There's a lot in this book and the 4 voices in this are strong - in diary form, they flick back and forth and the voices get inside your head. There are some really messed up people in the world aren't there! Some messed up opinions and misconceptions flying around as well. Gets inside your head but there was too much for me with the psychological issues and the problems such as the OCD and alcoholism. In BookTrail terms not strong on location but then you can get messed up people anywhere and everywhere I guess. Not my cup of tea but then there's a lot for a bookclub to chew over!

The characters were extremely well written - as well as clearly well researched.. Their characteristics were revealed in an Interesting way. The characters are relatable and have a realistic quality to them which sometimes novels can completely look over. A more minor point it was rather refreshing reading a book that was set in Britain.
The story was appealing from the off, and what drew me into the book was the different retellings of the events by each of the narrating characters. aspects
As other reviewers have commented, it deals with difficult topics ones which I didn't think would be tackled in such a book. Cancer, OCD, affairs, and alcoholism to name a few.
There is no doubt that betrayals are at the heart of this book, almost everything you believe is challenged.

Criticism whilst the book is very well written. I did at some points struggle expecting there to be some climatic event at the heart of the affair, if I had to describe a criticism in one word for this book it would be ‘anti-climatic’.

However, the criticism only minority takes away from the enjoyment of the book which is why I felt that the book should be awarded 4 stars. After all, the characters were superbly written and the storylines intriguing.

The first thought that strikes me as I consider my thoughts about this book is the understanding the author has of psychological disorders. She has clearly spent a lot of time reading up on OCD and the effects the condition has on sufferers and those close to them. This is not a light read but in saying that I did not feel overwhelmed by its content. Each character gets to have their say in turn and I felt it was very well written. My feelings towards each character evolved as each person related events from their point of view. This book shows how there is always more than one version of 'The Truth' depending on how you look at the situation. The title is very well chosen as betrayal takes many forms over the course of the book. Overall, a very well researched and excellently written novel, but for me personally a bit too intense which is why I award it a 4 out of 5 rating.

I enjoyed this, although 'enjoy' is probably not the best way to describe a rather interesting experience. It is a dysfunctional family drama. By dysfunctional I mean husband leaves with his wife's best friend whose husband is an alcoholic, their daughter has serious OCD and other things that I can't say without spoiling the book. I mean there is a lot of food for thought in this book, especially for a book club.

I thought that the family has the right balance of dysfunction without being too unrealistic, I have met families like that! It is not for everyone, if you look for thrills or romance, I am afraid you will be disappointed, this is mainly raw stuff. Yes, you want to know what happens next and you also want to know what really happened in the past but there is no sense of closure, which is well what happens in real life most of the time.
Whatever you might think of this book, it is well written and the characters are quite real albeit essentially very flawed. You are not going to find a hero or heroine in this novel, but you will find lots of real people. But if you like complex family dramas, get this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for an ARC of this novel.

The Betrayals is a novel written from four different points of view. Rosie Foss is an oncologist, forty something and divorced from Nick. Nick lives with Lisa who was once Rosie’s best friend. Nick and Rosie’s children, Max and Daisy were badly affected by the divorce and eight years on are still bitter. The narrative is from Rosie, Nick, Max and Daisy’s points of view and goes between the past and the present.

In the present we begin with Daisy opening a letter from Lisa to her mother. In it Lisa tells Rosie she has cancer and needs to tell her something. Daisy thinks she knows what it is and hides the letter as she doesn’t want Rosie to know. Immediately it becomes clear that Daisy has compulsive behaviour. This makes her voice very easy to recognise as it is filled with the little tics she uses to keep her anxiety at bay: her obsession with the number three, the repetitions of certain phrases, the tapping that wards off anxiety. From Max we learn that Daisy was very ill with OCD after their father left and that she worried greatly that their mother needed protection and that only her repetitive and obsessive behaviour would do this. Slowly, it becomes apparent to the rest of the family that Daisy’s illness is taking hold once more.

This is a novel about memory and perception, about how people see the past differently because of their perceptions and (sometimes) false beliefs. It is brilliantly done; scenes are replayed from different points of view, not too much but just enough so we can tell we are getting different sides of the story. Added to this is the fact that Nick is an expert on memory so we get informed about the nature of memory throughout his narrative as he explains how memory works. Each of the narrators is unreliable, sometimes deliberately so, sometimes because their perception of what has happened is wrong.

I loved this novel. The characters were true to life although not always sympathetic. I didn’t really like any of them except Daisy and Rosie but that didn’t matter because as in real life, one can’t like everyone.

I hadn’t heard of Fiona Neill before reading this and so I googled her as soon as I’d finished the novel. I was delighted to see she’s written several novels so that’s me sorted for the next couple of weeks. But I was bemused to see her writing described in some places as midway between chick lit and literary fiction. I have nothing against chick lit, it’s fine but this is something more serious and lasting. The way it deals with current issues in everyday life - how damaging bullying on social media can be, how internet dating has become a way of life for some people, substituting sex for a real relationship and how the consequences of this can be devastating – all of this is very relevant. The author also has a go at the sham treatments offered by self styled experts for serious, life threatening illnesses such as cancer and the sections on this were sometimes very funny. But above all, the sympathetic and realist treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is excellent and shows how debilitating this illness can be. Highly recommended.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher. I honestly don't know what to say about this book. It was good but it wasn't brilliant.

