I just finished this book and I loved that it kept me guessing the entire time. I did not know what was going on with Kath and Jenny. You could see that there were some unresolved issues between them that needed to be worked out but Jenny was unsure of how to handle things. Kath and Tom's relationship was strained and that was obvious pretty early on but it isn't until much later that we find out exactly what was going on. The only thing I didn't really like was how the book ended. I am hoping there is a second one so that I can find out what happens next.

This was an excellent debut! I loved the setting in France a lot! I read this in one day and thoroughly enjoyed it and the characters.

I am sorry, I cant give feedback on this book because Irequested it and it was granted when I was on holiday and when I returned it was already archived.
I will read the book anyway and the write a review

So this one didn't quite work for me, I think most of my issue here was that I was expecting a psychological thriller and what I got was so far from that mark.
If I had to classify this I guess I would describe this as more romantic suspense than anything else and if I am being honest this was so slow In terms of story progression and overall excitement I was slowly losing the will.
This sold itself as one thing but the reality here was something completely different.
So let me start by saying if I was Jen I would have never gone anywhere near Tom and Kath ever again.
I wouldnt have even touched them with somebody else's barge-pole if you get my drift.
There are just some lines you don't cross and such a thing as unspoken girl code, you just don't go their end of.
But one, I suppose this story would be a non-event if that rule was adhered to and two, as Jen is a complete and utter doormat in all aspects of her life this was never going to be any different now was it?
So Tom himself was a complete and utter wet flannel and had absolutely no charisma at all, in fact, the only one person for me with any gumption or personality about them was the so-called villain of the piece Kath.
I just really can't believe all the instances Jen let lie when it came to Kath's behaviour and actions it really was ridiculous but when she turned a blind eye to a child's safety that's when things really got serious for me, you just wouldnt not when it comes to a child being placed in danger.
Still, despite this being slow and boring me and also me slightly skimming in places this was well written that I cannot fault it on.
Then came that ridiculous and improbable finale: this was up until that point a three-star read for me but the far-fetched imaginings of those final few chapters sealed the deal and pulled this down unfortunately to a two star.
This was just not really a good fit for me at all and I wish I could rate this higher than what I have.
On paper, this seemed to tick all my boxes but in actuality, it was a big fat miss.
I voluntary reviewed a copy of The Good Friend.
All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

The Good Friend by Jo Baldwin was an enjoyable read-a solid 3.5 stars.
Jenny and Kath were not only best friends as children but absolutely inseparable. Now as adults and busy living their own lives, they’ve lost touch. It also doesn’t help that Kath marries Tom, Jenny’s ex-boyfriend and love of her life. Eight years later, with Jenny seeking retirement from her elite swimming career, she travels to France to reconnect with her former best friend.
Jenny and Kath fall back into the same close relationship that they had from childhood but tensions rise as Kath starts displaying malicious behavior and seems to be suffering from some mental issues. To make matters worse, Tom and Jenny come to the realization that they never truly got over each other. No spoilers here but Jenny’s visit with Kath is filled with both tension and drama.
The Good Friend is recommended to readers that enjoy slower paced mystery/thriller books.

This book was entirely too slow paced for me. I tried on a couple occasions to read it, but just wouldn’t capture me. I am a moody reader and will update at a later time, if I am able to get into it.
Will use in a challenge and tell the members of Chapter Chatter Pub about it!

The Good Friend from childhood may not always remain a true friend to you. This book is a bit slow, but not bad if you can stick with the pace of it.

Took me a while to get into the story but I’m so glad I persevered!
Tom and Jenny are childhood sweethearts separated by family, friends and careers. Their paths cross again later in life but is it too late for them? Everything seems against them and I so wanted them to get their happily ever after. And I thought they had until the very last page! Surely there’s got to be a sequel?! I need to know what happens to little Rosa!!

My usual genre of fiction is thriller/mystery. However, I didn’t find this book to really live up to either and was quite disappointed. I don’t finish the whole book. However it was well written but I think it should be advertised more as a love story rather than thriller.

Two females who have been best friends since school - but don't act as best friends should. I loved the description of the setting and wanted to visit the place myself.
When they meet again not everything turns out as they would wish.

