For the most part I enjoyed this story. I liked the concept behind it and the exploration of ideas about crime, punishment and rehabilitation. However I honestly got really confused about what was going on about halfway through, and when the elements of each story inevitably tied together at the end, I found it difficult to untangle it all in my mind. Characters who didn't seem to be all that important suddenly seemed to have a lot of importance to the plot, and I'd basically forgotten they existed.

I wasn't a huge fan of the narration - I thought she was fine for the most part, but I couldn't bear the sections which were like ASMR whispering, thankfully these were only small parts of the story, but they really did set my teeth on edge! I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot better, and been able to keep track of the plot strands as well, had I read the book rather than listened to the audiobook.

I listened to the audiobook of this title and I have to say the narration was brilliant, it really engaged me. The narrator did a great job.

Story wise I was intrigued to see how the 3 different story lines would all tie together, they seemed to be very unrelated. It was a bit confusing but towards the end they all tied in, but in a somewhat unbelievable way. It definitely kept me reading, wanting to know what would happen next and how it would all come together. But I removed a star because it did feel somewhat unbelievable/convoluted.

I have enjoyed all of Harriet's book, but this is not my favourite.

I read Blood Orange and really enjoyed it so was looking forward to this.

I enjoyed Anna’s story then it changed to Lucy’s whose story I wasn’t as bothered about and I found it a little confusing.

I knew the story would link but wasn’t sure how. However I did guess the one part quite early on once we had heard all 3 stories.

The narrator was good but I didn’t enjoy the voices in between and it wasn’t needed in the story.

There were loads of twists and turns but
I found this book a little over complicated and over the top, although it is clever how it links together.

3.5*

I had read and enjoyed one of Harriet Tyce's previous books so I was excited to read this one and it didn't disappoint. A fast paced, twisty thriller set mostly in Oxford with an interesting collection of characters. The story starts with Anna being accused of the murder of her prison cell mate; this is a gripping and clever story. I felt that sadly the narration did let the audiobook down though; the narrator was very nasal and sounded like she had a badly blocked nose which was very offputting and this was a pity.

This was an amazingly addictive book. Whilst I was a little confused by the multiple storylines at first, they soon become linked. The story revolves around prison reform and criminology and will be of interest to anyone interested in these topics along with criminal psychology.
The characters are strong and mostly relatable, if not completely likeable. Several of the threads are immensely sad but they are drawn together into a wonderful read. I will definitely be looking for more from Harriet Tyce

I found this a very difficult book to stop listening to and ended up hoping for a traffic jam just so I could listen some more!!!

The story follows the lives of 3 woman - all very different and all experiencing difficulties in their own lives mostly of their own making I have to say; there's also a professor with questionable ethics. It's clear that they are going to come together at some point but it's intriguing to see how and why and I definitely wasn't disappointed.

Written at a good pace, with excellent characters and with a narrator that did a good job, this is a really good book to get your teeth into (or ears if, like me, you listen to the audiobook version) and I will definitely be looking out for more of Harriet Tyce's books in the future.

Many thanks to the author, Headline Audio, Wildfire and NetGalley for enabling me to listen to and share my thoughts of this intriguing book.

Phenomenally plotted thriller that is completely gripping and unguessable!

It’s only April, but I’ve already found a huge contender for my book of the year in A LESSON IN CRUELTY. I’m in absolute awe at how Tyce has pulled off such an expertly woven thriller that threads multiple plot lines together into a mind blowing, powerhouse of a book. I was completely hooked on all three women’s stories independently, but was completely clueless in how their stories would converge. I couldn’t even hazard a guess, so when their narratives collided, it was genuinely a jaw-to-the-floor moment. I then spent the remainder of the book gasping and practically falling off my chair! To state that this book is a masterpiece of the genre is in no way an inflated claim. I was completely blown away by how perfectly each portion of this book was constructed. Each part worked so well to craft three independent stories, making the merging of these into a combined final third all the more accomplished. This book was full of shocking reveals and masterfully executed twists, bringing the narrative to an explosive conclusion. Tyce takes her time to build each character and their independent narrative streams, increasing pace and tension as the story develops. It’s a book that you will seriously struggle to tear yourself away from!

