I received an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

"Under the Sun" by Lottie Moggach didn't quite live up to my expectations. While the premise was intriguing, I found the execution lacking in depth. The characters felt underdeveloped, making it difficult to connect with them or care about their journeys. Their motivations seemed shallow, and I didn’t feel that emotional pull that can often make a book irresistible. As a result, the story never quite achieved that addictive quality that I had hoped for.

The narrative itself wasn’t awful, but it also wasn’t particularly special. There were moments of potential, where the author seemed to hint at a more compelling tale, but these moments were fleeting, leaving me with a sense of unfulfilled promise. Overall, "Under the Sun" is an easy read, but it's not one that lingers long after finishing. For me, it was a bit of a disappointment, lacking the depth and excitement I was hoping for.

This novel begins with tense and claustrophobic scenes showing an unhappy relationship that is on the verge of collapse. Anna, a talented graphic designer, and Michael, a supposedly gorgeous and gifted artist (who frankly had all the appeal of a wet mop to me!), left the UK and bought a house in Spain, which Anna has renovated and fitted out to please the aesthetics of Michael, the brooding man-child. But things clearly haven't been working out. Some of his Oxford uni chums have joined them for a weekend and it quickly becomes obvious that Michael's affections for Anna have waned, and she is at breaking point, despairing over his changed feelings and wondering what on earth she will do if they do end up splitting up. It's an interesting premise to start a novel with.

However, that early promise doesn't continue - we flash forward to a year or so later, the world is now in the grip of the 2008 financial crisis, Michael has left Anna as well as Spain, the house and all the debt, and her existence has become fairly precarious and directionless. I kept waiting for Michael to reappear or for a twist to come, which never did. Under the Sun is not a thriller, nor a love story. It is perhaps a cautionary tale - about the human costs of capitalism and to not fall for sunny fantasies spun by reality TV shows such as "A Place in The Sun".

I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did Lottie Moggach's first book, Kiss Me First. If you're after a tense and haunting story, I'd highly recommend that one.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me a copy of this to review.

An interesting portrayal of brits abroad in Spain and just how wrong it can go. A warning that not all is rosy in sunny Spain.

Literary fiction at its best...

Beautifully written and evocative. Gives the truth behind the Ex-Pat gloss.

I enjoyed this novel very much thankyou for the privilege of reading it

I enjoyed Lottie Moggach's debut, 'Kiss Me First', so I was hoping for a similar twisty thriller with an unlikeable heroine. What I got was... not that. I don't really know what I did get.

Is this book a beach thriller? A coming-of-age? An exposé on shoddy employment practices in Spain? It doesn't really satisfy as any of those things. The pace rushes and then drags, and the protagonist is irritatingly placid. I read this in Granada in Spain, sitting in the sun and drinking vino tinto, and I think that commonality of place improved my feelings towards the book, though I was still a little disappointed. Moggach has a beautiful way with words, so I'll certainly read her next book – I just hope it has a more interesting story.

Having recently spent time in the part of Spain described in the book, I found the descriptive passages of life there post-crash incredibly accurate and beautifully written. The quiet desperation of those economically stranded far from home was highly evocative. However, Moggach has hitched a story to that which doesn't quite work. It becomes increasingly implausible and the denouement is ultimately a let down as it is too convenient and doesn't seem to have been built up to through the whole story. Moggach is a great writer, but not such a great story teller.

Anna buys a finca in Spain as her boyfriend wants to move there. She sells her flat and spends all the money renovating it only to find Michael growing ever distant to her. He then leaves and she moves to Marea and runs a bar there. Life gets decidedly complicated for Anna

Although this book is described as being of the thriller genre I personally would not class it as such. In my opinion it is more of a melodrama with the main character Anna narrating the story of her life since moving to Spain. Anna is likeable enough, although I found her naiveté and laissez-faire attitude annoying (I won't give examples as I don't want to give any 'spoilers' away), she was going through a difficult time but lacked much of a personality apart from the rare burst of gumption. I did think that the first part of the story was very 'wordy' — so much so I did question whether to continue with reading the book, however I am very pleased that I did as from approximately a quarter of a way in the storylines really began to bound away and I was hooked (so much so I read the book in 1 day). I would recommend this book — just be aware it might take a while to start really enjoying it.