Kath and Jenny were childhood friends. Tom and Jenny were boyfriend and girlfriend when they were 18 or so. Tom and Kath are now married and living in France with their young daughter. Jenny emigrated to Australia to pursue her father's dream for her to become an Olympic champion swimmer, which she does. She visits Kath and Tom in France and stays with them for a few weeks where her friendship with Kath is reignited as if a day hadn't passed, and the romantic feelings between her and Tom are barely contained.

This was a very mixed read for me. It started off well but in various places, I struggled to stay interested in this story of toxic friendships and romantic suspense. It is not really my type of thriller as nothing major happens for the majority of the story. The area of France they are staying in is described in beautifully descriptive language and I felt as though I was there. It is a slow burn story however I did skim paragraphs towards the end.

Jenny and Kath were childhood friends. Later along with Tom, Jenny's boyfriend, they seemed to have become a firm group. However Jenny's over competitive father thinks the best move is to emigrate to Australia in the view to further Jenny's swimming career and Olympic chances. He wrenches Jenny to the other side of the world and she loses contact with all her friends.
Eight years later, with Jenny wanting to give up competitive swimming, she finds herself travelling to France to catch up and hopefully reengage with her old friends. She also has a few questions to ask..........

I enjoyed this book. It had me interested from the get go! Which is always a good thing.
It starts with a very suspenseful feel that keeps you reading on and apart from around the 50-70% mark for me , where it seemed to get dragged out a little with repetition of the same sort of events, I did fell it kept this going through out the book.
It is told with Jenny as our narrator and moves back a forth from past to present to enable the reader to get a really good understanding of the relationship between the 3 friends and also the relationships each had with their parents.
I wouldn't describe it as others have mentioned as a thriller, more of a psychological drama, and an interesting one. I enjoyed the characters and I also liked the writing style of the author, a simple story but one well told that kept me engaged. I particularly liked the descriptions of sunny France. The farm and guest house stood out really well and I could easily picture myself there. I also enjoyed the other characters and felt they all played interesting parts in the book.
I will look out for future books from this author.
I would like to thank the publisher Red Door for automatic approval on this from netgalley in exchange for an honest review..

Jenny and Kath were once best friends. Life intervened and Jenny wound up in another country, following her swimming career. It's been 8 years and now Jenny is visiting Kath in France.

At first, everything goes really well. They catch up on all the news, but then secrets are exposed and Jenny realizes that the friendship they had wasn't what she thought it was.

This is a slow-moving tale of friendship, love, obsession and lies and secrets. It is not a thriller as such, but it did hold my interest from beginning to end. The characters are finely drawn and I really liked that the author spent time on the backstory of these two women.

Many thanks to the author / RedDoor Publishing / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological drama. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

This was.a mixed read for me. Maybe because of how I read the description I was expecting more of a thriller type read. I enjoyed the authors style of writing, the descriptions of places was something I particularly enjoyed.
For me the ending was slightly disappointing, the earlier parts of the book felt like it was leading somewhere. I really enjoyed the tension and toxic friendship between the three main characters.
I would like to read more from the author as I found her style of writing drew me into the story and I had to find out what was going to happen.

The Good Friend is billed as a thriller on some sites, but I think Amazon's genre label is much more fitting - romantic suspense. This is a slow moving, slow burn of a read which certainly isn't in a hurry to move along, and it's easy to predict exactly where the story is going. If you're looking for twists, turns and surprises then this is not the book for you as it is sorely lacking in those areas. Each of the characters blur into one another and are not discernible due to their one-dimensionality, and I just couldn't feel anything for them no matter how hard I tried.

The writing is very simplistic almost as if a child had written it and was repetitive making reading it a massive struggle. I almost gave up on a lot of occasions as I really wasn't enjoying it, but what kept me reading was the wonderful descriptions of the setting. This shows that the author has the ability to write in an engaging and compelling fashion but that didn't translate to the rest of the book. France is depicted in such a beautiful way with the sights, sounds and smells of the food markets, deep blue sea and the fields full of lavender.

Many thanks to RedDoor Publishing for an ARC.

The Good Friend

I loved the blurb for this book and had to see what secrets lay between the pages. I think the blurb build up my anticipation more than the actual book did, however it is a good read.

I’d describe The Good Friend as a slow burner; the trickle of suspense and tension keeps you turning the pages, wanting to find out what will happen next. The writing drew you into the story’s surroundings, I found it very easy to picture rural France in my head which really helped the story come to life for me.

