I really wanted to like this book having enjoyed previous books by the author but I struggled to find any empathy for the characters and it was a hard read

I have struggled to find one single bit of interest in this book.
I really disliked the characters but all the way through I felt there might be some plot to hang on to……..alas not.
It just seemed a rambling story of family and friends none of them memorable .
A very loose story. Completely forgettable. Sorry

Review posted with Waterstones.

Poor characters, poor story poorly executed. It is very difficult for me to say anything positive about this story. No depth, no twists...It would be hard for me to even write a synopsis.

I was drawn to this book as it was described as ‘sharp, dark and brilliantly twisty’. Unfortunately it was none of those things, just a very slow paced domestic drama.
I struggled to finish but kept reading in the hope it would improve, but I was not rewarded for my tenacity.

Had my expectations not been so high due to the blurb, I might have enjoyed it more, but it’s certainly not what it says on the tin… or the dust cover!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy in return for an honest review.

Another great book with unreliable characters a gripping storyline and a twisty turny plot. I enjoyed it.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher HQ for the electronic copy.

This was an enjoyable read, although I did feel it to be somewhat lengthy. This domestic drama is told from the four main characters' points of view:
Harriet and Mark and Yvette and Gary - Harriet is an architect and Mark runs his own PR company, they are wealthy and have twin sons - Jack and Ollie. Yvette is a school teaching assistant, and Gary was a pop star twenty years previously and now reluctantly teaches music; they are not so well-off. They have two daughters, Jade and Ruby.

The book is in two parts: The first 50+% where both couples live in the South a few streets apart, with Yvette and Harriet having bonded over their children years before. The families have been stalwart friends ever since and the narrative traces their lives to the point where Gary decides he wants to reform his pop group and Mark feels he has enough money to resign from the company but he has a secret he's keeping.. Gary's originally from Manchester and wants to move back there to his band members once they've signed their recording contract but Gary is carrying his own secret.
The wives think their husbands are both having a mid-life crisis.

The stars align in respect of Harriet's project in Macclesfield - the restoration of an old factory into individual living spaces and communal areas - going over budget, and Gary's offer on a house outside Manchester being gazumped. Mark has enough money from his business and with the sale of Gary's house they pool resources to buy the converted factory and it's big enough to accommodate a recording studio.

Things start to go downhill from there as regards relationships, although Harriet and Yvette both resolve to move their lives forward. Mark starts to reap the rewards of his secret at the same time Gary's secret is revealed.

As I said in the beginning, it's an enjoyable read but the first part is very detailed into the lives of their children; Harriet's obsession with still wanting a daughter (at 44yrs-old); Ruby's successful IVF treatment; Jade's undesirable boyfriend, and Mark's polarized opinions of his twin sons' relative achievements.

A fascinating analysis of an unhealthy friendship based on insecurity and delusion…. Addicted to this book… As soon as I started to read, I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to put the book down… One hell of a rollercoaster ride.

The story is about two couples who live in London. Mark and Harriet are successful with Harriet , an architect and Mark, who owns his own PR company. They have twin boys who are at university, Ollie and Jack. Gary and Yvonne are best friends with Mark and Harriet, although not in the same league financially. They also have two children. Yvonne is a learning support at a school and Gary, who was in a successful band is now a teacher in a secondary school. Gary and Yvette come from Manchester so when Harriet works on a project called the Button Factory in South Manchester the four of them decide to move in together without giving it too much thought. as it suits their circumstances. When they start living together things do not go as smoothly as expected. All four of the people involved have personal issues of one sort or another and some of these were quite interesting, but for me this book never quite got off the ground as I was expecting to read a thriller of some sort but Old Friends is really just a family drama and so didn’t quite live up to expectations. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me an ARC of this book.

Excellent read about people and their relationships, I love reading books like that and with this one I felt like a knew the characters really well by the end.

East to read and relate to, what more do you need!

This is not the book I thought I was getting.

It's coming across in blurbs as a psychological thriller about two families who move in together - but that doesn't happen until over halfway in. This is a domestic drama, with very few "twists".

Harriet & Mark are an affluent married couple with successful careers and teenage twin sons. One is a handful, and one is a golden boy. But is everything as it seems?

