Be careful who you let in' ...they say not to judge a book by it's cover by I kind of always do and have rarely been disappointed. Caroline arranges a houseswap with a stranger online...it seems like a great way to have some time with her hubby rebuilding their relationship. But the stranger isn't a stranger and is someone from Caroline's past she would rather forget. This book had the perfect blend of suspense, plot twists and a conclusion I did not anticipate
Rebecca's next book has already been added to my TBR pile! Thanks #netgalley for the opportunity to read an ARC. #rebeccafleet #houseswap #netgalley #goodreads #litsy #tea_sipping_bookworm

The premise of this book is intriguing and it starts off well, I was gripped for the first few chapters. After that it sadly fell very flat for me and got quite bored of the story. I finished it as I wanted to see how it turned out but it was a chore to get to the end. I read it during the summer and I can honestly say I can't remember one single thing about it so I would say it's a "park your brain at the door" kinda read but one that is unfortunately quite forgettable.

So, Caroline and Francis are trying to rebuild their lives after Caroline has had an affair with a work colleague Carl....they decide to go on a ‘House Swap’ and well, I don’t need to pretend as already you can guess the ‘swap’ is linked to the affair......
Caroline is obnoxious! I don’t think I have ever read a more ‘self indulgent’ character who revels in EVERY detail of her affair......Francis ( her hubby ) is a pill popping drip who amazingly and unbelievably works on n off as a ‘counsellor’ and Carl is a bolshy man of few words who irritated me on the few occasions he did speak...somewhere in the midst of this is Eddie their child who seemingly is fine as his Mum goes for nights of carnal pleasure leaving Francis spaced out and unable to function, parents of the year they are not!
The story is narrated from their points of view and from a before and present perspective
The idea of ‘house swapping’ is always odd to me as its the last thing I would do but this one even more so as they go from Leeds to Chiswick and vice versa for a ‘weeks break’, and of course seemingly without Caroline really looking into who she has swopped with
Caroline floods with adrenaline more or less every few pages and if shes not doing that shes drawing blood either via her fingernails on her palm or by biting her lip!!
The story itself does get quite good as the reality of who she has swapped with becomes apparent (there is a secret as to why they stopped their affair, a grim one ) and the book does become quite tense only to finish on a whimper rather than a bang
Its not a terrible book but the characters so unlikeable and entitled that it takes the focus away from the actual plot...

Thank you to both NetGalley and Random House for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review, an odd book. Sadly a disappointing ending.

Found this book really difficult to get into as it was really slow paced at the beginning. Once got i got into i it was an okay read, nothing to surprising about the story though.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I have been reading a few books on the same subject recently and this was one of the better ones. This was well written but not fast paced

“No one lives this way unless they want to hide something”

The House Swap is Rebecca Fleet’s debut novel and, although (perhaps unintentionally) marketed as a mystery/thriller, it is in reality a domestic drama. Following the lives of Caroline and Francis during the decline of their marriage and subsequent attempt to rebuild, the author employs the strategy of multiple POV and timelines to tell the story.

I will be brutally honest - I found this a difficult read. Not the language or writing style; this is a beautifully written novel that was hard to put down. The story content, the characters...that was where I found a problem. Again, very well written characters but they are just both so selfish and unlikeable that I found it difficult to care for them. Perhaps that was the point. Addiction and infidelity are laid bare for us to see in this car crash of a marriage, and caught in the middle of it all, seemingly an afterthought to both parents at times, is Eddie, a cute and cheery toddler who manages to remain bright and breezy in the midst of this chaos.

There isn’t too much I can say without revealing the twists and turns of the story, and as an emotive piece of writing I am very impressed. I just found it difficult to give a s**t about any of the, frankly hideous, characters bar Eddie. Again, perhaps that was the point, and this will certainly stay with me. I eagerly await Fleet’s next offering if only for a character with some semblance of morality!

Caroline and her Husband Francis agree to a week -long house swap, leaving their Son Eddie with his Nan. They hope that after some problems between them, this will go some way to helping patch things up. Upon arrival they find the house peculiar and it’s not long before Caroline slowly starts to peel back the layers to discover whose house it is and why they wanted to swap with her. There is a rather cleverly tangled plot with a few red herrings weaved in along the way. Although this book is very well written, I found it slow and dragged out. I was also a little confused with the jumping backwards and forwards between dates and people. It picked up pace when I was three-quarters of the way through and became a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Having said that, I don’t feel that it came to a satisfactory conclusion and the ending was a bit flat.

A very slow burner that takes a while to reach its apex, but there’s enough intrigue going on in the meantime to keep a reader interested. Very easy and quick read.

Caroline and her husband decide to do a house swap to have a bit of a break from their day to day lives. The book flips between the present and a few years ago where Caroline had an affair and there were some issues in their marriage. I didn't find any of the characters likeable so wasn't particularly attached to this book. It's an easy read but I thought the twists were predictable and I wasn't hooked in.

When I requested this book I didn't realise I had already requested, read and reviewed it back in May