I certainly seem to be in the minority of readers with my 2-star rating. Here are my thought's on Playing Nice. Well, nobody plays nice in this book, perhaps the opposite. The characters are all awful people, except perhaps Pete (though he still annoys me). This story was just not believable for me. The way everyone acted once the litigation in the book began just made me roll my eyes the whole time. The judges, social workers, psychologists were so antagonistic toward this couple who showed no sign of abuse to their child. As someone with an occupation that makes me familiar with that system, there are parents who do much worse who see no repercussions for their actions. The idea that their child would be taken away is just so ridiculous.
I basically hate-read this whole book quickly to get through to the end, hoping there would be some sort of closure. This is where the 2 star vs 1 star rating comes in. Justice was served and the twist, though still not believable, satisfied me enough.
This book is not neither thrilling nor suspenseful. It's full of a series of cringey unfortunate events.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This Author is really great. I really loved this book. This tale was highly engrossing and highly recommendable!!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Delaney has mastered the art of great storytelling! She made me physically sick to my stomach thinking about the horrors happening in Theo's life. I love the character driven alternating voice chapters and Delaney does it do well. If your looking for a story of horrible tragedy that gets sorted out with love, this book is for you. I couldn’t put it down. 5 stars!

This Psychological Thriller kept me reading well into the night. The situation is so heartbreaking, I started out feeling sorry for everybody. But as secrets and true intentions were slowly revealed, it was obvious who the best parents were for either child, regardless of biology. Fast paced action, deep characterizations, twists and turns to keep you guessing. Plus, a satisfying ending.

The premise of this book is scary to imagine - what if the child you are raising is not your actual child but was switched in the hospital for a different baby? I could not put this book down because I needed to find out what happened in the end. No spoilers - it is a great book and I highly recommend it.

Thank you Net Galley for providing this book for an honest review. This book was hard to put down and had many twists. I kept putting myself in that situation and wondering how I would handle it. It was a good read that you will enjoy.

Five stars? Not enough!

This fast-paced story of two babies switched in the NICU kept me guessing throughout. Which parents would get Theo in the end, and which parents would get David? There were clever twists and situations along the way to add to the enjoyment.

My only criticism — but not enough to detract — was the depiction of one of the two-year-olds. The author’s portrayal had him doing things that a two-year-old would not be able to do. One example is when Theo was shopping with his dad, Pete, and would be given items to find on his own, like a can of beans or a yellow melon. Not believable.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I enjoyed it immensely.

I received an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I would like to thank the author, publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read and review this book.

I was very excited to be approved for this book, as I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the last book by this author, and I couldn't wait to get started on it. The story is - wow. It's hard to talk about it too much, more than what the publisher's summary states, without giving away details about the story with spoilers, so I'll have to go with my impressions. And this is a very hard book for me to rate with a star rating, because there were some elements I didn't care for, some places it slowed down a bit, but the writing was there and it is certainly a different topic than most books out right now, so bonus points for that. But even as a mother, I do't' care to read lots of details about pregnancy, birth, small children. The beginning of the book dealt with some of that, so it was a bit hard to really get into it for me.

And the book does bring up one of the scariest ideas for parents - your baby isn't your baby. I can't imagine hearing news like that. I've often heard people make jokes about 'switched at birth' and it's a startling idea to me!

I had a hard time bonding with the characters. I don't need to have something in common with a character in order to enjoy a book, but sometimes it just helps to get into the story when you like the character. Some of the choices these folks made - I don't know, I just wonder if it would all work out that way.

I felt like this book was another variation by the author. I can't say I loved it, and I can't say I didn't like it. I may have found a new go-to author, though, just to mix things up and try something different! Once I got into the book, it was hard to put it down for daily life things, like cooking, feeding kids, laundry - I wanted to see what happened next. I can say, once I got into the book, I could almost see it all in my head. I saw some turns coming, but not all, and I could see it playing out in my mind. I think going back and re-reading this one after some time has passed would be an interesting experience too. Would some areas make more sense to me? Would I like the characters more? Maybe check out the audiobook when it comes out!

One morning stay at home dad, Pete Riley, drops his 2 year old son at school goes home to find a man and his lawyer on his doorstep. They claim that Pete’s son was switched at birth and doesn’t belong to him him but to this stranger on his porch and they have been raising his biological son. The two couples come to an agreement that they will civilly share the boys. It quickly becomes clear that things won’t go as smoothly as they planned.

