As we head into a new year there is an air of seriousness in the air as people judge their last year’s performance and aim to up their game in the upcoming one. And I find as much as I try to ignore the urging to better myself, I too get caught up in the wish to be a ‘better’ or perhaps ‘different’ person but having done this a few times before comfort myself that life will return to normal probably before the month is out. While I wait for normality to return I seek comfort and Jane Fallon is one of those authors who knows how to weave a good story, a story absolutely made for curling up by the much needed fire to immerse yourself in another person’s life.

Tell Me A Secret is about Holly, a woman in her forties, with a grown-up daughter, a best friend and a promotion! Ok the setting of the workplace might be as script editors on a TV soap but to all intents and purposes this is an office, not so different to the one that many of us sit in day in and day out and deliciously full of the open and hidden alliances that have been present in every one I’ve worked in.

For those of you who have read previous books by this author you will be prepared for a tale of deceit heaped upon deceit served up in a number of different dishes but all with a lightness that by the time the book comes to a close you are left with a feeling that you’ve been entertained rather than put through the wringer.
Holly is promoted and assumes that her workplace best friend Roz will be keen to celebrate her success, and she is, isn’t she? But someone in the office is out to make mischief and it isn’t long before Holly is wondering whether she will manage to hang onto her job. The thing about Jane Fallon’s writing is that you will laugh, you will gasp and you may well cry at the scenes portrayed and the conversations had but because they are sufficiently grounded in true life. Those short-hand conversations that many authors seem to struggle with are captured with a wicked sense of humour as Jane Fallon makes an acute life observation, there were times when I was sure she has taken a peek into those unspoken thoughts I have whenever the occasion calls for people watching.

The story is a cracker full of twists and turns to keep those pages turning and fortunately Holly has friends outside work, Dee who works for the NHS and has a whole host of medical related stories to entertain us whenever it all gets a bit serious. Dee also as a sounding board, often a wise one but with a wild side all in the name of searching for the truth but when they are proposed I’m sure I won’t be the only reader to sit back thinking ‘oh dear, time to hang onto your hats folks!’

So if you need cheering up with a bit of a feel-good story with a hefty dose of the realities of working life then you really can’t go too far wrong with Tell Me A Secret. I was hugely grateful to receive an arc of this book from the publishers Penguin ahead of publication on Thursday 10 January 2019.

If January is proving to be a bit on the serious side for you too, this could be the perfect antidote.

Jane Fallon's, Tell Me A Secret, is about how deceptive people can be in the work place.
Jealously takes over when Holly gets a promotion. Holly blames a colleague of hers. Little does she know it's someone closer to home. When acts of sabotage start in order to make Holly look bad on her probationary period, she realise she must act fast before she loses her job.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Very good. Jane Fallon has done it again, rollercoaster of a story about two work colleagues. I really enjoyed this and thought I had worked out the twist but turns out I was wrong! Love it how it changed tack just as you thought it was going one way.

With thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for this ARC in exchange for an open and honest review.

Single mum Holly Cooper was delighted when she was promoted to Script Executive for soap opera Churchill Road. Her main rival for the job had been fellow co worker Juliet, but Holly`s best friend Roz had been been a loyal supporter. When Juliet found out she had not got the job she left early to escape the celebrations.

Holly was excited that her daughter Ashley was pregnant but i upset she would be a single mother like herself. To help Ashley financially she took on a lodger called Hattie.

Holly started her new job knowing that she had a four week probation period. Things went wrong for Holly on the first day, she printed off some script drafts which were not on the printer the next day. Holly suspected it was sour grapes from Juliet and thought it would be a one off occurrence. During her first meeting with her boss, Glen mentioned that both Juliet and Roz had applied for the job. Holly was surprised and couldn't understand why Roz would support her application when she wanted the job herself.

A few days later Holly was preparing for her first ever script conference. When she handed out the documents to her colleagues someone had added random lines in the documents insulting the actors and writers.

When Holly was pulled aside by Glen she explained that someone was trying to sabotage her new job. Convinced that Roz was destroying her career, Holly asked her BF Dee for advice. Dee convinced her to find out more about Roz, Dee and husband Gavin discovered that Roz did not live the celebrity lifestyle she claimed. As more incidents occurred Holly realised that Roz would stop at nothing to get her job. With help from Dee and Gavin, Holly had to find the best way to discredit Roz and keep her job.

I loved this book and found it hard to put down I enjoyed reading about the behind the scenes work on a television production. Although I guessed a part of the story, the rest was a complete surprise. I thought the mobile phone footage that was shown on all the TV monitors in the production studio was hilarious.

I wanted to like Holly but I didn't like the catty comments she and Roz made about Juliet. My favourite characters were Dee and her husband who enjoyed acting as private detectives for Holly. I also felt sorry for Juliet who no one in the office liked because of Roz.

