Good Company is the story of a husband's long past betrayal and the wife's reaction when she finds out by accident interwoven with flashbacks of their lives. Does she forgive him?

I enjoyed this book. I have not read the Nest so I can not compare it to that. I went into it with an unbiased opinion of Cybthia D'Aprix Sweeney and loved her writing style. There were moments that were definitely cringe-worthy but they were moments of laughter too.

Many thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy!

Good Company follows the story of Flora Mancini, who upon stumbling across an envelope containing her husbands ‘lost’ wedding ring, is thrown down a new life path. Good Company contains all of the elements of a good character-driven novel, trust and relationship issues, family, love and loss. I had a difficult time staying engaged with this novel. There are many point of views and a variety of flashbacks that I thought felt a bit choppy. I think this book with connect to a lot of readers, just wasn’t for me.

I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for another novel from the writer of THE NEST and it was worth the wait.

This was my favorite book read in January and I believe it will be a contender for my top reads in 2021.

I will be featuring this book on my IG and will post a link to my review closer to pub date.

“Good Company” is the follow up novel to Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s debut, “The Nest.”

The center of the novel is the Fletcher family, which include Mom, Flora and Dad, Julian. Both actors, they share a daughter, Ruby who is about to graduate from high school. Flora and Julian’s close friends are Margot, also an actor and husband, doctor David. As expected in this type of book, a shocking secret is revealed that changes all of the main characters, but especially Flora and Julian.

While I enjoyed Sweeney’s writing a lot, I had a difficult time staying engaged in the book. The author uses both multiple points of views and a variety of flashbacks to build suspense, but I had a difficult time remaining connected to the story. You know how when you have a fantastic meal, get the recipe, spend extra money to get the exact ingredients, follow the steps exactly, but the remade meal still does not taste right? Sweeney did everything she needed to do, but I still did not feel as satisfied as I have when reading other books. Despite that, taste is subjective and I encourage you to give this novel a try.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney for an advance copy of this book.

D'Aprix Sweeney is back and better than ever. What readers loved about the complicated family and sibling relationships in her novel The Nest they will find easily translated to complicated chosen family and friend relationships in this novel. Told with a love of entertainment from movies, television, Broadway, and even voice acting, the struggles of artists are told with grace and intellect without compromising emotional depth.

This story has it all--a seemingly perfect life, a betrayal (or two), relationships having to find their way back or a new path. Spanning over several years, this story does a good job of drawing in the reader and being invested in how it for spouses, parents, friends.

This was lovely. I've long been waiting for a second novel from Sweeney, and this follow-up, while quite different from her debut in plot and style, didn't disappoint. The book begins when Flora finds a presumed-lost ring at the bottom of the file cabinet. She immediately knows this means something has gone horribly wrong in her twenty-year marriage, but when? It could have been anytime in the past twenty years. Because the cast of characters in this novel is much smaller than in The Nest, the characters could be more fully drawn, and just as in The Nest, the attention to detail is superb. I loved the way Sweeney explored each individual alone, and in contrast to the others in their tight group of friends, and the way that though this story unfolds over a short span of time, the beautifully rendered flashbacks lend such richness to the story.

GOOD COMPANY-Cynthia D’Arcy Sweeney.
The plot revolves around four main characters-Julian and Flora, struggling actors with an only child( Ruby)and their close friendship with Margot( very successful actor) and her physician husband David .Pearlman.
I found the timeline difficult to follow at times, and the all too familiar themes-friendship,jealousy, illness ,resentment, infidelity, insecurity, troubled childhoods play a part in their relationship with each other.It is not a book that engaged me, though some might really enjoy it.
What I found most interesting were the insights it offered into the lives of actors-how many barely scrape by, how truly difficult it is to become a “ star” , and how evanescent that might be- and yet, how even those who don’t “ make it” love their craft.

What would you think if you found your his husband’s wedding ring years after he claimed he lost it. You’d probably think the same as I did. So did Flora. The novel is told from Julian, Margot, Rose, and Flora’s point of view. I thought Margot was a tad soled absorbed. Julian a liar and a lout, Rose a typical 18 year old, and Flora spineless when it came to Julian. It was a decent read, but I wish Flora would have carried out her threat. I thought the characters were a little flat.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A long time marriage in crisis along with a long-term friendship that is challenging a relationship with a child--lots of family and friend drama in this novel.

