This is the relatively simple story of a group of friends circumnavigating life, friendship and relationships in their 30s but as with all of Mhairi McFarlane's novels the characters live, breathe and come to life on the page. A page turning read

ms mcfarlane i need several words with you!! your constant ability to create layered and flawed yet incredibly real and lovable characters needs to be studied!!! the way you manage to craft such a succinct yet powerful plot (when i get my hands on joe) and create such a beautiful love story within such a devastating relationship is just unbeatable. roisin's resilience and perseverance even in the face of joe's assh*lery (again, joe better be counting down the days) was so beautiful to watch, and how she treated bea was just such a show of charcater and dignity and i've never been rooting for a character more :)) and matthew phew that man, did he make a few bad choices? maybe. but man did he come through the man she deserved truly!!! and the side characters!!! i need a boko about dev/anita and gina/aaron!!! such a phenomenal book, will be re-reading soon just to feel something!!

As soon as I saw that this book was coming out, I just had to have it! Mhairi is one of my all time favourite authors, and her writing is just ageing like fine wine. Each new book she writes is better and better.. however. This one seemed to go off rather than age well. I obviously had high hopes, especially after her last release which was amazing! I just found that I couldn't get into this one, I found the characters underwhelming and not relatable, and the plot boring, slow and anticlimactic. While the pace did pick up in the second half, I had already lost motivation to enjoy the book and wasn't connected to the characters by then.

A very unfortunate review, but nevertheless thank you very much for the opportunity to read and review this title.

Mhairi is one of my all time favourite auto read authors and is thoroughly enjoyed this, as always Mhairis characters are wonderful, and I laughed out loud at her witty conversations between the girls, I couldn’t put it down and as always on finishing one of her books I now can’t wait until the next one and wish we could make Mhairi write 2 a year. Highly recommend. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this early copy

Mhairi McFarlane does it again! I've read all of this authors released books and 'Between Us' is easily in the top 3.

As always, Mhairi's characters were my favourite part of this book. She rights such realistic, normal people who are funny and flawed and interesting to get to know.

I loved the setting, the plot, the romance, the characters, the writing. But what really cinched it for me was the way Mhairi covered something as difficult and complex as manipulation and lying in a way that felt painfully accurate and in no way victim blamey. Let's have more romance talking about difficult things please!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free eARC of the book.

It took me two weeks to wade through this book, it felt like eternity to be honest. The problem was that I didn't feel invested in this story. I kept reading, but when I put the book away I simply didn't feel the need to get back to it. It was not my cup of tea, sadly.
My relationship with Mhairi McFarlane is a rocky one, not all of her books belong to my favourites, she's not my auto - buy author, however when me and the book click then I can't dream of a better read, this is why I keep reading her books. "Between Us" was not completely this what I was expecting. I was hoping for fun and lightness and great characters, but I got sadness, serious topics and characters I couldn't care about. Altogether, it was a heavy topic that the author has chosen to write about and as much as I appreciate it, the way it was tackled was not my cup of tea. The story felt very long, repetitive, with few dialogues (and it's a pity, because when it came to banter, it was great!), descriptive. I tried really hard, but eventually I gave up and started to skim - reading. I felt bored and the writing was relatively heavy to go through, not straight to the point.

I adored the scenes at school with Rosin and her pupils, they felt authentic and real and it was the only time that, I had this feeling, Roisin was her true self. Later it happened often that she started to feel genuine, but it happened at around the 85% mark, so I had to wait long, really long. The last 15% and the end has saved the book for me and earned it an extra star.

Mhairi MacFarlane is one of my must read authors for her contemporary, comedic and astute portrayal of relationships both romantic and friends. Again she delivered those things but I must admit this one took a while to get into. It started with a weekend away, which I later realised was important for setting the scene but at the time felt a little trivial and drawn out. I also didn't quite buy into the friendship group - they seemed to work better as subsets and Gina's response to the love triangle seemed completely unbelievable given her longheld and extremely strong feelings for Matt. Anyway I really enjoyed the main bit of the story once Roisin started moving on, helping out in her mum's pub and getting closer to Matt. That said my favourite bits were definitely the ones involving the students and Roisin's job as a teacher for the comedic value. So overall, I liked it a lot but it wasn't one of favourites by this author.

I always like the novels of Mhairi McFarlane for being easy to digest with plenty of humour. This outing is less original though - the formula is getting a little too predictable for my liking, perhaps? Also as a secondary school teacher, I seriously questioned Riosin’s ability to deal with rude teenagers, not to mention getting four days off work because they referred to her boyfriend’s career!
The rest was as you’d expect- fun and lively, with the ubiquitous heroine being stunningly beautiful and everyone’s Most Loved Friend, Most Admired Colleague, Most Lusted-after Woman and somehow, still, Most Unaware of All Of This!

I read my first novel by Mhairi McFarlane in 2017 and have been a fan ever since. She is one of my auto-buy authors, and I was incredibly excited when I saw her new book on Netgalley. This novel is full of McFarlane's typical humour, a great heroine and friends group. As all her novels, it was engaging and made me smile. A great novel for all McFarlane fans and those who want to join the fan club.

When I seen this new book by Mhairi was available to request for an arc, I was so excited. Mhairi is an auto-buy author for me and I went into this book blind because I always enjoy her writing - and this was no different!