I loved how topical the story was too, with its explorations of prison, punishment, justice, truth, forgiveness, and life after dues have been paid. Tyce writes expressively, thrusting readers into the story and I was completely wrapped up in Anna’s strand in particular. It’s clear that we aren’t supposed to know exactly who to trust, but Tyce imbues all three women with a humanity that allows us to feel a swathe of emotions for them. I really enjoyed the audiobook for this too. Candida Gubbins really brings these characters to life, giving each a unique identity in her narration. This really helped me forge a strong connection with each of the main characters and had me fully invested. As the tension and suspense built over the course of the narrative, the narration reflected this perfectly and I couldn’t take my headphones off!

I can’t recommend A LESSON IN CRUELTY enough if you enjoy a clever, impeccably plotted thriller that will have you thinking and gasping in equal measure. It’s brutal and beautiful, which is exactly what I’m after in a book!

Following three women - Anna, Lucy & Marie, A Lesson In Cruelty shows each of their stories separately at first, but as they slowly and intricatley weave together, a fuller story unfolds.

I enjoyed each individual story to a point, but feel like they weren't weighted equally, making the pace of the story difficult to maintain but overall it was am OK thriller.

The narrator was mostly OK, but some parts were difficult to listen to due to strangeness of some of the voices.

Couldn't put it down!!
Finished this book in 3 nights (which is great for me) and spent all day thinking about it, I couldn't wait to get the kids to bed and sit and rest some more.
It was a great structured story going between characters that all connect in some way. Very suspenseful. Loved it

Wow! What a twisted gripping can't-put-down book! Loved it! So well constructed, brilliantly written, twisty, surprising, well thought out story. I can't praise it enough.
Told from multiple points of view, A Lesson In Cruelty slowly draws you in until you can't help yourself but keep on reading. I loved the premise of the story. I thought I knew what was going on and then I got surprised and it just kept me guessing. So so good.
Harriet Tyce did a brilliant job writing multi-layered story that just grabs your attention and doesn't let go till you're finished.
I really enjoyed how all the different threads were eventually connected together. I can't say too much about the plot as I don't want to give anything away but it's unique and really well executed.
All in all A Lesson In Cruelty is an amazing book written brilliantly full of twists and turns and one not to be missed. Highly recommended.

4.5 stars

The story follows three women. Anna who spent the last three years in prison, then one night before she gets to be set free a horrible thing happens in her prison cell. Lucy who is in love with her professor and Marie who is a recluse, who is not ready to be set free. All women live very different lives but they all will collide at some point.
I was drawn into Anna's story from chapter one. It was fast paced, mysterious and kept me excited for more. I was a little sad when the POV switched to Lucy. Once I got to know Lucy a little better I also was very interested in her story - or to be honest, the professor's story. About Marie, everything you need to know is already said.
I don't want to reveal more because Tyce's books are always best to go into blind. I love her writting and enjoy that they are a little slower than the usual thriller. Her writing style is mysterious and captivating - I rated all her books 4⭐ and higher. A Lesson in Cruelty was right up my alley, like her other works. I can recommend this book with all my heart and I'm excited for people to read this story. I listened to the audiobook and I truly had a very good time.

Thank you so much to Harriet Tyce, Headline Audio and NetGalley for the audiobook in exchange for me honest opinion.

This was one thrilling, wild ride!!

A Lesson in Cruelty complex and compelling story of three women. Anna who is due to be released on parole and wants a fresh start. Lucy, a law student who is infatuated with her married professor. Marie, a woman leading a secluded existence in Scotland and longs to be free. How are these three women connected?

The intricate plot and heart-pounding twists had me so invested that I completed the audiobook in 4 hours flat even though the pacing was a bit uneven and I would have enjoyed a full cast narration. I loved how the author brought all the stories together leading to a thrilling conclusion.

I have enjoyed 'Blood Orange' by Harriet Tyce and definitely look forward to reading more from her. Thank you @netgalley and @headlineaudio for an advanced audiobook to listen and review.

I have previously read a couple of novels by this author and enjoyed them, which is why I chose to read A Lesson in Cruelty.