Your husband lost his wedding ring years ago when your daughter was five. Now it’s the summer before she leaves for college and you find the ring hidden in a cabinet. What do you do? That’s the question facing Flora Mancini as what she thought was a perfect life dissolves in lies and betrayals. Good Company is the name of the theater group her husband runs in New York City. Good Company is also the close relationship Flora and Julian share with Margot and her husband David.

The story, told in alternating voices by Flora and Margot, moves between past and present. When Flora and Julian first married and had their daughter Ruby, they were struggling actors. Now they live in Los Angeles where Julian has a part on a TV show and Flora voices a main character on an animated series. Margot, successful even in her early days in New York, has played a doctor on an evening soap opera for the last seven years. David, once a successful pediatric heart surgeon, suffered a devastating stroke that ended his career.

Yes, there was a problem in Flora’s marriage. It happened thirteen years ago and anyone who knew about it said nothing. That’s what nearly destroys Flora. This is a well written, deliberately slow moving look at a marriage and a friendship. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ecco and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney for this ARC.

Good Company is the latest book written by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. I read The Nest several years ago and enjoyed the author's character development and writing style. When I saw this was available for an early read, I wanted to get a copy, so I did... finished it this week and am glad it worked out. Overall, I prefer The Nest to this one, but it's still a well-written book I'd recommend.

Flora and Julian have been married for almost twenty years, just as long as they've been best friends with David and Margot. While David is a doctor, the rest are actors; they've lived in NYC and LA for most of their lives, minus a few years in London. Flora and Julian have a high school daughter, Ruby, and shortly before her graduation party, a surprising revelation comes out about an incident that happened fifteen years earlier. It leads to several awkward moments, job changes, and questions about love, commitment, trust, and the future of their lives. What happened?

One of the aspects I most enjoy about the author's writing is the POV changes throughout the book. Each chapter focuses on someone different, but the previous chapter builds the stage for the new character's voice. There are less than 10 characters, but it's a rising step situation where you need to read them in order to understand why the new character is important; in the beginning of the chapter, it's unclear. By the end, you have your aha moment. Transitions are seamless and flowing. All the characters are well developed. The plot, while not major, is enough to have something to hold on to with a curious hope.

Where I struggled was the ending. After the big reveal and the subsequent impacts... you feel the drama and pain between characters. You watch as they slowly repair and rebuild. But in the end, things are left open-ended and casually addressed in terms of a wrap-up. I don't mind endings like this, but there must be something to learn from it. Instead, this felt like a very detailed excursion into a specific twenty-year period of four characters' lives, and then a cliff where you kinda just stop. I didn't need to know the full details of their future, but when someone lies to you or misleads you, and you don't really get a full circle ending on it in a book, it's disquieting. I wanted a comeuppance for someone, or at the very least, a sense of how to repair the future. Then again, life can be like that, so perhaps the author was simply commenting on reality.

I'm glad I read it. I will continue to read more from the author, as the world-building is very strong, especially since both books focus on NYC for a big piece of the timeline. But if you want a closed-door type ending, this isn't the right one. Vague notions of next steps will be your final moment, and that can be in itself, an analytical way to leave a reader.

In her new book, Cynthia D' Aprix Sweeney actually tells three stories, all entagled in one narrative: the story of Flora and Julian's marriage, that falls apart after the discovery of a wedding ring deemed lost for many years and the realisation of past adultery that comes with it. The story of Flora and Margot's friendship, two women that seem like polar opposites, Margot being shiny, rich and succesful, though a little washed-up now, while Flora's presence is more subtle, a catholic Italian girl that never got much attention, a voice-over actress that always struggled with her financials, a mother that is used to her daughter, Ruby, always looking up to her best friend, Margot, up to the point that she often feels stings of jealousy. Nevertheless, their friendship has remained rock solid through the years and all the ups-and-downs of their personal lives, up until a betrayal tears them apart. And thirdly, an inside look into the acting and theatre world, and the antithesis between the New York acting scene, the Shakespeare plays and the theatre life, and the Los Angeles acting scene, one of decades-long TV shows and soap operas.