Yvette & Gaz live nearby but aren't as well-off. Their daughter is pregnant, and their other daughter is debating whether or not to go to University.

If the two couples sell up, then Mark can get out of the rat race, Harriet can renovate a property for them, Yvette can give some money to her daughters, and Gaz will have more space to practice for his upcoming nostalgia tour with his old bandmates. But despite being friends for years, do these people know each other well enough to move in together?

The set-up was fine, it dragged a lot for me personally because I was expecting the story to move faster and get to the move. This didn't happen until much later. As a drama, the first part was the strongest. I felt when the move happened the whole lot went a bit downhill and never really recovered.

CW for discussion of miscarriage.

I was drawn to this book the moment I laid my eyes on the cover, the title, and the teaser - “Moving in together, what could go wrong?”. My mind immediately went into overdrive thinking of all of the different ways that it COULD go wrong, and after reading the summary, I was hooked. After a bit of confusion of keeping the characters straight (I highly recommend taking notes while you read when you find yourself in this situation), I quickly warmed to the characters and story. My favorite books are those about families and drama and Old Friends certainly filled this bucket. We read about your typical issues and complications as well as some that are beyond the usual day to day ones that most families experience. Add in the delicate tendrils of longtime friendships between all of the family members who not only add their own troubles to the mix, but also infuse new ones just by their own close existence after deciding to blend their families. Running away is not usually a good answer, but running away with friends (with baggage when you already have enough of your own) is an even worse idea. What makes those bad ideas great is writing about them - I was engaged and intrigued and flew through this book in two days. You don’t want to miss a single word because you will miss so much if you do.

I’d seen this described as a twisty, turny, dark thriller – and here’s the blurb:

“Two couples, best friends for half a lifetime, move in together. What could possibly go wrong…?
Harriet and Mark have it all: successful careers, a lovely house in a leafy London suburb, twin boys on the cusp of leaving home. Yvette and Gary share a smaller place with their two daughters in a shabbier part of the same borough.
But when the stars align for a collective move north, it means a fresh start for them all. For Mark, it’s a chance to escape the rat race; for Harriet, a distraction from her unfulfilled dream of a late third child. Gary has decided to reboot the Madchester band that made him famous, while Yvette hopes it will give her daughters what she never had herself.
But as the reality of their new living arrangements slowly sinks in, the four friends face their own mid-life crises, and the dream becomes a nightmare…”

Now up front I would question the description and the blurb – I don’t know if the storyline changed, but it just doesn’t make sense, particularly the line ‘Yvette hopes it will give her daughters what she never had herself’ is just odd – given neither of the daughters make the move North. And the move North doesn’t happen until quite a way through the book – I just felt the blurb and reviews from other authors weren’t quite on the mark and thus I felt a bit short-changed!

It’s an easy enough domestic drama to read – but I didn’t feel it was very dark with twists and turns. I also found the way it was written a bit strange, you’d jump forward quite a large amount of time with no explanation – and then the intervening period would be filled in a bit (although I often felt there were gaps in explaining why things had happened).

It felt to be like it was trying to be Cold Feet but without any of the history the viewer has with the characters – and I didn’t have a strong view about any of the lead characters. Sometimes a book is as intriguing if you hate a main character as much as if you love one – but I found Harriet, Mark, Yvette and Gary all a bit dull and thus was apathetic about what happened to any of them.

I was quite surprised by the twist towards the end of the book – but even that didn’t save it for me.

To be honest it just didn’t sit well with me – and whilst there was nothing specifically wrong or offensive about the book, it just didn’t really float my boat.

Thanks to the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Meet Mark who has his own PR business and Harriet who's an architect; they live in suburban London and they have twins, Jack and Ollie and both at University. Yvette and Gary, both in teaching, have two grown-up children, Ruby and Jade, and live near Harriet and Mark, though in a less affluent part of the area. Yvette and Gary hail from Manchester and the families, who have been friends for years, decide to relocate to Chorlton, South Manchester...

I really enjoyed reading Old Friends. There is plenty to the tale hidden just beneath the surface, bubbling away. The story is told from different perspectives though each chapter includes the others. The wealth of twists is well worked throughout. An impressive, simmering tale I relished, I'm looking forward to reading more from Felicity Everett.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from HQ via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

The description of Old Friends really grabbed my attention but unfortunately the book did not live up to my expectations. It was far too slow with nothing really happening until about three quarters of the way through it. I was expecting a thriller with twists and turns to keep me hooked but it wasn't like that in the slightest, it was a very mild, family drama.