Tell Me a Secret was an hilarious take on toxic friendships and rivalry in the workplace. Well done Jane!

A brilliantly creepy clever page-turner that had my heart galloping and my spine shivering. You won’t look at anyone at work the same way. Another fantastic read by Jane Fallon.

I enjoyed this, bit different from some of my current reads so made a nice change of pace. This is a story about female friendships and doesn’t involve romance, it’s very accurate representing the relationships and their ups and downs. Also working in an office myself this is scarily accurate and could relate to all the characters. A really good read and I recommend it.

Thanks To netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest review

Keep your friends closer, but keep your enemies even closer. This was a hard learnt lesson for Holly, the female lead character. Newly promoted at work, Holly's friend Roz is more than happy for her, whilst Juliet ... well she's another story. But all is not as it seems as a series of unpleasant events, seemingly aimed at making Holly lose her job, unfolds. With little support from her boss, It is up to Holly and her friend, Dee, to uncover who is behind this trickery. I loved the characters, particularly Dee. Everyone should have a friend like her! A very good book.

I enjoyed this book very much. It's a long time since I worked in an office but the daily routines soon came back to me. Thankfully I didn't have to deal with all the various unpleasant goings on that Holly does. Her dream job is only offered to her on a probationary basis to begin with and that's where her trouble starts. Someone is less than delighted with her promotion and is determined to ensure it's short lived. We find out who Holly thinks is responsible for her woes early on but this in no way lessens the tension or the consequences if she's wrong.

Her best friend is a great character, enthusiastic, encouraging and loyal. She is always at the end of the phone and her naivety regarding  her own job is a good diversion, reducing the tension and making her more likeable than ever.

The things which happen, at least to begin with, can be explained away but gradually they become more serious and the probationary nature of her position is once again the most important thing on her mind along with her daughter and her new lodger.

Even those who are peripheral characters, the one male in the office or the woman in HR, fit in and it's only afterwards that you realise they have a part to play in the positivity which Holly needs to get through her ordeal. I completed this in two sittings and enjoyed the fast paced action and a dialogue that never once felt forced or inaccurate.

I was able to read an advanced copy of this book thanks to Netgalley in return for an unbiased review and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys an easy read high tension book where it actually matters what happens to the main characters.

I’m a huge fan of Jane Fallon’s books so I was very excited to be asked to be part of the blog tour for her latest book, keeping it to read over Christmas when I’d have time to fully enjoy it.

In Tell Me A Secret the author has once again created a wonderful escapist novel about female friendship and the problems they can cause. I liked that the book was set in the work place as I thought that provided lots of opportunities for jealousy and sabotage. Throughout the book the author skillfully weaves a fantastic story full of intrigue with lots of twists and turns that’s keeps the reader guessing. I think I suspected everyone of sabotaging Holly at times which always makes the read more enjoyable.

This book is different from the author’s other books as there is no romance in it and the rivalry isn’t over a man for once. Instead the focus is purely on female friendships and the different forms they can take. The problems in the book are ones that I’m sure most readers would recognise and is quite comforting to read about as it makes you realise how common they are. There is also that naughty sense of being able to watch all the action unfold without being judged! I’m sure we all enjoy a bit of drama at times.

My only slight problem with this book was that I didn’t warm to the main character Holly. I found her to be a little annoying at times and I found myself feeling sympathy for the person sabotaging her as I think she’d be quite difficult to work with. This wasn’t necessary a bad thing though as I think it made me more open minded as I wasn’t on one person’s side, so was able to just be an observer.

I’ve read most of Jane Fallon’s books and she is one of my go to author’s for reads that are gripping and full of escapism. I’m always excited when she has a new book out so can’t wait to read more from her.

Huge thanks to Jenny Platt at Michael St Joseph for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book. If you like gripping reads about female friendships that you can lose yourself in then you’ll love this book.

Finally an easy to read and interesting drama without a central love story, Holly’s ups and downs as a soap script editor and her fight to get through sabotage was really well written

Rating 4.5/5

Jane Fallon is fast becoming one of my go-to authors, I just know that when I pick up one of her books I am going to enjoy it, Tell Me A Secret is no exception. It has witty writing, an entertaining storyline and characters that are easily relatable too.

This book felt especially relevant to me because it is centred on workplace drama and since I have a little bit of that at the moment it was quite nice to have this book to make me smile. I loved how I was kept second guessing as to what was real, whether Holly and her friends would be found out as they were digging into Roz and who was actually behind it all. I did start to feel like I couldn't trust any of the characters that Holly worked with and it was great because it kept me totally engrossed in the book.