Just ok. Took a while to get into and then I wasn't truly loving it but still finished it!

I loved Moggach's first novel, Kiss Me First and was expecting great things from Under The Sun. Reading the blurb on the back of the book anyone would expect a straight forward thriller but this book is much more than that. It is a story of a woman who followed her heart to Spain with the man she thought she loved and found herself abandoned, unsure who she is or indeed where she belongs. Over the ensuing pages Anna fights to get her home back, attempts to discover who the mysterious Simon is and who the African men could be residing in her property. Throw in an ill judged affair with a married expat and the return of her absent father and Anna has a whole lot of issues to deal with.

Anna's character is brilliantly realised by Moggach. A character full of despair, and self pity, doing little to help herself until finally digging deep she finds the strength to pull herself together and get her life back on track. There were times, particularly at the start of the novel that I found Anna mildly irritating, her constant need to please Michael, had me shaking the book in frustration, wanting her to ditch this vile man!! That soon turned to urging her on as she finally found the where with all, to fight for want she wanted.

The ex-pat community setting perfectly highlighted how the Brits are viewed abroad. The Spaniards treating them with disdain and the Brits creating their own bit of Britain, still clinging to British values never fully immersing themselves in Spanish culture. The use of Africans and particularly the mystery of the body on the beach showed up the problems Europe now has with illegal migration and the desperation of those willing to travel under dubious and dangerous circumstances to find a better life.

The novel was a little slow paced to start but soon gathered speed as Anna, slowly grappled with her life and the circumstances she found herself in.

Not your typical thriller but a hugely satisfying novel that I enjoyed immensely.

Thank you to Picador and Alice Dewing for a proof copy to read and review.

I loved this book,a couple buy a property in Spain,and and it's not a easy thing to go,very well written a must read,all is not as you think it would be.

Anna, a young Englishwoman is living in a finca in the Spanish hills with her artist boyfriend, an apparently idyllic lifestyle. A year later, Anna has been abandoned and she is now living in a rundown seaside town, scratching a living running a bar and surrounded by disillusioned British ex-pats. When a local businessman offers to rent the finca, Anna sees a way to escape but she finds herself in a worse predicament when she finds her property occupied by foreign workers and a body washes up on the beach. As her business fails, Anna risks everything for her freedom. An intriguing, absorbing and gripping novel.

An easy read about Anna's life in Spain and how not everything is as you want it to be. The book just seems to ramble a bit and there is nothing that makes it stand out.

Lottie Moggach’s Kiss Me First, published 2013, was one of my favourite books of 2015, the year I read it: it was chilling, memorable, assured, and very very unusual. It looked at the world of online communication and social media in a way that I have still not seen matched: it was hilarious and clever and sad and good-hearted at the same time.

This is her second novel, and is also compelling and entertaining and convincing, but in a very different way. It tells the story of Anna – a Brit who moved to Spain with her boyfriend, full of hope and happiness. The first short section of the book is as horrible a picture of a disintegrating relationship as you could wish to read, because it isn’t violent or over-dramatic, it’s quite everyday. Anna, you can see, is over-impressed by her horrible boyfriend Michael, and he is not very nice to her, but no-one is quite meaning to be as cruel or as vile as the outcome suggests. Michael’s awful friends Farah and Kurt (they all went to Oxford together; Anna did not) have come to visit, and Anna is hating it. 

Everything goes wrong in slight but realistic ways. There is a great clothes moment here:
Farah in her denim cut-offs and vest seemed vivid and definite. Anna was wearing an austere, shapeless, expensive cotton smock that, with her delicate pale limbs, was meant to lend her an appealing, wispy, babe-in-the-woods quality. Instead, next to the strong meat of Farah, Anna felt slight and anaemic; so understated she barely existed.





