comments and asides at Lisa’s refusal to have medical treatment for her cancer deciding to see a spiritual healer instead made me giggle on more than one occasion. The realities of illness, both physical and mental on both the sufferer and their loved ones is brilliantly examined and wonderfully perceptive.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I found it absorbing and I really connected with it. It is modern and contemporary and a weighty literary mystery.

The topics of breast cancer, OCD and memory are key concepts in this book and well researched. In fact there are times when it feels more like non fiction. The multiple, unreliable, narrator style seems quite common now and is done well, but ultimately the story didn't really work for me and the rather abrupt ending felt like an anti climax

This was an easy to read book that i got from net galley and I have to thank the publishers for approving me. There were multiple narrative voices which tell the tale of a marriage breakup , infidelity and obsession in different characters. For me it just failed to fully capture my imagination although some of the narrative focusing on OCD was very interesting. The narration veered between then and now with no real direction and i felt the ending was a real cop out

Interesting, enjoyable plot and characters. I really wanted to know how it all worked out.

This is a book that is definitely set in modern times, where the mental illness of an adolescent (exacerbated by the trauma of her parents' marriage breakup) is central to the story. I can't, in all honesty, say I enjoyed the book because for me reading brings happiness and contentment and I found this story to be miserable and at times depressing. I did find it to be well written and that was what kept me reading it because I kept feeling there was something good coming, but although the ending was unexpected I found it strange. Sadly, for me this book didn't hit the mark.

This is an interesting book told in 4 different voices that we find have very different takes on the whole situation. Nick has fallen in love with Rosie's best friend, Lisa and they have left their families and set up home together. What they did has left a trail of damaged lives and distorted memories. The lead-up to the beginning of the affair is told through the hot days of a joint family holiday in Norfolk where events and tensions reach boiling point. I found some of the characters' actions very difficult to understand and the ending also surprised me - does Nick have no ability to restrain himself at all? It's a very modern story with Tinder playing a big part in the story and I did find it all a bit soul-less. The story was intriguing but it left me a little bit cold.

There is no doubt that Fiona Neill is a skilled author. Here, she writes about the dysfunctional relationship between two families and the seemingly small and inconsequential acts that snowball into something much bigger and more malign.
She touches on mental health, adolescence, terminal illness, using tinder in middle age and, of course, betrayal.
I found this book much more accessible and quicker to read than her first novel, but again, I finished it and realised that whilst it was well written, I just hadn't connected or emotionally invested in any of the characters and it fell a little flat for me. I also found some of the connections between the characters and events to be overly contrived.
Thanks go to the publishers and netgalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

I have to say I did not enjoy this novel, not that I have got anything bad to say about the plot or the writing, it just was not my cup of tea. I found it thoroughly depressing. It centres around two long term friends, Rosie and Lisa and their families and what happens when Lisa and Nick, Rosie's husband, embark on an affair which leads to the break up of the two families and then, ultimately, the reverberations that echo through the lives of those closest to them in the following years, especially when Lisa reveals she is dying of cancer. As in real life, everyone has their own interpretation of what went on and each presents slightly differently with the emotions of those involved. Rosie's daughter Daisy, suffers from a severe form of OCD, which by accounts is quite a debilitating and life changing disorder and was hard to read about but also quite an education. It took me quite a time to reach the conclusion, because I just found all the lives in the novel just a tad too sad.