Anna is in prison and the novel opens the day before she is due to be released after three years' incarceration. She is transferred to another cell in preparation for the next day and her old 'padmate' gives her a strong pill so that she can at least sleep on her last night. She soon feels sleepy and befuddled but is dimly aware that another woman - Kelly - takes the second bunk in the cell and she overhears parts of a difficult conversation on a tiny, smuggled-in phone. In the morning Anna wakes to find Kelly has had her throat slit. Anna is concerned that the pill she herself took could have caused her to kill Kelly whilst she was under the influence, and, although the authorities question her on suspicion of murder, she is nevertheless released later that same day. Would that really happen in such a short space of time, I wonder?

Tom, her legal representative, just happens to spot Anna shortly after her release, as she is waiting out the prison at  the bus stop for her ride to the train station. He observes a small white car mount the pavement and, heading straight for her, it flips her into the air. He is immediately by her side but she insists on no police, no ambulance, even though she might well have concussion. He complies (odd behaviour given her woozy and befuddled state). Instead of continuing on her way to London, he scoops her up and suggests she spends the night at his. Really?

We learn that Anna has been a lawyer but she had her licence to practice withdrawn because of her prison sentence (she was responsible for a devastating accident). She is already in Tom's house and my sense of disbelief at his lack of appropriate boundaries just continued to grow (clearly an agenda was brewing but it all just seemed so implausible).  Then he suggests she work for him, doing some of the donkey work that faces him everyday as a legal aid solicitor; she does at one point recognise that he is getting 'over involved' in her case but she likes the idea of using her skill set. I was once again left gawping at the lack of his professional boundaries.....

Given their legal backgrounds, they chat about the Magic Circle (an informal term describing the five most prestigious London-headquartered multinational law firms) and, having each worked for one of those firms, both share their experience of the terrible work pressures that are imposed by these companies on their employees. One of the law firms is specifically named in none too flattering terms and I would have thought it was a bit risky to do this 🤷‍♀️ but, given that the author is a former criminal barrister, she hopefully knows what she is doing when it comes to libel. Wouldn't the publisher be concerned? It also felt like a swipe at the author's previous profession.

Part way through the book, the story of Anna is dropped in favour of Lucy's story, who is at Oxford specifically to stalk a maverick law professor, and she does a good job of ingratiating herself with him. Following on from Lucy's story is the strange story of 2 women, living together, who have each been given a name from Greek mythology to cover their identities - to wit, Scylla and Charybdis (probably a nod to choosing the lesser of two evils). Anna's story is then picked up again and the strands, of course, eventually come together after a long and jigsaw-puzzle build-up.

This particular "listening' experience has left me wondering about the nature of the support that authors get from their publisher. It feels like this book - and I am talking about this novel in its audiobook format only - feels like it is perhaps an early manuscript that hasn't been through the full and final editing process; maybe an early version has been passed in error to the narrator? Could that explain things? There are mistakes: you have an aperitif before dinner, not after; in one conversation a woman talks about her nephew, naming him very clearly and the response from the man is to ask what the boy's name is... non-sequiturs should be weeded out from the get-go; did I notice a brief mention of Cambridge instead of Oxford?? And there is the potential defamation issue already highlighted above.  There are blocks of storytelling that don't really gel and flow - for example, the author has worked to get the reader invested in Anna and then Lucy pops up, which left me quite discombobulated.

Early on the author is clearly very keen to hammer home the notion of penal reform, especially when it comes to the sentencing of women.  This is truly admirable, although at times her message is conveyed so passionately that it can overwhelm the narrative a bit: "It's a small, tight society, this, these women brought together by poverty and addiction, falling through the same cracks. They're as hollow-eyed and gaunt as the ones Anna saw in prison, shunted in for a few weeks of custody for something petty, the sentence wildly disproportionate to the devastation caused. Nothing learned, no help given for the outside, only a lesson in cruelty".

Somebody, somewhere has not taken time to go through the text with a fine tooth comb, to ensure a smooth and credible transition between the storylines to create a flowing narrative. It feels very much like a pitch of ideas and plots that haven't as yet really been honed into a cohesive whole, and I can only think that a really early version of this book - errors and all - have somehow landed in the public domain in audiobook format. The hard copy, in contrast, is garnering a lot of positive reviews because the author is a good writer and storyteller and here she has brought together a lot of interesting and inventive components.

