This book had me gripped with it's well written characters and twists and turns.
A must read, for sure!

Their school is about to be taught a lesson...

Beverley Franklin will do whatever it takes to protect her local school's reputation.

So when a scandal involving her own daughter threatens to derail the annual school musical's appearance on national television, Beverley goes into overdrive.

But in her efforts to protect her daughter and keep the musical on track, she misses what's really going, both in her own house and in the insular Glass Lake community - with dramatic consequences.

Glass Lake primary school's reputation is about to be shatte

Glass Lake Primary is ‘thee’ place to send your child, no other school comes close and it’s alumni, who also run the parents association, make sure everyone knows what a good reputation it has, with no exceptions.

It’s almost time for the annual show and competitive parenting and ‘sucking up’ is in full swing to ensure everybody, who is anybody, makes sure their little cherubs get the best parts in the show. And to make things much more fun, the show is also going to be covered by national television!

However a year six scandal is exposed and everyone starts gossiping about what they believe to be true, how will the school protect its reputation and will the show go on….

A great read, you’ll want to devour it in one sitting, fabulous characters; we all know those women in real life and a great story about protecting what we hold dear.

Highly recommended.

There was a lot going on in this one and there was a huge amount of characters so I found it really difficult to keep track of everyone and to connect with the characters.

The plot was hard to keep track of too - why was there so much focus on the kidnapped cat when there were other bigger storyline that could have been given more attention. I'd have liked more on the school story and the drink driving incident etc. The topic of sex education in Ireland was interesting and could have been expanded more.

It Could Never Happen Here has been described variously as an “Irish Big Little Lies” and “small town school gossip meets murder mystery”. It took me soooo long to read it, but I think that may be more of a reflection of my ability at the moment to concentrate rather than any commentary on the quality of the book.

In the first few chapters I though that’s this was going to be a light and funny read but it definitely took a turn for the darker as it went on! Not one of my favourite books of the year so far but enjoyable nonetheless.

With thanks to Corvus for gifting me a copy to review.

I enjoyed this one a lot more than I thought I would. It was really entertaining and had a great plotline that kept me intrigued.

Absolutely loved this book and was reading it every chance I had as I was so desperate to find out what happened!
Great character development-really feel like I know them! This story contains a bit of everything - I especially enjoyed the witty elements and the way the mystery developed which was superb!
Highly recommend,

This book was not for me. I found the context more redolent of LA than a small area of Ireland. This coloured my whole reading of the story and I just could not warm to it. That said I did read it all and I felt it dealt very well with some of the social media issues that teenagers have to deal with today.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. Other readers may enjoy it more, but I could not get into it and ultimately did not finish it.

Glass Lake Primary School in West Cork is THE school to get your children into! Many of the mothers were pupils there themselves. They have power, particularly Beverley, & they like to have a say. She has managed to get the school musical televised which has elevated her even higher! When she catches her prepubescent daughter sending naked photos she is horrified & is determined to see Woody, the boy she is sending them to, expelled- the fact he is from a family shunned by the community seems to galvanise the parents. The story also follows others in the community; the school principal, the reported for the local paper, Beverley's elder daughter involved with Woody's brother Arlo. There is also a hint early on that someone has died although it is a long time till we discover who!

This is a story with many strands & characters. It is funny in places & tragic in others. I really enjoyed it. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

School based drama. Usual pushy mothers who will stop at nothing to promote their child. This one revolves around the school play. There is the family who the mothers think shouldn't be there. Characters are a bit cliched but they are accurate enough to work. Enjoyable.

Clever book! We’ll written with a bit of humour, but also a serious message. Whenever I’ve done safeguarding training they say- remember it can happen anywhere, rich or poor, young or old, male or female. This book addresses this a bit.
Even in the nicest most sought after schools, bad things can happen.
I really liked this book, it was very relatable as a parent and as an educator.

A twisty mystery with a LOT going on. I found it quite difficult to keep tabs on all the characters and think maybe a list of all characters and who they are would be beneficial. I quite enjoyed it in the end, but would struggle to recall this at a later date.

This book put me in mind of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. It has a similar "murder in a small town" vibe, with a focus on the well to do parents of a local school. I did find it enjoyable though a little slow going so struggled to pick it up for the first 2/3 of the book. It really kicked in towards the end though and had a satisfying conclusion.