I think it’s hard to pigeon hole this book into a genre, it’s almost a thriller, almost a romance, almost women’s fiction, maybe a little of each. What it definitely is though is worth picking up. I do think there was potential for this story to be more but I give this story 3.5 stars, it’s definitely worth a read!

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC of this entertaining debut. Having a few friends that have been with me since forever, this book was very relatable to myself. In this entertaining read Jenny and Kath have been BFF's forever, only separated by an ocean or two. When Jenny visit Kath in Australia she quickly realizes that her friend has changed. And not for the good. It was a good solid read, entertaining from the beginning to the very last intriguing end.
Recommended.

Jenny and Kath were inseparable best friends but then Jenny moved to Perth, Australia, to focus on her swimming career. She had to leave everything and everyone she loved behind: Kath, but also her boyfriend Tom. It was supposed to be different but life is a bitch and they lost touch, but they still kept hearing about each other, and so Jenny knows that Kath and Tom married and have a little girl. Few years later, as Jenny is considering retirement, she travels to the South of France to reconnect with Kath and Tom, who are setting a guest house there. Jenny decides to stay for longer and help them with the opening. At the surface it looks like the friends simply fall back into easy friendship, as they left it, but soon Jenny starts to realise that there is much more to Kath and her marriage than meet the eye. Also, her old feelings to Tom start to resurface – how is the summer going to end?

The story jumps between past and present so that we slowly learn about the relationships between the friends and slowly a full picture of their personalities start to emerge. I couldn’t feel any connection to the characters. They felt a little too wooden for my liking and to be honest I really didn’t like what was happening between Jenny and Tom. It was obvious what has happened in the past and why Tom is now with Kath but I simply couldn’t see anything to justify what was happening. For the sake of old times? I was missing chemistry, connection there to be honest. I’m not sure if it was the author’s intention but you simply can’t help but immediately feel sympathy and antipathy to the two main characters. Tom was a rather flat character, there was no colour in him and he couldn’t make up his mind. I think that out of the three characters it was Kath that was the most expressive and interesting, even if she was also the most irritating probably, but there was life in her, she was unpredictable and sharp and this made her stand out. The tension between Jenny and Kath was really well captured, even though they didn’t want to see it or to admit that it’s there, hanging in the air, especially at the beginning of Jenny’s visit, and the fact that Jenny and Tom start to realise that their old feelings rekindle didn’t help as well.

What I missed was the other perspective, as I really couldn’t get the motives, what was hidden behind the “you and me for ever” – jealousy? Was that it? There was also a sentence told by Jenny hinting at the fact that perhaps she was the one that was plotting, when she said if only Kath knew what a friend she was, and so I was wondering if perhaps the last few pages are going to change the perspective totally. They didn’t. So I’m really left hanging somewhere in the air, not knowing what it was all about. And please forgive me but I didn’t get the end – can somebody pretty please literally explain it to me?

Altogether “The Good Friend” was a very slow moving story. I did enjoy the part in France, loved the descriptions of the guest house, but I desperately wanted for something to happen and for it to go somewhere, especially with the author hinting that something is going to happen/has happened. It was a dark family drama touching upon mental issues as well. It was full of wonderful descriptions of the rural France, its weather and fantastic market and fresh baguettes, and the writing style was light, easy to follow and engaging. There was a lot of potential in this story that – I have a feeling – wasn’t fully used. It was filled with tons of emotional baggage and it told a story of lies and jealousy, about manipulation and toxic friendship.

Sorry but I didn't enjoy this book, could get into the story line or get on with the characters and I ended up doing a lot of skim reading just to get to the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and Red Door Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Jenny and Kath have been friends for years. However, Jenny and her father moved from the UK to Australia about 8 years ago so Jenny could train for, and join, the Olympic swim team. With three gold medals and other accolades under her belt, Jenny wants to retire from that life. She takes a trip to visit Kath in France. Kath had married Jenny's first love,Tom, and Jenny still is not over him.

Kath and Tom have a sweet 5 year old daughter, Rosa, who takes to Jenny. There are sparks, mostly subtle, that remain between Tom and Jenny. Even the years apart have not doused the flame. Jenny has taken to France and the people she meets there. She stays much longer than planned - and that is where the suspense continues to build. Kath has a few psychological problems and has done a few things in the past and present that Jenny becomes highly suspicious of...

A true psychological suspense/thriller! A must read for 2019!

Many Thanks to RedDoor Publishing and NetGalley for a fine read!