I'm not normally into books centred around families with children. I don't have children, so I sometimes find it hard to relate to these kind of stories. That having been said, it wasn't much of a stretch to understand the horror of JP Delaney's Playing Nice.
This book is about the Rileys whose lives are spun upside-down when they find out that their little 2-year-old Theo, isn't their birth son. The person giving them this news is Miles Lambert, the father of the child. He in turn has a son, David, who isn't his natural son either. David and Theo were switched at birth.
I have to confess that my mind immediately started reeling. I was considering what I would do in this situation. I felt so bad for the Rileys and Lamberts for this conundrum. This is a story of nature vs nurture at its best.
The two families decide to entwine their lives in the hope of becoming one unconventional family. However, how easy is it to trust each other in this situation?
I really enjoyed this concept & plot. This is a horror story even people without kids can understand. The characters are believable and they are consistent. You know what they are made of and by the end of the novel you understand their motives. That's incredibly important in a hard-hitting slow-burning thriller like this.
The plot twists are mild, but incredibly shocking. They suit the story. It's not a conventional thriller, but it is insanely creepy. I couldn't put the book down because I couldn't wait to read what would happen next.
The story is told from three perspectives: Pete Riley, Maddie (his girlfriend) and court evidence. This provides an interesting mix of different and sometimes conflicting perspectives.
My rating isn't the full five stars, because I unfortunately didn't like Pete that much. He made decisions that at times frustrated me. These decisions often resulted in "twists" but those are the ones you can see coming from a mile. It didn't necessarily ruin the experience for me, but it was something that certainly dampened it for me a bit.
All-in-all I found it to be a great novel with a fantastic storyline. I have never read anything else by JP Delaney, but I'll immediately have a look through his previous books to see if something tickles my fancy.
Many thanks to the publisher Quercus Books and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!
4 stars
Statistics:
Date read: July 22, 2020
Date published: August 6, 2020
Publisher: Quercus Books
Format: eBook
Pages: 400
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Horror
My Number of Books Read by this Author: 1
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