2020 Reading Challenge | The Move by Felicity Everett

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The Move by Felicity Everett - 2/5 ★★

Blurb:

"Karen is driving through a strange landscape into a new life. Always a city girl, now she is on her way to an idyllic country cottage, refurbished for her with impeccable taste by her husband Nick. They’re making a fresh start.

But something is awry in the new house – it’s not just the fact that Karen and Nick are ill at ease in one another’s company – that their recent history is far from picture perfect, it’s the whole vibe. The landscape is breathtaking by day, eerie by night. If the countryside is supposed to be a place of peace, far away from curtain-twitchers, who is the person watching them from the hill? And who are their new neighbours?

With Karen only recently emerging from a dark place in her life, can she find the trust in her husband Nick to let go of events that have followed them to their new house?"

Review:

The book opens with Nick and Karen moving into their new home in the country. They lived in London previously and it becomes clear that Nick bought the house and renovated it while Karen was getting help with mental health issues. The reasons for that becoming clear as you read on.

It is obvious that Nick is gaslighting her. He seems perfect to everyone else, buying her a new house, moving his life in the city which he loves to a home in the quiet countryside, even setting up her own space (complete with kiln) for her to making her pots and other pieces. Their relationship is obviously troublesome and Nick's relationships with his sons (Ethan, with Karen and Gabe from a previous marriage) are very different too. I would have liked to have seen more from these characters.

I felt like the book plateaued out a bit. It was basically a book about their life in this new house with no real chase or climax. A few parts got me a bit excited but nothing really came of it. Not one for me.