This book is so good! I was really invested in the situation and the characters and could understand how they felt every step of the way. This book touches on the nature Vs nurture concept which adds another interesting factor to an already exciting thriller. Loved the book. Will be recommending.

This was one of those books you don’t want to put down because it is SO frustrating! I wanted to know what happened next but I had to really suspend disbelief about how ignorant the main couple was to enjoy the rest of the story. Entertaining read all the same.

I was provided with a free copy of this book from the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

From the beginning this book has a great pace to it with just enough mystery to keep the reader intrigued for what might come next. This pacing holds up through the book until the end. I found the ending to be possibly a “quick fix”, which was a bit of a letdown considering the wonderful build up of the rest of the book.

The topic is diverse from many thrillers and well thought out, however at times the descriptive writing seemed overdone (excess descriptions of women) or unnecessary (explaining how to pronounce NICU).

Overall, a good thriller that I would recommend. 4.5 stars.

Playing Nice by JP Delaney is about your worst nightmare- learning that the child you have been raising actually isn’t yours, and worse, that you may lose him.
Peter and Maddie have been raising Theo, a rambunctious little 2 year old and going through the motions of daily life. Their life is upended when someone knocks on their door and tells them that he is the father of their child.
So begins a nightmare journey to prove they are fit parents and to avoid losing their child. But there is much more to the story!
This is a well-crafted psychological thriller that will keep you guessing as to the depths of one’s psychosis, and the ending will surprise you.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of Playing Nice.
#PlayingNice #NetGalley #JPDelaney

What would you do if after two years of raising your son, you are told he is not your son; he was switched at birth? Pete is the stay at home dad and cannot imagine giving him to the Lamberts who claim they have Pete’s son. Theo may not be his son, but Pete has been the sole care giver through the NICU and after bringing him home. Theo is progressing nicely, but the Lambert’s son appears to be somewhat challenged or delayed in his growth. At first it seems possible for the boys to spend time with both parents. Once an official investigation begins at the hospital, they discover there are several secrets that need to be uncovered. There is a lot of through provoking material to consider. Good read.

This was a fast paced psychological thriller that drew me in enough to read quickly and although the premise isn't an original one with 2 babies switched at birth that isn't my main complaint. The story evolves when the switch when comes to light but I found all the four main characters, even the parents you were 'supposed' to root for, very unlikeable. The string of coincidences, increasingly bad decisions made and unrealistic situations that worsened as the story progressed all spoiled the eventual resolution.

I loved "The Girl Before" but was not a fan of the "The Perfect Wife". JP Delaney has hit a home run with "Playing Nice".

The premise is a challenging one – how would you feel if someone showed up at your door one morning and told you that you brought the wrong baby home from the hospital two years ago? The nature vs. nurture debate is quite thought provoking at well as the challenges the couples face.
This is one of those books that you literally cannot put down. Top of the summer list!

Playing Nice is a domestic/psychological thriller at its best, and even though the author chose a plot that was done so many times already, he was able to turn this overdone story into a page-turning tale. This book explores a question of what makes a person the right parent for a child, a biological parent or an “adoptive” parent. What is more important, shared genetic pool or love and nurture that can be provided by an adoptive parent? Lies, secrets, mental illness, betrayal, addiction, and legal proceedings are just few themes addressed in this domestic thriller.

Although this book gave me major anxiety and my emotions were all over the place while reading it, I could not pull myself away from its pages and I finished it in only two sittings. I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a fast-paced psychological thriller that also evokes some strong emotions in the reader's mind.

Thank you NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and the author for providing me with an ACR copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was so excited for this but the execution just wasn’t there for me. I felt like from the first moment all the characters just acted completely illogically and I could not understand anyone’s decisions. I was so frustrated with everyone!! I think this was just a little too unrealistic for me. Sorry!

Find someone special, settle down together, start a family; that’s always been, well… the dream, at best, or in any case, where life ends up, for most people. Today—with a whole fabulous rainbow of possibilities for what a “family” unit might look like—having some variation on the theme is still what the majority of us seemingly want. And, once we have the family, it’s only natural we feel the need to protect it—parents to safeguard their children, siblings to look out for each other, etc.—from all the things that can go wrong or bad in our world.