The book follows Roisin, who is in a relationship with Joe, a screenwriter. When they watch the premiere of his new TV show with their friends, Roisin sees a moment from her past played out on the screen and is horrified. Now knowing that Joe has used an actual true life moment in the show, Roisin begins to question how much of the rest of the TV show is reality...

This book was everything - such a rollercoaster of emotions that I have come to expect from Mhairi's books, in the best way. I couldn't put it down and read in one sitting.

5⭐

Thank you to Netgalley, Harper Collins and the author for the review copy, provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

I always enjoy Mhairie's books and this was no exception. Roisin and Joe have been together for 10 years. She is a teacher and he has become a successful screen writer. On a weekend away with their close group of friends, they all sit down to watch the first episode of Joe's new series. Roisin is horrified when she sees that Joe has used something she told him in confidence as part of the story. Their relationship is already rocky, so she has some serious decisions to make. This is a great story with some wonderful, larger than life characters. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

Creep story that went on and on and on. Honestly I wanted to take the main character and tell her ENOUGH!!! Just ok for me.

To quote formerly-sane romcom writer Alison Pearson: I don't know how she does it. Mhairi is back with another cracker of a romcom, packed full of likeable, sympathetic characters (and one or two him-pathetic men). As always with Mhairi, it's funny, emotional, unexpected, surprising, and reads almost like a thriller - that's how much you'll want to keep turning the pages. And I for one did not see *the* main romance coming. This is a wonderful read - deserves to be a huge hit.

I read Mhairi McFarlane for when I want a guaranteed fun and engaging quick read, and she's only failed to deliver that once. But I'm finding increasingly with her books that there's a lot going on, the romance takes a really long time to get going, and feels an awful lot like an afterthought. That isn't my fave, and although I'll definitely still read her books, I want golden era Mhairi McFarlane back!

In this book, Roisin is a teacher with a long-term boyfriend, Joe, who's recently become a famous screenwriter. She goes to a house in the Lake District with her group of best friends – who met when they all worked in Waterstones ten years prior – and over the course of the novel, realises that Joe has been lying to her all along. As a former Waterstones bookseller who can only describe my time of working at Waterstones as 'unhinged', this is my fave origin story for a friendship group EVER. Anyway, like I said, this was fun and engaging and ever so readable, but it felt quite thin on background? I wanted more stories of how they all became friends, how they stayed friends, definitely more of the romance and its development. I don't really pick up these kinds of books to see relationships disintegrating, but blossoming, and some of the plotlines in this were pretty weird and contrived. I still enjoyed it and actually did look forward to picking it up, but it definitely wasn't my favourite of hers.

I had high hopes for this plot and author however I just couldn’t get into it fully especially as the main character was not relatable on any level for me.

Between us follows Roisin and Joe, who are becoming distant after 10 years together. When they go on a weekend break with their friends cracks start to appear not just between the couple but amongst the group too. As always the writing style makes this super readable, and all the characters are fully rounded and believable. Another great story from Mhairi McFarlane!

Mhairi McFarlane ist eine meiner liebsten Autorinnen. Ihre Bücher faszinieren mich ein ums davon andere Mal und ich kann nie genug davon bekommen.
Es ist sogar so schlimm, dass ich vor diversen Rereads nicht zurückschrecke… 😉

Umso mehr freue ich mich jedes Jahr, wenn das neue Werk von McFarlane rauskommt und noch größer ist die Freude, wenn mir Netgalley, wie bei diesem Buch wieder, das Leseexemplar zukommen lässt.

In „Between Us“ geht es um Vertrauen und Treue, um Liebe und Beziehungen und um Freundschaft.
Joe und Roisin sind schon viele Jahre ein Paar, sie haben Vieles zusammen erlebt und überstanden, doch Roisin spürt seit einiger Zeit, dass ihr Joe immer fremder wird.
An einem gemeinsamen Wochenende mit den gemeinsamen engsten Freunden erfährt Roisin, dass Joe ihr Vertrauen auf das Ärgste missbraucht hat.
Wie wird sie damit umgehen? Und welche Folgen hat das für ihren Freundeskreis?

Mhairi McFarlane schafft es mal wieder, dass man mit ihrer Hauptfigur mitleidet, mitfiebert und alle Hoch und Tiefs ihrer Geschichte mitfühlt.
Auch die unterschiedlichen Nebenfiguren haben mir gefallen und bleiben nicht nur an der Oberfläche. Durch sie gewinnt auch die Hauptprotagonistin an Tiefe.
Eine kleine Liebesgeschichte gibt es natürlich auch, aber der Mittelpunkt der Story ist Roisin und ihre Entwicklung.
Ich bin, wie immer, restlos begeistert und mein einziges Problem ist, dass ich nun wieder ein Jahr bis zum nächsten Werk der Autorin warten muss.
Da hilft wohl nichts und ich muss mich so lange mit ihren älteren Bücher trösten.

I ate this whole, in one day. Mhairi McFarlane is fantastic and this latest book is a winner.

The main protagonist is a proper person, with personality and nuance, and the story of her relationships is fantastic. The portrayal of the friendship group is something a lot of people will recognise and the loving, realistic support of her female friends was so lovely.

Unfortunately I was unable to review this book due to problems with formatting. My rating is based on the blurb

I love Mhairi McFarlane books and was looking forward to this one- it didn’t disappoint! A story of relationships and friendships, it was poignant in places and funny in others! I’d thoroughly recommend