The next section of the book jumps to a year later: this is 2009, and Spain, like the rest of the world, is in the depths of a recession. Anna and all the other ex-patriates are sitting tight, stuck with unsaleable property and hoping things will improve and they can move on. They argue, sulk, socialize and watch each other.
Anna had always doubted Graeme’s claims to have been top rank CID – surely, even in Liverpool in the 80s, there were some standards – but now she could see him back in his heyday, the corrupt copper in a straining nylon shirt, ordering some casual violence with a lift of his chin.
I think Moggach, as here, has a stunning ability to create characters in a few lines, often with a joke, and to make you completely see and understand them – and yet these are not stereotypes or clichés.

She rents out her empty house via a dubious businessman, and quickly sinks into a trough of wondering has she made a terrible terrible mistake, as all her fellow Brits believe. Are the people who cast doubt on her decisions being racist, or are her new tenants illegals causing trouble? The story is tense and sinister, and not everything is spelled out. It is clear that Anna is drinking far too much, and running out of money, and the reader is desperately concerned for her, and worried about what horrible crimes have happened, or will happen in the future…and how she is trapped: surely she can never get away. How Moggach resolves this is very clever, and kept me reading desperately.

I did very much like the book, and what I’m really hoping is that she will write more and even better books in the future. At one point here Anna goes online to find out about a woman called ‘Satine Simpson: cook, blogger, campaigner, overachiever.’ This character never makes a proper appearance, but the two page riffle through her online profile – tweets, posts, Instagrams –
She turned to Satine’s blog, Simply, Satine. That enraging comma!
- is absolutely spot-on: funny satirical and wince-makingly recognizable.
Satine was wearing a fedora and denim dungarees, a slice of her pale bare torso on show.
It’s not that important to the plot, but I had a rogue thought from Satan that I wished there was more, much more, of it, as there was in Kiss Me First. 

But still absolutely definitely a recommended read, and I hope Moggach is going to do a lot more skewering of modern life in the future.

Had high hopes for the book but sadly it was awful. Only good thing was the description of the place. There was no real story with a good decent storyline and I struggled to continue with this one

The first third of the book accurately describes the breakdown of a relationship. However eventually it feels unrelentingly dreary.
As Anna works her way through her abandonment and inaction to eventual re-awakening and taking control there were so many times when I just wanted to slap her.
In trying to cover many global and current issues I can’t help feeling some of the plot is not at all credible.

It is a well-written book but just missing that spark.

I used to be a big fan of Deborah Moggach, so was pleased to see that her daughter is now writing. I found the book to be very readable and I wanted to find out what happened, but found it ultimately a little lightweight. The menace that was building up over the illegal immigrant theme did not really materialise; I thought it was going to get much darker. Anna's character was not particularly endearing - she started off as a designer with expensive tastes and ended up slumming, drinking and sleeping around. And, realistically, you cannot sleep in an armchair for very long! She was also rather cavalier about breaking the law herself, and did not seem to have heard of property contracts - giving away, swapping and letting out properties with no regard for paperwork. The rest of the characters were all interesting and the setting is pictured well. The ending was satisfactory with a nice little twist.

This is a slow-burn book that starts out as one type of story (the Failed Love Affair) then turns into something different. Moggach tries to tie at all up in the end but the connections are obtuse and stretched. Without giving away spoilers, this takes an idyllic scenario of ex-pat living in Spain and then uncovers a much darker undertow.

There are some important points being made about the price of global capitalism, and some pointed scenes where British ex-pats refuse to accept that they are immigrants in Spain, gaming the system, evading tax and generally behaving in a manner which they attribute to 'foreign' (in this case, African) immigrants to the UK.

Despite these timely political issues, this feels like a loose and somewhat meandering read - good as a commute read but it could (should?) have been tighter and sharper than it is: 3.5 stars.