This book tells the story of two families and the ongoing internal and external relationships that each family member experience. The novel also includes one of the characters, Daisy, suffering from
OCD,and the effect it has on the lives of family and friends.
Basically Daisy's parents Rosie and Nick split up due to Nick's affair with Rosie's best friend Lisa, and how this affects the dynamics of both families, in past and current times.
The author has written the extracts featuring Daisy very well, and seems to have researched OCD very thoroughly. She describes Daisy's feelings and repetitive routines, whilst undergoing a relapse with her condition, in a very detailed way which helps to underline the intensity that OCD sufferers must feel.
I did struggle with the book initially, but for the last third I found the characters became better developed and engaged me more.
I would be happy to read more from this author.
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin/Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A complex exploration of relationship inter- and intra-family. Particularly authentic is the depiction of Daisy's OCD, which powerfully underpins the plot - apparently caused by the conflict between the characters, her OCD is a character in its own right, which takes over as motivation and driver for the conflict.
As narrators and characters, Daisy and Max are multi-dimensional and empathetic, Rosie is a strong linking character, but I found Nick to be weak and couldn't really have cared less about him (which may be the author's intention), and Lisa was almost ephemeral in figuring as a cypher rather than a character, which is a risky strategy, but seems to work because we don't really care what happens to her, only the impact of that on Max and Daisy.
Yes, I would recommend this book to my friends.

I struggled to rate this book. While I did enjoy the book. It didnt give the wow factor. At times I could happily have put it down and not gone back to it. Glad i didnt though due to the twists near the end

Teenage angst?

I started reading this book believing it was a mystery. However, it became clear that it’s more a diary written from the point of most the characters.

It was well written and fans of romance and dysfunctional families with a little of medical action will enjoy this book.

In the beginning it feels like a story written for teenagers or young adults and if that’s not you, a little patience is needed. Further along, the story becomes a little more interesting.

The plot moves a little slowly and sometimes you feel like you are waiting for something to happen.

Fatima

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

I really enjoyed this book everybody has secrets they keep hidden and things they regret having done. Feelings and thoughts are kept to themselves but is what they think really what happened all those years ago. A story of two families and how their lives entwine

Holy smokes Batman. That book just consumed me totally. I'm baffled I'm the fifth reviewer and the only one yet to give it five stars. This is a powerful, emotional and cleverly plotted novel that is in my short list of Top 17 Reads in 2017.

You love dysfunctional characters in novels? Take your pick. So many here to choose from and it made for riveting reading. The writing in this is very clever, there are strong messages everywhere and it hooked and utterly entertained me. Sublime authorship.

The plot? Wow. Betrayals indeed. Many of them, so many of them and with a deal of complexity. I found the plot sucked me in and under. I read the last 75% of the book in one sitting. Totally lost. I love a book that can do that.

Every character popped off the page for me. Each and every single one playing a strong role in this novel that is essentially about how human beings can betray others and themselves and the fallout this then has. I don't want to go into spoiler details but I do highly recommend this novel if you are looking for some depth blended with reading escapism. This is not light and fluffy yet at times some dark humour just shone through.

I just really totally loved this novel. It really impressed me. The writing especially. The way Fiona Neill gets right into each character and exposes them to the reader is brilliant. I've struggled to be "held" by a lot of books lately and this won me over. Life stoped as I read this book.

5 generous stars for The Betrayals. The reveals then final scene just stunned me into silence and a degree of shock. Highly recommended and I expect to see more strong reviews for this wonderful book that gives us the darker, complex nature of people and relationships. Bloody brilliant!

Rosie and Lisa have been friends for years, their families are close and they spend a lot of time together. Rosie and her husband Nick, with their children Daisy and Max are on holiday in Norfolk at Rosie’s childhood home, Lisa and her family join them, and things spiral out of control when Lisa’s husband Barney becomes drunk and abusive and the friendship is torn apart forever.

Daisy who is thirteen has the beginnings of OCD, which becomes more severe after she sees something traumatic on the holiday. She enlists her younger brother Max to help her with her rituals and both their childhoods suffer. Years later Daisy intercepts a letter meant for her mum from Lisa and her OCD begins its downward spiral again.

This story is told from the points of view of Daisy’s family, how the OCD affected each member, and how Daisy dealt with her OCD, and what she thought triggered it, although she later finds out what she thought she had seen was something completely different. I was expecting a big reveal at the end and when there was none, it felt a bit anticlimactic. A good book dealing with a difficult subject.

WIsh I could have rated this more than just five stars! Kept me gripped throughout, if there is just one book you absolutely have to read this year, make it this one.

As always Fiona Neill's books have a way of gripping you from the get go. She writes about the simplest things, but also the most complicated. She writes about life, family life with all its everyday complications and The Betrayals is no different.

Two families, brought together by friendship. Lisa and Rosie have been friends for years and when Lisa's boyfriend Barney auditions for the same play as Nick, he gets introduced to Rosie and everything falls into place. Lisa and Rosie even give birth to their baby girls Ava and Daisy around the same time. It's perfect.



But things get complicated, after a disastrous holiday in Norfolk the two families are torn apart forever.


Daisy is battling OCD, all of them have stressful jobs and are struggling to cope but there's more going on in the background than meets the eye.


Some may view this book as anti climatic but I think what it is, is realistic. Passion, fear, hate, fear of disaproval can all seem like huge things in our own minds. It's easy to blame ourselves and fear it's something we did that made everything go wrong, especially when you're a child. That's why this book has such an impact because it's life inside our minds which is the truest and most scary place of all.

Excellent book. Great main characters and plot. I would recommend this book.

I loved the way the story was told from 4 points of view and how different perspectives were shown. Eye opening truth to how much a betrayal can affect the lives of so many.

My review as posted on Goodreads:

I found this novel intriguing in parts, but it didn't thrill me. After the first third, I nearly gave up.

It has family angst.
It has an interesting exploration of traditional and alternative medicine.
It explores OCD.

I think that the characters are revealed in a clever way.
I didn't give up and I'm glad, because it has some twists towards the end.

I give thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK (Michael Joseph) for a copy in exchange for this review.