Single mom Louise rarely has time to date, but one afternoon she meets the man of her dreams in a bar, shares passionate kisses with him, and then finds out the following Monday that he's her new boss.
Adele has just moved to North London and doesn't know anyone. One day she literally bumps into Louise on the street, after which the two women chat and become friends. The problem? Adele is the wife of David, Louise's new boss, although Adele seems unaware of the indiscretion between her husband and her new friend. Complicating matters further, Adele asks Louise not to tell David about their friendship, claiming he "can be a bit funny about mixing work life and home life."
As she gets to know David more and the women's friendship intensifies, Louise notices that the marriage is very odd, with David keeping a tight leash on his wife, calling her several times a day--always at the same times--to check up on her. Is Adele in an abusive, oppressive relationship? Should Louise try to rescue her? How does she do that when even she can't stay away from David?
This psychological thriller jumps back and forth in time and alternates between Louise's and Adele's first-person accounts, one of which is more unreliable than the other. Though the women sometimes make unwise choices, Pinborough keeps readers in the dark until the unpredictable ending that has generated its own hashtag (#WTFthatending) on social media. How readers feel about that ending will depend on how much they're willing to embrace events that go beyond reality. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd