"Stay Home - Stay Safe", is a phrase that applies to Caitlin in many different ways. As a consequence of the broken rule, Caitlin pays an unusual price. Well... technically not Caitlin herself, but her year-long lover. After finding Daniel in a pool of his own blood, Caitlin is drawn even more to the scene of the crime.

While in the world's biggest and longest lockdown, Daniel's neighbor Ali finds herself in a bit of a pickle herself when she accidentally stumbles into his cold body. Shocked by such a horrifying find, for the first time in months Ali no longer finds comfort on the bottom of a wine bottle. Instead, driven by curiosity, she decides to play a detective and digs a bit farther than needed into Daniels cyber life.

And that's how Caitlins and Ali's roads cross. But Caitlin's nightmare is far from over. Secrets, like skeletons in a closet, start to come to open one by one. She keeps wondering if she would have stayed home on that one fatal day - would she have been safe now?

Such a fun and entertaining read. I absolutely loved the short list of the characters and their involvements in the story. And the storyline itself kept on moving tremendously fast which made me flip the pages of the book with rapid speed. Thank you, NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton publisher for an advanced copy of this wonderful novel.

Caitlin a married woman with two children has been unable to visit her lover because of lockdown. When she finally gets the chance to visit him she finds him dead.
This is a slow moving story about adultery, lies and murder that failed to hold my interest.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I had mixed feelings on this one! It was very well written and had an interesting idea, as well as being very timely in terms of the pandemic setting - but I found there was a little too much stream of consciousness / lengthy monologues within a character’s mind. I would have preferred more dialogue which I think would have broken up the chapters a little more and given more insight into characters other than Cat and Ali.

Overall I didn’t feel enough happened (apart from the initial murder obviously!) to keep my interest through the middle of the book, but the author is obviously talented and I wouldn’t rule out reading more from her in future.

Thanks to netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC.

This is the first tale of suspense I’ve read that takes place entirely during the initial COVID lockdown, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Caitlin is struggling. Not only has she been in lockdown with her husband and two teenaged twins (who incessantly bicker) for two weeks,but she hasn’t been able to sneak out and her see her lover, Daniel...who lives just down the street. She broke things off with him, but misses him. She finally gets a chance to “go for a run”, (aka go to Daniel’s), but when she turns up at his house, she finds his dead body on the floor.

Ali is struggling. She’s a semi-functioning alcoholic. She lost her teaching job before the lockdown, but isolation makes everything worse. One things she does well is keeping tabs on her neighbors. She’s always watching from her windows, or to and from the corner shop, where she buys her allotted two bottles of wine and some food. She finds it interesting when she sees Caitlin enter, and quickly exit, Daniel’s house.

Initially suspicious of Caitlin when Ali finds out Daniel is dead, events put them in the same room...and they both try to figure out what actually happened to him.

This is a very interesting and quick read...but the flow is off. The first half is very wordy. I know what you’re thinking: “It’s a book, Michael! What do they put in books? WORDS!” Yeah yeah, but it almost seems to be a bit too descriptive in places where it doesn’t need to be...which is mostly the first half. I appreciate that we get so much background on the main characters, but I feel like the descriptive nature would’ve been better suited for the second half...when things seem to pick up steam.

I also think I would’ve enjoyed the suspense to keep building. After Caitlin and Ali join forces, most of it simmers down to zero. Contradicting myself, I love the “friendship” that builds between Caitlin and Ali, and would’ve loved for that to have been explored further. The culprit of the crime almost takes a backseat, and once it’s brought up again, it’s neither surprising...nor twisted.

There’s some fantastic commentary about living life through lockdown, especially towards the end. It looks like this is the debut novel of Ava Pierce (unless it’s a pseudonym). I think she can be a force to be reckoned with if there are just a few tweaks between character and plot development - to help create an even flow - in the future.

