This is my favourite type of mystery classic old house a bunch of friends who are not quite friends full of secrets. Prefect read for fans of classic crime. Really enjoyed the writer aspect of the book it's literally a cut throat business

3.5 stars. With thanks to NetGalley and 4th Estate for the arc.
A group of Cambridge scholars (ex and current) come together for a week long, idyllic writing retreat at a beautiful old house in the Cambridgeshire countryside. What could possibly go wrong?
This is one of those books that is quite hard to pin down to any specific genre. It isn’t really a mystery or a thriller, doesn’t quite fit as ‘literary fiction’, and isn’t ‘dark’ enough for dark academia. The writing is excellent. I found myself very quickly being drawn in to the claustrophobic environment of the retreat and enjoyed the interplay between a group of frankly egotistical, mainly unlikeable, characters. My main problem with the book, and the reason it didn’t get a higher rating, is that it felt like story didn’t really go anywhere. There are lots of plot twists and turns, but a lot of them are just left hanging, or fizzle out. The main (to me) arc of the story, which revolves around the central character Lawrence and the stripping away of his thin veneer of moral and academic respectability, is one of the major casualties of this tendency. Does he get his comeuppance? Who knows? Things are hinted at, but personally I prefer a more definite ending to a story. Unfortunately the Epilogue, which romped through several decades of what happened after the retreat, just added to the frustration. I think it was trying to tie into the epitaph on a gravestone in the nearby churchyard “We are what you will be, we were what you are”, showing the inexorable march of time and how these small, intense human dramas, are actually of little consequence in the grand scheme of things, but the effect was just a rushed jumble of events and people who had nothing to do with the rest of the book.
A solid read but a disappointing end.

This is not a literary thriller. I felt misled, and found nothing thrilling about it. I had somehow made an assumption that there may be a death or murder...if only.

Set in a rambling family house near Cambridge this writers retreat is a story of academia, self importance, grudges and taking liberties. Whilst this could be the source of intrigue, I found instead a cliche (which does not detract from it being life-like) of tedious character interplay amongst a cast of differently dislikable protagonists. The philandering one, the one with unfulfilled ambition, the head girl trope, the lesbian artist, the gay marriage, the stalker, the one holding the moral high ground etc - most of them drunk, most of the time. A creative retreat to me conjurs up many things but what we saw here was none of those.

Whilst the writing that captured these caricatures was engaging for the most part, the way the story concluded felt as though it hadn't been written for the right book nor written by the same author. There was a very obvious end but instead we were thrown the curved ball of a rambling looking into the future and what happened to the house.

I was disappointed

With thanks to #NetGalley and #4thEstate #HarperCollinsUK for the opportunity to read and review

I've never actually read any books by [author:Elizabeth Jane Howard|113328] but this is what I imagine her books are like - with a sceptical C21st eye cast over the narrative. Written by two literature academics, this features an ensemble cast gathered together by the risible Lawrence for a 'writing retreat' in his gorgeous, old, Blue Plaqued manor house (inherited from his wife's family, natch) complete with folly, swimming pool and orchard. Inevitably, it has the kind of troubling colonial history highlighted by Colonial Countryside but Lawrence doesn't see himself as at all complicit with power hierarchies, historical and contemporary, and gamely wears his <i>This is what a feminist looks like</i> t-shirt, utterly oblivious to his own rampant misogyny and toxic masculinity.

I guess one of the troubling things about the book is that all the characters are essentially intellectually privileged: they're academics (some ex-PhD students of Lawrence), a popular historian, and a literary agent. They write books, appear on TV and on podcasts, write for the <i>Guardian</i> and review in the <i>TLS</i>. Ash is the most politically aware given his ethnic background and opinions on race and diversity but he's also benefited from a Cambridge education and a lifelong friendship with Lawrence - one which seems only recently to have come under pressure.

In typical ensemble way, all the characters are dealing with issues: stale marriage, divorce, professional stasis but this still feels pretty rarefied. I can't help enjoying a book where people have literary conversations about John Donne, early modern printing, and joke about the Tudor Court - but, at the same time, this feels like a kind of Sunday supplement life where everyone cooks like Ottolenghi and the wine is always excellent - no buying the supermarket deal of the week in this world!

