Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Darlington's nail-biting debut, a woman faces the ghosts of her past relationships as her seemingly happy marriage fractures. Natalie believes that her recent union to brewery owner James is a significant improvement over failed romances with exes Marc, Luca, and George. But when James loans the money that Natalie had been saving for IVF to his brother, Will, she's furious. Then James tells her that Will blackmailed him, threatening to leak evidence that Natalie murdered Marc, Luca, and George. Withholding details about Natalie's precise involvement with each of those men's deaths, Darlington describes therapy sessions in which Natalie discusses the deaths and wrestles with an anger problem she hopes to keep at bay. Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal the abuses Natalie suffered at the hands of each of her exes. In the present, Natalie gradually comes to suspect that James is hiding major secrets of his own. Darlington keeps the pace fleet and the twists flying as she perceptively explores the contradictory power dynamics of contemporary heterosexual romance. It's a promising first outing. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Natalie thinks she has finally found the one in her husband, James: a loving fellow Londoner who doesn't ask questions about her past. Most important, he isn't as toxic as any of Natalie's three exes, each of whom died shortly after one of her unexplained blackouts. When James confronts Natalie over unsent letters she wrote to her exes, in which she implies that she may have had something to do with their deaths, she tries to steer her husband away from looking into her past. In the midst of trying to salvage her marriage, Natalie discovers something about James's past that he hasn't told her. Darlington provides a capricious tone with Natalie's narration of the novel, inferring that the character may be an unreliable narrator. She also deftly criticizes the fetishization of Natalie's Ghanaian heritage by some of the white men she encounters in London. However, at the halfway point of the novel, the initially engrossing plot falters with the first of too many inconceivable twists that upends everything. VERDICT The overstuffed second half aside, Darlington's debut has good moments, and her writing demonstrates lots of promise. Suspense-loving patrons browsing for a casual read may be interested.--Anjelica Rufus
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Natalie's exes have a habit of dying after they've hurt her. Is her husband in danger? Ignoring the party downstairs in her house, Natalie listens to her husband cry across the hall and feels nothing but revulsion. It turns out that James has recently spent 20,000 pounds of their savings, including an inheritance from Nat's grandmother, that they'd intended to use for IVF. She confronts him; he claims he used the money to pay off his brother, who'd been planning to blackmail Nat because of some letters they found that seemed to suggest she'd murdered several of her exes. Thus begins Darlington's twisted, twisty thriller. As revealed through a series of flashbacks, three of Natalie's former boyfriends--real pieces of work, all of them--have ended up dead, seemingly the victims of accidents or self-defense. Each time, Nat suffered a blackout, so she can't remember actually pushing anyone, or poisoning them, or stabbing them with a kitchen knife. Shedoes remember having fits of uncontrollable rage, triggered by scenarios that echo her traumatic childhood. And James' decision to pay away their life savings is certainly making her see red…Like many contemporary thrillers, this one plays with a nonlinear timeline as well as a few different points of view; unlike some thriller writers, while she certainly draws on tropes of the genre, Darlington manages to include some genuine surprises, weaving themes of mental illness and family trauma with a sense of mystery. At the center of it all is Natalie herself: flawed, mistreated, and distrustful, but also strong. She, and Darlington, refuse to let bad men get away with doing bad things. Is murder ever justified? A contemporary twist on this question for the ages. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
