One of Fielding’s best! I loved the way the characters intertwined seamlessly together while weaving a suspenseful story. This book proves that you never really know what goes on behind closed doors. The perfect couple may be hiding a terrible secret. Struggles, love, joy and life unwind in front of us in one little cul de sac, leading up to an ending that I won’t say was shocking, but was satisfying nonetheless.
The only complaint I had about this book was that the character of Dani almost seemed like a caricature of a southern woman. We really don’t speak like that!

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. An individual is shot one day in quiet street in Florida. One of the neighbors is a doctor who is married to a dentist. Another neighbor is an elderly woman who lost her husband two years ago. I liked getting to know the different neighbors and their family dynamics.

Cul-de-sac, mean the bottom of a bag. Or dead end. This book tells the gossip of what's happening to the people living in the five houses at the cul-de-sac. Very interesting. How well do you know your neighbors? Attention getter!!

A fast-paced read that keeps you guessing all the way through. How well do you know your neighbors? You never know what goes on behind closed doors.As a Florida girl, I enjoyed the setting very much. Very enjoyable and definitely recommend!

Thank you #netgalley and #randomhouseballantine for the earc.

Excellent fast paced domestic thriller. A shooting occurs in a quite cul-de-sac on a hot July night. All five of the houses on the cul-de-sac have occupants that are harboring their own secrets. Maggie and Craig have just split up and Maggie is living in the house with her two children. Maggie is terrified of her own shadow after witnessing an event that caused her to move across the country. Julia is a retired widow who is living with her grandson who has been in and out of trouble for the past several years and needs a new start. But is the grandson only there to take advantage of his generous grandma. The other occupants of the street have just as many secrets and could be responsible for the shooting. This story takes you into the lives of all the neighbors and lets you see things from their prospective. Excellent, fast paced and impossible to put down. One of her best novels.

Great great great book. I have always like her books. Great story. Would definitely recommend this book to about anybody who likes a great great book. Thank you

Do you think you know your neighbors? Everyone who lives on this cul-de-sac has a secret. Which one of them is deadly?

Carlyle Terrace is a small cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood in Florida. With only 5 houses, there aren’t too many people.

Maggie, along with her husband and two children, have recently moved onto Carlyle Terrace after leaving a traumatic experience in California.

Nick and Dani, doctor and dentist respectively, live with their two younger children and appear standoffish to the rest of the neighbors.

Olivia and Sean are married, and struggling after Sean loses his job. Maybe he has a solution.

Julia is an elderly woman whose grandson, Mark, moves in with her. Mark is troubled, maybe even more than Julia realizes.

Then, there’s Aiden and Heidi, newlyweds who are already having problems in their marriage due to his controlling mother.

On a quiet night in July, one of these people will be shot dead.

I wouldn’t classify this as a mystery/thriller. It’s more along the lines of domestic/neighborhood drama/suspense. Did that bother me? NOT ONE BIT.

I devoured the secrets these characters were keeping, and couldn’t get enough. The use of multiple POVs is handled expertly, with each neighbor’s story leaving me wanting more until their respective chapters came around again. The characters are fully-fleshed out and multi-dimensional...very human. Some I really cared for, others not so much. There’s definitely someone for all readers to love or hate in this gem.

I’ve been reading Joy Fielding’s books for years and have rarely been let down. This is no exception. I absolutely loved it. Scandal, devious behavior, moving/touching moments, a hugely satisfying ending...What more could I ask for?

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This will be available: 8/10/21.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

It had probably been a good twenty years since I’d picked up a Joy Fielding book, but back in the day, she was one of my “go-to” authors, meaning if I saw one of her books, I bought it without even reading the summary because I knew I’d enjoy it. Fast forward to the opportunity to get an advance copy of “Cul de Sac”. A tale of five different neighbors in a sleepy Palm Beach cul de sac, this book had a little bit of everything: elder care issues, unemployment, child rearing, drug use, divorce, PTSD, abuse and even some romance. Most of the stories were lightly tied together with a subplot about guns (Hey, this is Florida! We love our guns here!). I would not say this was a highly suspenseful tale, but Ms Fielding writes about her characters in such a way that you are speeding through her books to find out what’s going to happen next. I gave this one a solid four stars.

