Set (mostly) in London, England.
We follow siblings Angie (37) and Adam (36) Hames. Angie is a marketing assistant; Adam is a renowned and sought-after artist (painter).
Perry Oblekt, the fiancé; Jasper, the BFF secretly in love with Adam; Gray, Angie’s new boyfriend…
Adam is gorgeous, brilliant, and affluent. And gay. It’s great to have a gay man as a protagonist in this genre.
Adam and Angie are super close. Both single, they decide to join dating apps.
Present tense narration takes some getting used to. Some punctuation and stray typographical errors. I love the warning at the beginning—that this is written in British English. As if it weren’t quite apparent.
Adam prefers his solitude; his relative inexperience is a refreshing nuance.
Perry and Adam’s courtship: a whirlwind love affair.
Steady pace and flow; fast-moving.
The realism. The strain between siblings who are close, but can also drive each other nuts.
Fantastic character work with Adam. He is so damn relatable.
Betrayals and delusions; scam, swindle, murder.
Some shark jumps in the last 20-25%.
With the lion’s share of this novel told through Adam’s POV, it’s quite risky. And…it does not pay off well.
The switch to Angie and Gray is very choppy. Feels like an overview.
Cold and nonsensical in the last parts. A horrible and cheap ending—which saddens me to say. Her character work with Adam is outstanding, especially for the thriller genre. So to end the way she does…not good at all.
“The things we do for love, I think. If that’s what this is.”