My problems came when Rebecca decided that, rather than tell her bosses that Lorna was going through big personal issues that kept her from work (the normal way to deal with a work issue), she decides to perform a series of lies and charades to pretend that everything is fine with Lorna's performance. This just wouldn't happen, and I could not suspend my disbelief. At all. I found myself rolling my eyes at the behaviour of many of the characters. I can’t say this book is a happy read as the plot is all secrets , broken relationships and friendship going awry . I disliked Alex from the start. Sneaky, petty, clingy. Lorna.. well, you are supposed to warm up to her gradually, but I just couldn't.

The most engaging of all the characters was Laura. Even though she was evil she had more depth to her and I enjoyed hating her. She then worked for several years as a script editor before ending up as the series script editor at EastEnders. Later she met Tony Garnett at World Productions, who was in talks with the BBC about a new show, This Life, about a group of young solicitors living in the capital. The book made me laugh and gasp: "Oh, this is sooooo true!!" there are a few good twists and really funny moments, but the main twists are very, very far stretched...When Matthew Helen's lover of the past four years, finally decides to leave his wife Sophie (and their two daughters) and move into Helen's flat, she should be over the moon. The only trouble is, she doesn't want him any more. Now she has to figure out how to get rid of him With that said, I think Fallon also has a deft touch when it comes to characterisation. She writes strong and real female characters, who are bitchy and loving by turn. Those that are mothers have warm and realistic relationships with their children, who are also written well. I have rated this book on the level which I enjoyed it rather than the quality of the writing. The writing is actually pretty good - except for the odd glitch where absent characters suddenly speak in conversations - but unfortunately this type of novel isn't my thing. I really enjoyed the first part of the book where the savage office relationship between Rebecca and Lorna is explored. Lorna is a hateful character, memorable, spiteful and with a fantastic turn in passive aggressive behaviour. I had the urge to throttle her, and, as far as I'm concerned, if an author makes you have a visceral reaction like that to a character then they are doing a fine job.

I've, surprisingly, quite enjoyed this book. I thought I'd loathe Rebecca as a narrator, but I rather liked her. Finally finished it. It's hilarious and written with the same british humour that I've been used to of late. A friend bought it in London and read it, said it reminded her of me....and passed it on.

A lot of heavy reading recently, so I took a fem-lit break with Foursome, my second Jane Fallon book. It panned out better than I thought it would and this is a perfect example of a ten-star rating system, being a good 7 out of 10 read. Alloy’s romance Purple Hearts, starring Sofia Carson and Nicolas Galitzine, just became the seventh most-watched movie in Netflix history. The film from director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum follows struggling singer-songwriter Cassie (Carson) and troubled Marine Luke (Galitzine) as they agree to marry solely for military benefits, in spite of their many differences.But when tragedy strikes, the line between real and pretend begins to blur. Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000261 Openlibrary_edition Helen is single heading towards her 40-s birthday. She is hopelessly in love with a married man, who is also her boss. Helen's job is less than exciting, she is a PA, a glorified secretary with mundane monotonous tasks. Her flats is small and dump, her perspectives in life generally do not make her happy.

We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused. Fallon gets her characters into situations that seem impossible to get out of, stretching the limits of the reader’s expectations constantly. I found myself saying, “I have no idea how she’s going to get out of this one” and, “I can’t believe that just happened!” many times throughout the novel. Any book that truly takes me by surprise is appreciated by me, but a book that continuously keeps me on my toes with absolutely no clue as to how the characters’ situations will resolve – or whether they will at all – is refreshingly brilliant. What to do if Matthew, your secret lover of the past four years, finally decides to leave his wife Sophie and their two daughters and move into your flat, just when you're thinking that you might not want him anymore... The book touches on the world of acting because Rebecca works for an acting agency, and I enjoyed these little offshoots in the novel. Ithink it added a new perspective to the story and gives you a little break from the more emotional storylines that feature in the book. Fallon’s writing is so easy to read, you can lose yourself in the shortish chapter in the books and find that you’ve ploughed through a quarter of it before you’ve realised as its so enjoyable. I really couldn’t put it down because I wanted to find out what was going on next! The 2 women stay friends with the truth all out there and I love it!! Helen also talks about maybe restarting her relationship with the son who is actually closer to her age!When she was a teenager Jane attended Slough Convent School, where the highlight was the day one of the elderly nuns died and the whole school was compelled to line up two by two, to be shut in a room with the body for two minutes. Two months later, having been told by the English and History of Art departments that they would give her a place but only for the following academic year, she switched to History because they said "start tomorrow". She got a third. However, for my own part I must say sorry Jane but I think it may be a fundamental flaw in my personality that if I don't like the people involved then I don't really want them to have a happy ending. In real life good things don't always happen to good people (in my experience they often get dumped on from a great height instead) and bad people often get away with murder but I prefer my fiction to create a nicer world than that- a world where people are rewarded for their actions.

This is a story about fairly average people. Two couples, Rebecca and Dan and Isabel and Alex who have been best friends since uni. That is, until arrogant Alex leaves his wife, Isabel, craps all over his best mate, Dan, by telling said best mate's wife, Rebecca, that he's in love with her and the ensueing mess that follows. On leaving, she was unemployed for 18 months and trying to ignore the job advertisements which her father used to cut out of the paper and send to her, when one arrived which was for a Girl Friday in a Theatrical and Literary Agency. She got the job. At the same time, she realised that she never wanted to make another TV show again. So she didn't - she gave in her notice and wrote a novel instead.The female characters are well-written and believable (for the most part) with a strong underlying value system which comes through. The conundrum for me came with the relationship between Rebecca and Lorna. I was expecting the bitchy nature to persist but some of the directions the plot took threw me a little. However, it was really great to see women actually supporting each other, rather than the undermining, volatile relationships continuing. Interesting debut novel from former UK TV Shows' writer of Eastenders and This Life. The premise being 'the other woman' having the cheating husband (Matthew) leave his family for her, just around the same time as she had finally got to a place after 4 years, when she realised she didn't want him! Her primary new goal is... getting rid of Matthew! The book gets more interesting as it goes along with new twists and turns with every bad decision Helen makes. At the end, she gets caught lying and is forced to look at what she really wants and the person she really is.