Also posted to Instagram and Goodreads.

Another 5 STAR for Joy Fielding!! Oh my you must read this book it was sooo good. I couldn't put it down, read late into the night even though I had to be up with my two little boys! Totally worth it!!!!

A fun, fast read, that is kind of a thriller, more of a family drama. This has a host of characters all living on the same cu-de-sac, all with lives that are more than meets the eye. Solid plot makes this a page-turner with a satisfying ending. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital ARC for review.

Spoiler alert!!
I have read several of Joy Fielding’s books in the past so when I saw that one of hers was available on NetGalley I jumped at the chance. One of the things that I least like about books is the number of characters in a book, especially if they are all introduced almost immediately and one right after the other. That was the case with this one. I learned quickly I needed to start my own cheat sheet with a character list. Once I got more into the book, I didn’t need to use it and it flowed better. The whole time during this book I was waiting forever the killing. It didn’t happen till the last chapter. I kept trying to figure out who was going to kill whom. However, because of that, I think that’s what kept me going during this book. I really liked it and would recommend it and need to read more of her more recent books again.

loving this book. so may characters to discuss. all different. good book club book. i can picture this street so vividly. will definitely recommend to all. thoroughly enjoying this easy read. all books from this author are great.

Cul-de-sac
Joy Fielding
Fiction
Nancy
5

To a casual observer, all five houses on Carlyle Terrace would seem to be occupied by people whose lives are untroubled by problems, and for whom drama would seem foreign. In fact, even those living in those houses would probably describe their neighbors as uninteresting, an observation that may contribute to the lack of friendships among them. No one would suspect that Maggie, recently separated from her husband, lives in terror, or that Olivia and Sean have pretty much reached the end of their financial rope, or that Nick and Dani, both doctors, are keeping a brutal secret, or that young couple Heidi and Aiden struggle daily not only with Aiden’s PTSD, but also with the ugly control Aiden’s mother has of them, and certainly, no one would think that elderly widow Julia is anything but content. Of course, as is true in almost any neighborhood, secrets are hard to keep so although it’s shocking, it isn’t surprising when in one of those five houses one of the neighbors is shot dead.

Such a great read! Cul-de-sac is vintage Fielding; this may be her best book since See Jane Run!

My thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the chance to read this ARC!

This was an enjoyable read about 5 different households living on the same cul-de-sac in Florida. The reader finds out about the background of all five families, their issues & reasons for living there. Not every neighbor is what they seem like to the outside world. They all keep their secrets until they start to get to know each other. As the secrets come out, tensions rise between everyone. All the neighbors come together for a 4th of July street barbecue which reveals some of their secrets and leaves someone dead a few days later.

I have read a few Joy Fielding books and have enjoyed them and this was no exception! I found it to be a very quick read. I adored the cast of characters - the families living in a close knit cul-de-sac in Florida. This book gave me the vibe of Desperate Housewives and Big Little Lies. The story flowed flawlessly between all of the families in the neighborhood. It truly felt like I was watching this all play out on TV. You never know what is going on in the households that are not yours. Each of the main characters was pretty well developed and I feel like I really got to know them. Each had their own unique story arc while weaving their story with the others. This one kept me guessing right until the end. Overall, a great read and I think that it will be a hit with book clubs. I will absolutely be recommending this book to people.

I want to thank NetGalley and Ballantine Books for allowing me to read and review Cul-de-sac by Joy Fielding.
“—-here inPalm Beach Gardens, Florida, as in the rest of North America, it has come to mean a short dead-end street with a circle for turning around at the end.”
There is nothing normal about this particular complex. It is full of guns, lies, PTSD, theft, sexual abuse and drugs. There is a particularly obnoxious mother-in-law. We even have a pair of Beta fish that must be kept in separate bowls and at a distance from each other! Symbolic?
The occupants of these five homes become aware of their neighbors and some friendships form. And then some ugly interaction as well!
Does the abuser get stopped? Does the husband who is supposed to be working get found out? What happens to the man with PTSD when the families have a joint 4th of July party and he hears fireworks going off? Can the son convince his mother to move to an assisted living facility?
The characters in Ms Fielding’s book are so well defined. You have to keep reading to see how everything works out, even with the fish!