While the look into a crumbling marriage was interesting, I didn't think that the toll of the cheating and the betrayal on the characters' lives and their development was examined enough. The third-person narrative and the almost complete lack of dialogues made the characters feel not so real and vivid, and in the end made the book dragging and a little boring. I am always a sucker for stories about dysfunctional relationships and long kept secrets, but this take just wasn't fresh enough. I didn't hate it, but it was just meh.

While Sweeney is a beautiful writer, this one didn't live up to The Nest for me.

Flora and her husband Julian have been happily married for over 20 years. However, everything Flora believes she knows about her life, marriage, and friendships is upended when she finds her husband's wedding ring, which he claimed he lost years ago when their daughter was 5.

The novel explores Flora and Julian's relationship, as well as her relationship with her best friend, Margot. We also get a glimpse into Margo's marriage to her husband, David, who was an accomplished surgeon until she suffered a stroke. While many of these relationships were toxic, we did not get enough to make me invested as a reader. Some of the backstory was interesting, but some dragged and felt like there was no purpose behind it. I think the story would have done well to eliminate some of the peripheral storylines and get deeper into the ones that actually mattered to the story.

I got to the end of the book and wondered what the point of it has been. Our characters were mainly in the same place they started - despite the plot points that were supposed to move them forward, there was truly no change, no emotional growth, and no development.

I suspect that I was supposed to feel sad yet hopeful for our characters, but there was truly nothing there to deliver any sort of emotional response.

First, thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of Good Company.

I am somewhat torn on this between a 3 and 4. ’The start of Good Company was a little underwhelming but, when the story got going and the significance of the opening became apparent, it was a more compelling read. The evolution of relationships between four friends was well told. Related through flashbacks, there developed a good sense of the characters and, primarily, what happens when a secret threatens to destroy all those relationships and more. The background of the theater/TV added some interest, especially the annual show that played a role in the story. One of the reasons I’m torn is that, while the characters were well drawn, I didn’t necessarily like them and, as a result, didn’t find them particularly sympathetic. Having said that, thought, I did whip through it pretty quickly so I liked it enough.

This book was terrific. It is the story of two couples, three of the four of which are actors, as they meet and then navigate adulthood over two decades. The story really pulls you in. I could not put this book down, I was so eager to find out what happened. I'm a big fan of the author's previous book, and this was a worthy successor. Recommended!

I was given the opportunity to read and review this book through Net Galley and I am so glad! The story sucked you in and you'll find yourself thinking about the characters long after you finish the book. Can't wait to read more by this author!!

-i don’t think this book will be for everyone. it’s not an action-packed drama that has you hanging on the edge of your seat. that said, i did enjoy this book and found it mostly keeping my attention (definitely a few parts that dragged). i love books that focus on relationships (whether romantic or platonic) and the complexities that come, and this book had that in spades
-as a theatre nerd, i loved that the main characters were involved with theatre in different capacities. whenever books reference into the woods or wicked or even chekhov, my heart sings hehe
-i do feel like this book was trying to be much more transformative and thought-provoking than it ended up being. the character margot especially was hard to empathize with, and i found myself wondering what her place in the relationships was—she seemed to be there more to provide wealth and *things* to the other characters, and i found that i really didn’t care for her by the end
-the ending wasn’t my favorite. i certainly wasn’t expecting a big romantic, life-changing ending. but i didn’t feel like we saw enough of flora and julian talking about their relationship (most of the conversations were only touched on after the fact)

This story starts when Flora finds her husband’s first wedding ring that he supposedly “lost” in a lake over a decade ago. Her past is now questionable. Her future is at a turning point. Can she trust her husband? Can she trust her best friend?

It’s a book about life, love, friendship, marriage and secrets.

Though I overall enjoy the story and the depth of the the characters, the plot ran a bit mundane and flat.

The book started out slow but once I got familiar with the characters I get involved with their lives and activities.