To cap it all the narrator develops a terrible cold part way through. On occasion, she can hardly enunciate without supreme breathing effort, making me, the listener, gulp for air as she labours through the words. That's not a pleasurable reading experience. When she wasn't suffering from a very blocked nose, she did a good job. But what was the publisher thinking in putting the audiobook out into the world in this state? Are the pressures in the publishing world such that the narrator could not wait until she had recuperated? Honestly, I despair....

And finally in the Author's Note: "Michael Howard was wrong. Prison doesn't work, at least not the way we do it in this country". Something to ponder at the end of the novel.....

Harriet Tyce is one of my favourite authors so when I got the chance to read A Lesson in Cruelty I was so excited.

In this novel we follow three very different and complex women Anna who is about to be released from serving a prison sentence; Lucy who is slightly in love with her professor and then Marie who is lonely and isolated.

The question in the novel is how do these women become entwined within the novel and at times, I did have to re-read some parts but it does make sense eventually and I was really invested in the characters.

The story is quite strong and moving and I really think the characters were well rounded and interesting.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publishers and the author for allowing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed this thriller which was a bit different from the usual; examining and commenting on the prison system through three women's eyes in different ways. I found the ending satisfying, but would have liked a bit more of a build-up on the identity of Kelly, which felt a bit convenient. Overall though I couldn't wait to get back to this, and listened whenever I could.

Three women, three stories. How will they connect?

I was hooked in to this book from the very start and although Anna had done wrong, I found myself rooting for her on her release from prison. Lucy, obsessed with her professor was intriguing and Marie, well, I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen in her story.

When the three women’s worlds collided, my mind was blown! Harriet Tyce has woven a twisty web of intrigue and I loved it!

The characterisation was excellent and the twists so very unexpected.

I listened to the audiobook and Candida Gubbins did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life and creating a sinister feeling.

4.5 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Harriet Tyce and Headline Wildfire for an ARC in return for an honest review.

DNF at 45% - The narrator has done an incredible job of voicing three separate POVs but I am thoroughly uninterested in the story. Tyce is clearly a talented mystery writer and I’m sure these threads will come together in a clever reveal, but I’m not interested enough to persevere until that reveal. Will recommend to customers and fellow readers but I’ve unfortunately lost interest. Thank you so much to Headline Audio for the advanced listening copy and I’m really gutted I didn’t like it.

Absolutely loved listening to Harriet Tyce’s new novel. Three seemingly unconnected women’s stories. Three mysterious deaths. Two additional mysterious narratives. One burning theme. Prison, retribution, revenge, crime and punishment run through each story. Superb female characters. An experiment in cruelty.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early access to this audiobook ARC

This book follows 3 women: Anna, Lucy and Marie, following each of them on their own storyline. Anna who has spent 3 years in prison and is now being released. Lucy who is a university student in love with her Professor. And Marie who lives reclusively off grid.

I really had no idea how each of these three storylines were going to connect to each other in the beginning, and after reading and loving 'Blood Orange' by Harriett Tyce, I knew that as much as I tried to guess, the author would completely wow me and throw a curveball that I absolutely did not see coming.

I liked the different POVs, and each storyline really did feel so unique. I loved Anna's storyline, and was intrigued by Harriett's storyline, although I struggled with Lucy's storyline. I disliked the Professor and Lucy both, so I found that the story lulled when it came to Lucy's POV. My only comment regarding the plotline, would be that the pacing of the book was slightly off because of this, and so I didn't enjoy specific parts, but otherwise, this was SUCH a complex, intriguing psychological thriller, and I loved the underlying themes of mental health.

I was intrigued and questioning everything throughout the story, which is exactly what you want from a book like this!

The majority of the audiobook narration was fine, but there were certain parts where the narrator did different voices that were slightly unbearable to listen to - the whispers, and gasps, and squeaky voices were not great, unfortunately. I usually love listening to this sort of book via audiobook as I feel like it makes it much more realistic, but sometimes this was hard to listen to.

Overall, a really intriguing read, 3.5 stars!

I listened to this book on audio. The narrator was ok, not irritating at all, which is a bonus. Quite soothing for a thriller.
I have read several Harriet Tyce and I think this was the most confusing - that isn't a criticism, it all came together at the end, and I wasn't sure how it would turn out.
Clearly a lot of research involved, which made it good and thorough.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.