Holly is a wonderful character, she's a very content person who loves a night in and her own space (essentially my kind of person) and is finally getting to a good place with her work after putting things on hold to raise her daughter as a single mum. I liked that as things start to go wrong at work she makes some questionable decisions because of course no one always takes the high road and it was nice to see that even the nicest characters can do things that aren't great.

Dee was also a great character, the kind of bestie that you would want in your life, who'll listen to your problems and then go along with some hairbrained schemes and even take them a few steps further than intended. The fact that she brought her husband along for the ride and that it ended up strengthening their relationship was brilliant, made me so happy.

I really liked the fact that this book was centred around friendship and didn't have any romance to speak of, it's nice to read a book in this genre that has a female rivalry that isn't over a man. I also appreciated that there was a mix of good types of female friendships and bad ones and that Holly had participated in being a bit of a mean girl and then could admit that she was in the wrong. 

I am definitely looking forward to seeing what Jane Fallon will come up with next and hope that it has the same engaging style as this book.

Tell Me A Secret.
If you tell me yours I’ll tell you mine!

Okay, I can’t wait, I have to let it out.
I am madly in love with Jane Fallon’s latest novel!!!

I can’t believe I have had Sweet Revenge forever and haven’t read it yet. You can be sure to see it reviewed very soon!

But, back to Tell Me A Secret. Wow!!! I am a die-hard fan of psychological thrillers, but this book seems to fall into a different category. The *OMG I want more* category? The *workplace mystery* category? Wherever you want to put it, it doesn’t matter, because every detail in this novel makes it original, refreshing, and infinitely entertaining. I am not talking about light and fun entertainment! I am talking creepy-what-is-happening-something-is-wrong entertainment!

No cops, no romance, no dead bodies. Tell Me A Secret doesn’t need them. Instead, Jane Fallon picked friendship and work. She shook the two and boom! A magnificent magnum appeared! I had no idea what to expect (I can hear you say that I repeat this often and that I should remember to read the blurbs before reading a book. My answer? No! My way’s funnier!) Of course, I’d heard of the author’s reputation and strong writing. I was also very fond of the cover. I think it would make a nice picture to have framed in your room. Maybe it’s just because of the bottle of wine and the fact I’m living in Bordeaux, but don’t you think this cover is classy with its beautiful shades of red/pink? Anyway, I chose my best mug and opened the bottle…

Holly, single mom and script writer, gets a deserved promotion. The team celebrates and you get a sense of what she thinks of everyone around. I just loved this. The foundations of my first impression on every other character was based on Holly’s feelings. Two things happen when the author chooses to go this way: you get close to the main character faster than I eat my cheeseburgers, and everything you know, or think you know, is subjective, so you’re never sure you have the rights cards to deal with or to fully understand a situation. I am used to this in crime fiction, usually with its unreliable characters, but I must admit that here, in this book, it had an even bigger impact. The work place is a tricky one. I felt Holly’s insecurity, I understood quickly the dynamics of the team and how her new position would trigger shifts. But never would I have suspected getting so much adrenaline and chills from a work ghost basically trying to ruin Holly’s chances at securing this job. Maybe I reacted so strongly about it because I had the bad luck of being stuck as part of a friendly-on-the-outside-but-rotten-in-the-inside team at some point in my work life. But you don’t need to have lived it to get what Holly is experiencing. Jane Fallon casts doubts and brings dread slowly but surely. Who can you trust? Roz, the friend who has had your back since you arrived and helped you with your application? The assistant who runs everywhere and therefore hears a lot? Juliet, the one who wanted the job you landed? Your boss, who is supposed to settle things and help you?

Tell Me A Secret is claustrophobic in its own way. I have no words to express just how anxious I felt for Holly as she went to work every day without knowing what would hit her. But it was a fabulous kind of anxiety, because I was on my couch!!! Still, Jane Fallon writes in such an intense way that you can’t help feeling thrown into this world of whispers and jealousy.

Just like Holly, I looked for answers, I prayed she’d get some respite, I couldn’t believe the lengths someone would get to for a revenge. What is wrong with people???? Then I realized this book was more than just a fantastic page-turner. What would I do? Would I break under the pressure? Could I forgive? Would I be so gullible? When you don’t have any reasons to doubt what someone tells you, you just go with it. Why complicate things? But as the novel shows, the way we interact with others at work has a massive effect on our own behavior in the place. Can we truly stay true to ourselves and keep an open-mind when we spend days with people and hear their views on things? I remembered all the times I heard ‘don’t bother with this person, she’s crazy/stupid/insert whatever’. And sometimes you accept it, you get into a routine, you think you’re safe. Well, grab Tell Me A Secret and check twice!!!