But what would happen if a family discovered something completely unthinkable… like finding out that they weren’t, in fact, the family they thought they were?

JP Delaney explores how that scenario might go down in his latest psychological thriller, Playing Nice.
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Pete Riley and his partner Maddie are more or less your average, struggling young parents. Things are a little tense, with Pete not getting done much of the writing-from-home he thought he’d be able to do after being downsized from his newspaper job, so mostly he acts as stay-at-home dad to toddler Theo, while Maddie goes to her high-pressure advertising job each day. It’s a situation which doesn’t allow for much splurging, but they’re getting by… and after a rough pregnancy, resulting in Theo’s premature arrival and subsequent long convalescence in the neonatal ward, it feels like they’ve finally achieved at least some kind of normalcy.

Until one day, that is, when a pair of strangers show up on Pete’s doorstep… the suave, wealthy Miles Lambert, accompanied by an older private investigator. The men proceed to drop a bombshell on Pete: they have test results proving conclusively that the little boy whom Miles and his wife, Lucy, have been raising for the past two years—David—is in fact, Pete and Maddie’s son… making Theo, Miles and Lucy’s child.

Pete—and Maddie, when she gets home and hears the news from her devastated partner—are dumbstruck. Could this be true? (Yep, DNA doesn’t lie.) How could it have happened? (Multiple, simultaneous, critical cases in a busy, understaffed neonatal unit, but still…) And finally, what to do, now?? (Clearly, that’s the big one.)

Once the initial shock has worn off, the only feasible solution seems clear: the two families should work together so that both sets of parents can spend time with each child, and the boys could spend time together… becoming another sort of blended family unit. No great upheavals for anyone, only positive additions!

Initially, it seems a good plan, melding the couples and their little boys into a new “framily”. But, when Miles and Lucy convince Pete and Maddie into joining them in suing the hospitals involved with the unbelievable mixup, and lawyers, counselors, and the police become a part of things, things quickly start to unravel… leaving Pete and Maddie to finally face the horrifying realization that the Lamberts don’t want to share the boys, at all; instead, they want to wrest possession of both boys, all for themselves (which they can probably do, given their wealth and status).

But that’s the thing about families, isn’t it? Something threatens ours, we go into full-on protection mode; it’s hard-wired into us. So, when their tiny family is in danger of being dismantled right before their eyes, Pete and Maddie don’t know what to do, but they know one thing for certain: they’re through playing nice.
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Part of me wondered, when I picked up Playing Nice, how it would resonate—I’m not a family sort of gal, so I’ve never experienced the parent-to-child dynamic (okay, fine, with my cats, but it’s not quite the same thing, for this purpose). The shock and horror of the situation, the whole experience, as seen through the eyes of both Pete and Maddie, hits hard. My heart dropped, my insides clenched, and I held my breath… repeatedly. This one is intense.

As he’d already proven in his earlier, equally-horrifying The Girl Before (which I also loved), Delaney has mad skillz at ramping up the psychological tension and suspense, masterfully putting the reader smack-dab in his protagonist’s shoes, be they masculine work boots or a pair of pumps, and letting us feel everything.

In the mood for something that’s guaranteed to take your mind off everything else? With twists and turns aplenty? Playing Nice is the one to reach for, believe me.
~GlamKitty

This book brought me to tears several times, just thinking of the agony these 2 sets of parents were going through. The premise is babies switched at birth in a London hospital. One set of parents are of limited means, but full of love for their son. The other set of parents are quite wealthy yet have to deal with a disabled son. It delves into the mindset and motives of each parent to devastating consequences. Who switched the babies. More importantly, why? Was it an accident or on purpose? Should they switch the boys back or not? We follow these 2 families as they navigate this journey. Satisfying ending, very well thought out and more importantly, it was the right ending to this tale. Just read it already!

JP Delaney does not disappoint! His latest thriller explores the conflict between two couples whose babies were swapped at the NICU. The 2 boys are now 2 years old; David, mentally challenged and developmentally delayed, and Theo, a robust healthy tot, with some self control issues. A court battle for custody ensues, but all is not what it seems. This is a tale that explores themes of nature vs nurture, deceit and evil intentions. Thriller fans, this book is not to be missed!