This one starts out very promisingly. A couple has recently moved into a house by a sea cliff, after experiencing some sort of difficult times. But they quickly find out why they got a house in such a beautiful spot so much cheaper than expected: the cliff has a reputation as an excellent place to commit suicide. Would-be jumpers repeatedly show up, but fortunately the husband turns out to be very good at talking them down. Until one night he goes out to talk to a woman on the cliff, and through the window his wife first glimpses him standing way closer to her than he usually does, then looks out again to see the woman completely gone and her husband with his hands outstretched as if he just possibly might have been pushing her. And then later it turns out he knew the woman...

So, yeah, I was intrigued, and all ready to settle into a complicated story in which this guy's secrets would be slowly revealed, with lots of tension around the question of whether or not the lady actually jumped.

The slowly revealed secrets are here, but imagine my surprise when right after the cliff incident we start getting scenes from the POV of the dead woman's ghost, and immediately and rather anticlimactically learn the answer to the question of whether she deliberately jumped. Which, admittedly, doesn't tell us what actually did happen, but I found it weirdly deflating (not to mention just plain weird), and never recovered the pleasant sense of tension I felt at the beginning.

And without that... Well, it turns out I actually really just didn't care about these people and their secrets, and infidelities, and mental health issues, and horrible business dealings, and unbelievably poor decisions, and repeated reflections on just much they really, really, really, really love each other. Like, at all.

Rating: I'm giving this one a 2.5/5. Part of me feels bad rating it that low, because I'm sure this novel will be someone's jam, but it's definitely not mine, and I'm not feeling very generous after having just spent 300+ pages in these characters' very uninspiring company. ( )

Gabe and Pippa Gerard buy a house on the edge of an oceanside cliff in Melbourne. It becomes concerning when mentally unstable appear wanting to jump off the cliff. Gabe has taken it upon himself to act as savior to those he manages to "talk off the ledge". It continues until one day a woman walks up to the cliff and Gabe isn't able to help the woman before she is seen jumping off the cliff. As more information about the woman is revealed, the question arises of whether she jumped or if she was pushed. Gabe begins to take her death hard but suspicions rise when it is revealed that he knew the woman. There are fears about unfaithfulness and secrets being exposed. How does Gabe know this woman and why would she want to jump? Furthermore, why would Gabe want to push her? ( )

It was a readable story and mostly very engaging. However, having a dead person's POV was unimpressive and essentially very strange, derailing with aspects of plot line & 'reveals'. The switches in time (now, then) were also distracting and took me out of the story. The narrative flow around compelling events was occasionally too drawn out and the prolonged drama at the ending flat-lined the tale. Author Hepworth has shown in previous novels that she can write a strong psychological thriller with more finesse than one encounters here. ( )

Glad I chose this as my book of the month club pick and got to read it a month early. I look forward to reading more books by this author. ( )

It is an interesting story, but with a lot of meandering before you can get there. There are a lot of perfect façade as red herring to draw you in and make you wonder. It scratch the surface with mental illness and suicided. The complicated relationship between Gabe and Pippa as well as Max and Amanda made distinguishing lie and truth seems impossible. ( )