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for my ARC.

The cover and synopsis of this grabbed my attention straight away, but it didn’t live up to my expectations at all. It’s was such a slow burn till around 85%. It took me far longer to read than it should have and I wish I didn’t waste time on it. Not for me unfortunately.

An insightful and compelling mystery novel focusing on two families of close friends that come to the decision to move in together in order to escape emotional and financial issues but end up gaining much more stressful ones.

Basically a tale of 4 friends (2 couples) who because of varying circumstances find they all end up living kinda communally together ‘back up North’ ( the book starts with them in London ) and the problems they encounter doing this, obvs there is a lot more to it than that but dont want to give much away, it is intriguing to see their lives unravel and change as what was supposed to be their saviour ( from many different problems) turns out more to be their downfall
Great characters, for example, Gary is a once famous 90’s pop star now on the verge of a reunion and fortune again, all of them are unique and flawed and therefore interesting to read about…we also meet all of their adultish kids, themselves having a whole host of their own problems!
The writing is darkly observational and sometimes very funny, honest and at times brutal
I was engaged with all of them fairly quickly and felt ‘knew them’ and when it finished ( surprisingly and for me just a bit quickly ) I felt had been on the journey with them
A chaotic but good read that I enjoyed

8/10
4 stars

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. The cover of this book is what grabbed my attention. The description was ok. This was not a thriller. I felt it was slow moving and more of a family drama type of book. I actually stopped reading and didn't make it through. Nothing grabbed my attention. Not for me.

I really did not enjoy Old Friends to the point I almost gave up half way through but even after persevering, I didn’t feel it improved. The plot line was too slow and nothing happened for around 80% of the book. Not one for me. Thank you to NetGalley, HQ and the author for the chance to review.

The synopsis for this book looked great, but unfortunately, it was poorly marketed. A thriller billed as 'Sharp, dark and brilliantly twisty’, it was certainly not! Expecting to be reading a thriller and waiting for the twists and darkness to arrive meant that I was waiting for something which was never coming. Had I realised that it was a family drama, I wouldn't have expected that, so I think it would have made it feel like a different read. However, I did like this book, but the marketing made me feel a bit let down.

The story follows two couples and best friends: Gary and Yvette, Harriet and Mark. They each have children and eventually move in together near Manchester after living in London for many years. The book is written from each perspective and switches between them in each chapter. They each have their own thing going on, their own struggles and individual lives as well as their lives together.

The book has a slow pace, and I felt it took me a long time to read (four evenings); the billed 'living together' doesn't begin until part two – quite some way through the book. Part one is the plot and character set; their origin story means that the characters are well developed. This is good because you know who each character is and their background but this bogs down the plot a little. Part two deals with them ending up living together and is, in my opinion, the best part of the book. Part three is the worst; the ending is rushed and disappointing.

A couple of friends who are quite an unlikely pairing, Harriet and Mark, are wealthier; they live in a posh neighbourhood and are both professionals living the good life. Gary and Yvette, in contrast, are of much lower standing. Gary, a reluctant teacher after an extensive music career and Yvette, a teaching assistant who lives in a much poorer neighbourhood and struggle more. Each has two children, which is how they met; Yvette is the teaching assistant who helps Harriet and Mark's struggling son, Oliver, during school.

I didn't like how Harriet and mark viewed their children so differently. Jack can do no wrong, and Oliver is treated with disdain at every turn, being the delinquent child. Good to see that this changed at the end. Gary and Yvette also treat their children very differently. Poor Ruby seems to live in the shadows of her older, more important, sister. Some complex family dynamics made this a better read.

The biggest let-down for me was the ending. It all felt too convenient, and there were too many strings left hanging around about what happened and how. I was left wanting to know more about the other characters. Still, I felt it focused more on Yvette's family but was not quite full enough for me.

As a domestic family drama, this is an enjoyable read overall, and I do like a family drama. However, the marketing needs to work on, which isn't the author's fault, but I feel she will feel the disappointment this leads to.