So, since I seem to contradict myself quite a bit throughout this review, let me sum my thoughts:

A little more thrill
A little more kill
A little more friend
A+ for the lockdown trend

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton, Ava Pierce, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I think this is a book that could be called 'too soon'. Reading about people in a lockdown, while in an actual lockdown, isn't help my psyche. Sure, there are no dead bodies at my house, but still.

It's about secret and do you really know who the people in your life are.

It's a fun read but maybe give it a few months....

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

An exciting thriller that is perfect for current times: does lockdown justify the breakdown of a relationship? Can a person carry off a clandestine affair regardless? Highly recommended!

An excellent read in this current climate, very well written with good characters that held my interest throughout the story line.

Although this was a good read it didn't keep me on the edge of my seat but I thoroughly enjoyed it and can recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Stay home, stay safe is the theme of the pandemic lockdown in England. Caitlin does neither. Although she considers herself happily married, she’s been having an affair with Daniel, a gorgeous man who’s fifteen years younger. After three weeks inside with her husband James and teenage twins Harry and Ellie, Caitlin decides to use her daily one hour outside for exercise to run to Daniel’s house for a surprise visit. It’s a surprise all right. Daniel is dead.

What Caitlin doesn’t know as she flees the house is that she’s being watched. Ali, the neighbor across the street, is an alcoholic who has been fired from her job. She uses her spare time while sober to watch her neighbors and she’s learned a lot about Daniel. Using her exercise time again, Caitlin returns to Daniel’s house to make sure there’s nothing there to link her to him. She meets Ali and, although these two women are very different, decides to work with her to solve the murder to avoid suspicion. What happens next is a wild trip to a nail-biting, totally shocking conclusion.

A murder mystery set during the limitations of a pandemic lockdown is an intriguing idea and Ava Pierce has certainly delivered a book you won’t want to put down. The characters, especially Ali, are well described and seem real. The story itself is very visual and would make a wonderful movie. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton and Ava Pierce for this ARC.

Caitlin has been having an affair for almost a year when the country goes into lockdown. It becomes harder to see her lover Daniel, but one day she manages to sneak out to see him... only to find him dead. Meanwhile, Ali spends her lonely days drinking alcohol and watching her neighbours. Caitlin tries to keep the discovery of Daniel's dead body a secret, not realising that Ali has seen everything. It soon becomes a rush to discover the truth about who killed Daniel, before Caitlin gets the blame. She begins to find out things she didn't know about Daniel, and indeed many secrets about everyone start to come out during the lockdown...

A great book for the current situation with the virus and lockdowns. The story is thrilling and you are kept turning the pages until the very end. The twists and turns are shocking and the characters interesting. Definitely worth a read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book in return for my honest feedback.

#StayHome #NetGalley
A good read.
Caitlin has been having an affair for nearly a year when the country enters lock down. Suddenly, seeing her lover, Daniel, without alerting her husband becomes almost impossible. When she does manage to sneak to his home, she finds him lying in a pool of his own blood, dead.
STAY HOME
Ali is a just-about-functioning alcoholic, recently let go, and feeling rather lonely. Each day she goes to her local shop to buy her permitted two bottles of wine, leaving food parcels for neighbours on her way home. While keeping an eye on what they are up to, of course.
STAY SAFECaitlin can't tell a soul about what she has discovered for risk of losing her family. Little does she know that Ali has noticed her coming and going, and that she will be drawing her own conclusions.
As Caitlin delves into the life of the man who said he loved her, she finds that maybe she didn't really know him at all. But if she wants to avoid suspicion, she needs to keep digging until they find Daniel's killer.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder Straighten for giving me an advanced copy.

I received an advance copy of, Stay Home, by Ava Pierce. I did not like this book at all, the characters, the subject of cheating. I really did not like Caitlin and James.

A great book. It was a fast read because I couldn’t put it down. So many twists and turns you will never see the end coming.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

This book was a bit predictable and formulaic but it’s very engaging and the characters are like able and fun enough that it keeps you sucked in and turning pages through the plot. Solid 3.

Such an intense book.
It was a little slow to start but on e I got through the second chapters it was great!