With issues around adultery, academic plagiarism, and who owns the power there's a pacy story if this is your thing. It is all terribly bourgeois - and a lesbian sexual encounter as a breakout moment of transgression feels a bit on the nose (if not old fashioned). There's some nice wit in the first half but that rather falls off later.

Overall, I'd say this is a holiday read for <i>Guardian</i> readers (of which I am one!) - kind of middle class soap opera and a fun, interesting page-turner.

A group of old friends gather in the English countryside, ostensibly for a week-long writers retreat. Some of them are only too happy to do so, in order to leave their "normal" lives behind. What they do not know is that one person in the group has a hidden agenda, and is playing a very different, and decidedly deeper game than the others.

This book is most definitely literary fiction and moves at a pace that I found a little too slow for my taste. But it is well written, and will appeal to those who are familiar with existential ennui and mid life issues.

The characters are well-rounded, and their interactions believably portrayed. This will probably be best suited to those who enjoy dark academia mysteries portrayed in a literary style.

A confident and intriguing book following the moderately arrogant but well meaning Lawrence, and the book retreat he runs for his friends and acquaintances for a week. The dynamics between the characters are immediately arresting, and I really enjoyed following the characters interactions and working out their secrets and ulterior motives. I do understand other reviewers comments that the book is being sold and begins as a lot more thriller-y than it turns out, however once you are into the story it is an excellent read.

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

This is literary fiction at its very best. The reader is submerged into a rich world of artists, and writers, and academics, where literary nuances can be savoured and historical subtleties appreciated.
Hawton, is an eighteenth-century manor house, on the rural outskirts of Cambridge. Lawrence, an academic supervisor, is determined to present it to his friends as another kind of Eden, but could his whole successful life be built on nothing more than deceit?
The author has a God-given gift for characterisation, describing emotions and sensitivities taut with friction but full of glittering possibilities. The characters create an unstoppable narrative tide.
This is a novel written with grace, intellect and authority. These pages contain a booklover's paradise.

This novel starts with a scene from the end, with two characters bleeding. At that point we, as readers, don’t know what has gone down, but this scene hangs over the narrative as something ominous to come. It gives the impression that we are going into a literary thriller, which we really aren’t. Lawrence, a Cambridge academic, is holding a week long writing retreat at his huge house just outside the city. His wife, is a soprano who no longer sings (and we can’t help but blame awful Lawrence), and writes classical music reviews and looks after everything in the domestic sphere. Their teenage son is on holiday in France with grandparents. Laurence has invited a select group, including old friends, old students and an artist. He has planned the week (which isn’t quite a week), within an inch of its life. We learn fairly early on that Lawrence is a prick and a selfish husband. Frances Wise writes the characters and the scenes at the retreat really well, and it makes for compulsive reading as old grievances come to light, and petty jealousies emerge. It comes a bit unstuck at the end with an unsatisfying conclusion and then a weird epilogue where we learn what happens to the house way in the future. It seemed an odd choice and not in the style of the rest of the book. Still, I enjoyed reading it and Frances Wise is a really good writer. I can imagine it being snapped up for a tv adaptation

This may just be my mistake, but it feels like this is being marketed as a literary thriller/whodunnit and doesn't deliver on that front, even though the writing is exceptional.

At the behest of pompous academic Lawrence, several hand-picked misfits gather at his (well, his wife's) idyllic countryside home for five days, to work on their writing, but all is not as it seems - Sri Lankan writer and critic Ash has some dirt on Lawrence, outsider Josh is there to pitch his Chaucer-inspired script, Lucy is haunted by bad memories of her youth and Lawrence's wife, Claudia, is bewitched by an artistic late arrival, who happens to be a woman. Miles, the gay popular historian who found fame late-ish in life after abandoning his academic persona and finding a husband, just wants to get plastered.

It was a shame not to actually see Lawrence getting his comeuppance, and even some of the mild mysteries raised seemed un-resolved. I'm a big fan of John Donne, but anyone who isn't might find the lengthy conversations about him lack a bit of interest for them. Nonetheless, I found this a very enjoyable read, if a bit of a puzzle in its own right.