How well do you know your neighbors? Joy Fielding may convince you that you don't want to know them too well. In CUL-DE-SAC, Fielding shows up that Tolstoy was right, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Fielding gives us a good, taut tale with interesting characters with lives that are a lot more interesting than they initially appear. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

I've read many of Fielding's books in the past, so I was really looking forward to Cul-de-sac, especially with that eerie cover and excellent summary.

Told in multiple POVs, Cul-de-sac follows a group of neighbors as they navigate their personal hurdles before the upcoming Fourth of July BBQ. Struggling with separate issues, their lives will overlap on one fateful night as a shot rings out, changing everything in their quiet cul-de-sac forever.

I liked this book.

To start, I'm a big fan of multiple narrators. Done well, it has the ability to heighten the tension in a story or provide complementary details that add insight or intrigue. Fielding navigated the voices well, and I didn't think there was much overlap between mannerisms, turns-of-speech, or characterization. That kept the narrative interesting and well-paced, even with many working parts.

I had a difficult time with the overall rhetoric of the book, though, a detail I couldn't quite get past to call this one a home run for me. At times, the characters felt a bit like exaggerated tropes, falling solely in their stereotypical zones. A trope exists for a reason, so that in itself wasn't a dealbreaker for me, but I wanted more depth and layers. The morals were a little heavy-handed, with clear rhetoric involving gun violence, domestic abuse, mental health, and drug use. If these had been nuanced, I think it would've worked better for me, and I can still see many readers enjoying the straight-to-the-point, on-the-nose trajectory; but for me, it was a bit of a miss.

Overall, Cul-de-sac is a slow-burning suburban drama that tackles relevant social issues over the backdrop of a Florida community. I'd recommend to readers looking for a light mystery with dramatic elements, character-driven narratives, or a beach read.

I think Aiden and Heidi were the most interesting relationship, but I really would've loved to see these characters fleshed out a bit more beyond their expected traits.

Thank you to Ballantine and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

I own several of Joy Fielding's books and used to purchase them, regularly, until they seemed to be getting continuously more sexually graphic. "Cul-de-sac" had such promise, and it was a pity that the seriously offensive language and sex scenes had to take away from that! Some books are a little easy to understand why it was included, but not this story, and, especially, as overdone as it was. I did a whole lot of cringing while reading it.

Five families reside on this small cul-de-sac, totally diverse families! The one thing they have in common is that each has obtained a gun and has someone he/she would like to use it on. Will that happen? You will keep picking a "favorite" as you read on but may not be surprised at the ending.

I read it overnight and am thankful for the opportunity, nonetheless.

The Cul-de-sac by Joy Fielding is about 5 families who live on a cul-de-sac in Florida. One night a gunshot was heard, who was shot and who was the shooter. This book kept me guessing because all the families living there were all keeping secrets and do you ever really know your neighbors. I really liked this book and highly recommend it. Thanks to Netgalley for my arc.

Joy Fielding’s latest novel, Cul-de-sac, is an interesting “beach read.” There are 5 houses on the cul-de-sac, all occupied by disparate, unhappy people - newlyweds with mother-in-law problems, a mother separated from her husband with a rebellious teenager, a married couple with an abusive husband, an elderly widow with a grandson addicted to “weed” who steals from her and, finally, an out of work husband who lies to his wife and is an alcoholic.
Despite the closeness of the 5 houses, the neighbors do not really know each other and an attempt at a 4th of July block party has disastrous effects.
An underlying theme of the book is guns - both for sport and protection.
This reader was fascinated by the interweaving of the individual stories - stories filled with mostly unlikeable and unsympathetic characters - and read with tremendous interest to discover the victim alluded to in the prologue.
This is one of the author’s best books and I thank NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this soon to be best seller and, perhaps, a future movie or TV series.