“The Betrayals” by Fiona Neill – Book Review @Pegasus_Books #TheBetrayals #BookReview #BacklistReview #FionaNeill

The sins of the fathers…. we all know how they can be inherited by the children in myriad ways, sometimes affecting the mental health of the children, which is what we encounter in Fiona Neill’s “The Betrayals“.

Personally, I think it is all in the timing. Dependant on the age of the child, an event or circumstance can deeply affect one child, while their sibling, of a different age, can be relatively unaffected by that same event.

In this book, Daisy Rankin was deeply affected by learning of her father’s infidelity. She is a fragile teenager whose mental health was already precarious, and this event precipitated her becoming severely OCD. Her obsessive compulsions are actions she deems absolutely necessary to keep her mother, and younger brother, safe.

When it comes to dysfunctional families, these could be the poster families.  Their story began for the readers in Norfolk, on a shared summer vacation. Two families who always holidayed together because of the two mothers being best friends. Rosie Rankin and her best friend, Lisa. Lisa’s husband Ben is a raging alcoholic and his habit is destroying his marriage. This summer, Lisa is at her wit’s end… and turns to Rosie’s husband for some much needed support.

Now, the present day timeline meets up with the two families eight years later. Rosie, now divorced, is an oncologist who finds relief from her highly stressful profession by having sex with random online dates, not letting herself become close to any man. Now Rosie’s ex-husband Nick is married to Lisa. The Rankin’s son Max is in med school, and his sister Daisy is coping with her OCD until… a letter arrives from Lisa to Rosie. This letter is the catalyst for Daisy’s succumbing once more to her obsessions.

The title, “The Betrayals” is very apt for the subject matter. In addition to the obvious betrayal when Rosie’s husband left her for her best friend, there is also the betrayal of friendship by Lisa, and the betrayal of trust and security for the children of both marriages.

I was particularly interested in the whole way the author broached the subject of memory. Nick, Rosie’s ex, was a memory ‘specialist’. The plot of the book shows how subjective memories can be. How one member of a family can remember an event is a way completely differently to others. How sometimes memories can be manipulated, how our own minds are sometimes responsible for the manipulating. Therefore… can memory ever be trusted completely?

The story was told via the viewpoints of all four of the Rankin family members, giving the reader a rounded, and sometimes disparate view of what transpired.

This was an acutely observed, character-driven story that kept me enthralled. Mind you it was a tragic story, quite dark in subject matter, yet I couldn’t put the book down. Some of the themes running throughout the novel were: memory, infidelity, terminal illness, mental illness, guilt, loyalty, and yes… betrayals.

This is the first book that I have read by Fiona Neil and I am quite eager to read more of her books when time permits.

This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Pegasus Books via Edelweiss.
Publication date: September 4, 2018
Publisher: Pegasus Books
ISBN: 9781681778501    ASIN: ‎ ‎ B07BJ9XQ7S   400 pages

This title is from my extensive Edelweiss backlist.

Fiona Neill is an author and journalist who has written five Sunday Times bestsellers. Her novels have been translated into twenty-six languages and have sold over a million copies worldwide. Her new novel Beneath the Surface is out now in hardback from Penguin. Her last novel The Betrayals, spent six weeks in the Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller list and was a Richard and Judy Book Club selection. Fiona Neill lives in London with her husband and three children. She is currently working on her seventh novel.

Visit Fiona Neill’s website.