As most of us know, work has a tendency to ease its way into all aspects of your life, and Holly doesn’t escape the rule! The infection spreads to her personal life and what was supposed to be a happy time turns into a nightmare. Thankfully, she also has friends outside of work! Amazing people who made me laugh, who made me wish I had this kind of guys around, and who saved both Holly and I from going crazy! Holly’s daughter plays a part, too. We get to know Holly as a mother, as a friend, as a woman, as well as a worker. Thank goodness, because we are not robots!

Tell Me A Secret had me following red arrows and made me feel all the feels you get from work — happiness, frustration, self-doubts, and all the emotions from friendships gone wrong, only to remind me of the most important things.

Addictive like the dark green of a wine bottle and intoxicating like the crimson wine inside, Tell Me A Secret is devious and fascinating.

I received this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The story is basically about work rivalries Holly gets a promotion at the television studio where Holly works as a script editor. Somebody in the office is determined that Holly will not make it through her probation period.

I really enjoyed this story but I thought that it was really obvious who was behind the sabotage and was really frustrated that Holly wouldn’t have clicked onto it straight away. I thought that the ending was really satisfying and would highly recommend this book.

The story is mainly set in a pressurised TV editorial office, and conflict begins when Holly is unexpectedly promoted to her dream job, when others thought the job should be theirs.

When things mysteriously start to go wrong, emails sent purportedly from Holly’s account, convinces her that someone is out to make trouble. Roz, her best friend convincingly tries to persuade her that Juliet is the culprit. But is she? The book is fast paced, dealing with office and personal relationships, along with getting to know her new lodger Hattie. Lots of humour in the book, with some graphic language. One minute you think you know who is causing the trouble, then change your mind. This builds up suspense keeping you interested.

It’s obvious that as an ex TV editor, Jane Fallon knows about tight deadlines, office politics, conflicts, gossip and bitchyness between colleagues, and sense of betrayal when former friends appear to be working against you. It’s tricky working out who the real culprit is, I changed my mind several times. The book keeps you guessing and gathers pace as the story reaches the end, which makes it a great read.
The first book I’ve read by this author, but enjoyed it so much will be looking out for more.

This is one of those books that you will absolutely love. It’s a great easy read that you will not be able to put down.

Holly has just landed her dream job, but she is on probation to start with. All is going well but then strange things start to happen and Holly is looking like she can’t handle the job. Confiding in her good friend Roz, they think they have figured out who is behind everything but are they looking in the right area ? Holly starts to think that maybe the guilty party is someone she is much closer to ? Will Holly discover the truth before it’s too late ?

This is truely an addictive read that you will not want to put down. The characters are brilliant and you will find yourself routing for Holly to find out the truth. What are you waiting for ........ this is a book that needs to be read.

Thank you to Penguin UK, Michael Joseph and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

Secrets....who would you tell and who would you trust?....perhaps those you think are trustworthy are not all that they seem? A psychological page turner with a definite edge from Jane Fallon. A compulsive and engrossing one sitting read. Recommended.

This was a real, easy to read, escapist book which you could lose yourself in very quickly.
It’s all about work relationships and friendships which take on a nasty turn during the course of the novel. When the narrator, Holly, gets a promotion within the script department of a soap opera, her work colleagues, although seeming happy for her at first, suddenly turn against her.
Lots of strange things happen to Holly whilst she is in her probationary period in her new position and she desperately tries to find out who has a grudge against her and is trying to get her sacked.
Holly finds some unexpected allies at work and with the help of her old friend Dee and her husband Gavin she gradually begins to unravel the lies upon which her and her best work friend, Roz’s relationship was based. But is she the one who is waging a vendetta against Holly or is it someone else?
This is a great read that is lots of fun and you are rooting for Holly right from the beginning as she is a genuinely nice person who has unfortunately fallen for Roz’s charms in the past.
This is a light and enjoyable book that kept me interested throughout as I was keen to see how the office situation could be resolved satisfactorily.
The characters were all well drawn and none were as black and white as they first seemed; they all had hidden depths with their own problems.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a fantastic read with very realistic characters and a protagonist you can relate to really easily. Combining friendships and office politics and a complicated home life works beautifully to keep the pages turning and the twists coming.

I have read Jane Fallon previously and was delighted to be given a copy of this book to read via Netgalley. A very addictive read you will not want to put it down.

I've not had book withdrawal for a long time , I do now !!!! Totally hooked from beginning to end . A very engaging read . I did not want to put it down nor did I want it to end .

Jane Fallon certainly knows how to tell a story, and to present the reader with well rounded characters rather than stereotypes, and all managed with dry humour! I was in the office with Holly wondering what would happen next and who to trust and enjoyed the satisfying tying up of loose ends in the final chapters.
I haven't read any of this author's books before which is great because it means I have some treats in store!