Playing Nice

May 18, 2020
A nightmarish scenario drives this gripping psychological thriller from bestseller Delaney (The Perfect Wife). Freelance journalist Pete Riley, a stay-at-home dad, and his partner, Maddie Wilson, who works in advertising, live in Willesden Green, a middle-class London neighborhood, with their two-year-old son, Theo. One afternoon, Miles Lambert arrives at Pete’s door and tells him, “Theo isn’t your son. He’s mine.” Miles goes on to explain that their children were switched soon after birth, and the Lamberts are suing the hospital. Pete and Maddie agree to attempt an amicable solution and meet with Miles and his wife at their posh home in Highgate. But cruel, obsessive Miles files for custody of both children, and he’s out to win at all costs. Everyone has secrets, and everyone has made mistakes that can be magnified in a courtroom battle. Then people connected with the case begin to die. Delaney skillfully gets inside his lead characters in alternating chapters narrated by Pete and by Maddie. Some genuinely surprising twists reveal just how far a parent will go for the sake of a child. This is domestic suspense at its most unsettling. Agent: Caradoc King, United Artists (U.K.).

June 1, 2020
Stay-at-home dad Peter Riley's world is turned upside down when he learns that Theo, the two-year-old boy he thought was his son, was switched at birth with his real son. Peter and his partner, Madelyn Wilson, meet the other parents, Miles and Lucy Lambert, who initially seem to feel the same way they do about not switching the children back. While Miles is more comfortably off than Peter's family, the boy he and Lucy are raising, David, has special needs due to brain damage he incurred at his premature birth. Theo, although also a preemie, is healthy except for some behavioral problems that Peter attributes to his age. As the families share time together, this psychological thriller develops into a drama involving a battle between the couples for custody of Theo. Readers will be surprised at the twists the story takes and by an ending they won't see coming. Recommended for psychological-thriller fans who enjoy family dramas.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

October 30, 2020

Pete Riley hates the term stay-at-home dad: It implies an absence of something, a compromise. But he's a damn good one. His TV producer partner Maddie Wilson is thankful for him being a "domestic god"--she doesn't have the strongest maternal instincts. It's just an ordinary day for Pete--taking Theo to preschool and planning the dinner menu--until a stranger knocks on his door and tells him the boy he's raised for two years isn't his son. And the man has the DNA test to prove it. Miles and Lucy Lambert confirm someone switched their preemie babies soon after birth. At first, all agree both families should keep custody of the children they've got, with each family involved in both children's lives. But when Miles oversteps his welcome, Pete and Maddie draw boundaries. They don't realize that Miles will do whatever it takes to get his way, even if he has to hurt people to do it. The edge between truth and appearance blurs as a psychological war turns into a fight for survival. VERDICT Delany's (The Perfect Wife) chilling story of manipulation will make every parent's heart rate increase as they consider how even the slightest parental fault could be twisted and used against them. A "could-be-true" story that's scary as hell. --K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2020

Following the LJ-starred Our House, which was Candlish's U.S. debut, The Other Couple features middle-aged Clare and Jamie and the young couple they befriend, the upwardly aspiring Melia and Kit, until one day Kit vanishes after being seen arguing with Jamie on their regular ferryboat commute. Giller Prize winner Coady's Watching You Without Me opens with Karen back home in Novia Scotia after her mother's unexpected death, tending to her sister full-time and depending on her mother's old caregiver, Trevor, of whom she becomes increasingly suspicious. In JP Delaney's Playing Nice, the Riley and Lambert families are devastated to learn that their two-year-olds were switched at birth--and it gets worse. A prize finalist in Australia, Downes brings us disappointed thespian Emily Proudman, who thinks she's found The Safe Place she needs when she agrees to become housekeeper/nanny at the French estate of the Dennys--but her employers' dark secrets will out. In debuter Glass's Someone's Listening, scandal-ridden psychologist and radio star Faith Finley attends the launch of her new book with her husband, but when her car crashes afterward, the police claim he was not with her (70,000-copy first printing). In Hamilton's The Last Wife, Marie promises to watch over terminally ill friend Nina's family, but after Nina's death she starts uncovering uncomfortable intimations about what happened on a long-ago vacation they took in Ibiza that left Marie's boyfriend dead (200,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Finally, in Harriet Tyce's The Lies You Told, anxious mom Sadie Roper, newly single and newly reemployed as a barrister, is thrilled to win the attention of Liza, queen-bee mother at her children's school--but at what cost? From the author of Blood Orange; with a 40,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.