Between Us

I'm DNF-ing this. Life's too short to read a depressing account of the breakdown of a long term relationship filled with gaslighting. This wasn't at all what I wanted from a Mhairi McFarlane novel. She's a great writer, which is why I won't be rating this, as I do when a book is too bad to finish. It just wasn't what I personally wanted. Hopefully her future novels are more like the other four I've read and loved!

War ganz gut. Ich fand es gut dass Roisin relativ schnell erkannt hat dass Joe ein Arsch ist. Auch Matt fand ich eigentlich die ganze Zeit ziemlich gut, aber es gibt mir den ick dass er wusste dass joe roisin betrogen hat. 

Mhairi McFarlane is one of my favorite authors. She is fantastic at creating realistic, flawed characters with great emotional depth, putting them into messy situations and having them change and grow. Her writing transports me and doesn't let me go until the final page. This book was no exception.

Between Us is about Roisin who starts to question if her boyfriend of ten years has been keeping secrets from her, based on parallels she notices in the new TV show he wrote.

As the main character goes through suspicion and doubt about her relationship of ten years, you go through the same. It almost becomes a romantic mystery, are her suspicions correct or is she making a mountain out of a molehill? As the reader, are you being led by an unreliable narrator?

I loved the romance in this book even though it was secondary to the story. (I don't want to expand more for spoilery reasons)

The author is also great at depicting dynamics of a friend group. The intricacies of long term friend groups: the ties that are stronger, the ones that don't seem to get along well at all, the WhatsApp group that generates many side WhatsApp groups... I loved many of the side characters within it. Plus they all knew each other from working at Waterstones, great tidbit for book lovers.

This one isn't as strong as Just Last Night by the same author, which is still one of my fave books, but I absolutely enjoyed it and found it hard to put down.

Overall rating: 4.2⭐

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for the eARC!

Mhairi MacFalane is always an automatic read author for me. While I throughly enjoyed this book I don't know that it's a top pick for me. I had a hard time getting into the friend group dynamics in the beginning, however once I did I flew through the remainder of the book as driven as the FMC was for the truth of the relationship. I always enjoy that most of her books are about the MC dealing with a turning point or trauma in their life with the romance coming secondary, it's more about the experiences we have in life and how we deal with them.

Thanks to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for sharing a digital copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Experienced a death in the family as I was reading this, so I'm taking a break from reviewing for a while. I don't think it was shaping up to be my favorite Mhairi McFarlane anyway; the horrible lying and gaslighting by the heroine's fiancé goes on way too long, overshadowing the friend dynamics and the “true” love interest.

Happy publication day!

Between Us was a very interesting read about friendship, family, love, toxic relationships, gaslighting, betrayal and infidelity.
The writing was immersive and the characters were relatable. The dialogues and interactions were credible and the story had a lot more depth than I was expecting.

This was a great read and I absolutely recommend it!

I would like to thank HarperCollins Uk and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review