The characters were well written and I liked the way the story shifted between them so we could see how various events affected them, and how they coped.

Overall, a good read, recommended for fans of books focussing on tight knit communities.

It Could Never Happen Here is a twisty mystery set in a small community in Ireland and focuses on events surrounding their prestigious school and the pushy parents.

Events unfold from multiple points of view, interspersed with interviews from the police investigation as it emerges a body has been discovered.

There is a great mix of realistic characters and you can easily imagine the politics and personality clashes, especially as they try to cast and organise the school's musical performance, which is even more high profile this year since Beverley has managed to arrange for it to be broadcast on TV.

Beverley wasn't born into wealth but she wants everyone to see that she has money now and to show off her perfect life. She is married to a very handsome and wealthy man, she has a beautiful house, her eldest daughter Ellie is in her first year at university and Amelia is a star of Instagram. But what she doesn't want people to know is that she and Ellie are barely on speaking terms, or that she has just discovered 12 year old Amelia exchanging nude pictures with a boy in her class. The boy is from an unpopular family, well-known in the community for their involvement in an incident which devastated several local families. Beverley is determined to get him excluded and force the family out of town.

Christine works for the local paper and is sent to interview Beverley about the sexting incident. Although they grew up together in the same class at school, Beverley prefers to keep Christine at arms length, imagining that Christine will use childhood memories against her. Christine is oblivious to this, not understanding why Beverley would be ashamed of her past.

Engaging and funny with cleverly interwoven storylines. Well worth a read.

I couldn't finish this book. I couldn't take to any of the characters and wasn't bothered who died. I have read previous books by this author and loved them, but this did not match up to them.

At first you feel that this is a highly entertaining book. There are so many laugh out loud moments. Who doesn't love a cat called porcupine! It has all the politics you would expect at a primary school. Mothers who are so ambitious for there children.
However, despite the comedy element there is a strong storyline. The story dives into sexting. The author brings the subject to the fore but in a way that is enjoyable to read but still gives you emotion.
I will certainly be looking out for more books by this author.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to see an ARC

Small town school, over involved parents, drama, gossip, and a dead body….. have we heard of this before? From the very start this gave off very strong “Big Little Lies” vibes, and to be honest it never really shook them off. Told in a similar style to Liane Moriarty’s novel, we get several different viewpoints on events which leads to a lot of drama.

I think there was too much going on in this book to be able to keep track of everything. From school drama, kidnapped cats, a drunk driving incident, school children sending nudes, to a dead body, it was a bit much. Not only that but there were far too many characters, and a lot of them completely pointless to the plot. As the book continued it became quite hard with the changing narratives to remember what exactly was going on. Possibly it would have worked much better with a small bit of editing down the material (the bizarre kidnapped cats plot could have easily been taken out).

I did enjoy the conversation around sex education in schools, and to be honest would have loved the book to focus a little more on how underdeveloped any sex education programme is in Ireland. It is a topic that is unfortunately taboo, and we see the consequences of that very clearly in the novel. However, it just didn’t go further than glossing over it.

I really enjoyed reading this. The mystery element was good, but the part that kept me reading was the characters and their relationships.

A fun read, despite the serious topics involved.

My goodness this book was not what I expected! It starts quite light and humorous, which led me to expect a school saga-drama of competitive parenting. However, it was soon clear that there was more to it than this as the story starts to be broken up by police interviews of characters in the book. Whilst this book is definitely poking fun at the shallow, competitive parenting we can see today, it also hides many dark secrets which are slowly revealed. Nothing is quite as it seems and even minor characters have an important part to play.

It was hard to like many of the females in this book: Beverly in particular! Her relationship with 2 daughters and her own mother were troubling to say the least. Yet, underneath it all, she is not quite what you are led to believe.

I was kept guessing as I read along, and there are lots of red herrings that you will believe, only to promptly realise you still aren't quite right! I did like all the plotting and changes and some of the characters do the most unexpected things. Lots to enjoy in this book; however, the ending is tied up a little too neatly for me, real=life isn't like that! It addresses many modern day issues and I am not sure it really offers a solution.