I have to say that I have come to the conclusion that I was not in the right frame of mind to read this book. I found the subject matter of bullying, dementia etc all too depressing. I’m not a great fan of the style of writing in this book, the timeline jumping about made it disjointed and tricky to follow, it spoiled the flow of the narrative for me.
However I’m sure many people will enjoy this book, and get much more from it than I did. It just wasn’t for me.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

Two women, who have never met, Connie in the UK and Stella in Dubai, with very different lives and lifestyles. What could connect them and why do their paths cross. Slowly, through the alternating back stories, their connection unfolds. A good insight into mental health, dementia, well being, social care and issues facing migrant workers, where the sunny expat lifestyle isn’t for everyone. A well-written and thought provoking read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC copy.

This was rather good. It's difficult to say what it's about without offering spoilers, but it's a more than fair attempt at following a woman's journey through a particularly dark time in her life.
The big plus point to this novel is that it is different, at least I've never read a book about this subject before. For a large part of the book there's a lot being left to be revealed, which I think might be why I struggled to get to know Stella too well. I mean I knew about her isolation and her struggles with Mum and her apparent obsession with Connie's social media, but due to so much of the detail being witheld, I didn't feel like I connected with her in the way I should have. I couldn't decide if I liked her or not, whether I was on her side or not. So I connected with Connie much better in the more open and honest chapters where nothing was hidden. So being more invested in the secondary character's story felt a bit unnusual.
I think I'm going to be out of sync with a lot of reviewers on this one, and I get why people would enjoy it, I really do, but for a character driven novel, I want to get to know and understand the character early, care about where she ends up, and on this occasion I'm not sure I did. At least not enough.
I also think it was a little overwritten at times and the subplot regarding the maids felt a little like I was being 'made aware', but overall a good read.
Thanks to Quercus books and Netgalley for the read to review copy.

If you want to read a different book with tension , that gets you thinking, then here it is!

The book is structured telling the story of Stella and Connie’s connection which is not really revealed until the end, although you start to build up a picture of this connection as the book progresses. Stella tells her story to Connie but has never met Connie, and alongside this we also have Connie’s backstory.

It is very cleverly and well-written and keeps you wanting to read on as golden nuggets of the story are revealed through the book. This makes you constantly re-evaluate and change your perception of what is going on.

If you like a good and original mystery then I definitely recommend this book to you and wait for the reveal at the end!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for providing a copy of this book for me, for an an open and honest review.

I am seriously struggling to know how to explain my feelings about this book, and do it justice. It deserves every award going.
The words currently going round my head are: mesmerising, stunning, breathtaking, heart-breaking, heart warming, spell-binding.
I have absolutely devoured this, thinking about it constantly even when not reading, getting ready for work early just so I can go back to Stella and Connie's lives.
This was a few genres seamlessly blended together- mainly literary fiction (the beautiful writing literally speaks for itself) but it was thrilling too, and I couldn't put the book down (even though I didn't want it to end).
The characters were wonderful, intriguing and fascinating, and when Stella and Connie's connection is finally explained, I gasped. Their lives were so real, their struggles and pain so well crafted I felt their every emotion too.
Honestly, this book will stay with me for a seriously long time and I am now Velton's biggest fan. A definite contender for my top reads of 2021.
Utterly spectacular.

*also posted to my Facebook page- 'Curling Up With A Coffee And A Kindle'

One of the most intriguing stories I’ve ever read. I was talking about it to a friend when I had read well over half and I commented that it was an interesting telling of two tales but that I had absolutely no idea where the inevitable connection was going to be. That was true right up to the disclosure and what a connection!!
I’m so glad the blurb gave nothing away to spoil this oh so clever book. I just loved it.

I really enjoyed this book. It is the story of 2 women who have never met but share an extremely close bond. Stella suffered a near fatal accident which left her with life changing injuries. In her side of the story she talks to Connie.
Connie lives in Dubai with her husband Mark and their 2 young children. The life over there doesn't really suit her, and she finds herself getting involved with the plight of a young Filipino migrant worker. She is also becoming increasingly suspicious of Mark's friendship with her friend Ruby.
I can assure you that you will never guess how these 2 women are connected, but it is a lovely, moving story. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

From the author of Blackberry & Wild Rose comes an extraordinary story of two women who never meet and yet share the closest possible bond.

STELLA and CONNIE are strangers, brought together by two traumatic events - cruel twists of fate that happen thousands of miles apart.

Stella lives with her mother, a smothering narcissist. When she succumbs to dementia, the pressures on Stella's world intensify, culminating in tragedy. As Stella recovers from a near fatal accident, she feels compelled to share her trauma but she finds talking difficult. In her head she confides in Connie because there's no human being in the world that she feels closer to.

Connie is an expat living in Dubai with her partner, Mark, and their two children. On the face of it she wants for nothing and yet ... something about life in this glittering city does not sit well with her. Used to working full time in a career she loves back in England, she struggles to find meaning in the expat life of play-dates and pedicures.

Two women set on a collision course. When they finally link up, it will not be in a way that you, or I, or anyone would ever have expected.

This was an unusual follow up to Sonia Velton’s historical fiction debut Blackberry and Wild Rose, but had the same stunning characterisation and detail that set her writing apart. This was a classy domestic thriller with two characters on such a fascinating journey. Connie and Stella are such complex characters, written with incredible psychological insight, that I felt immediately drawn into their disparate worlds.

Stella’s life has been dominated by her mother, who died after a long struggle with dementia. Stella has been her full-time carer and this would be enough to explain her sense of dislocation from the rest of the world, but their relationship was always difficult anyway. She’s now 39 and as well as feeling ground down from her caring role, she thinks her inability to connect with others has a root in their mother-daughter relationship. Utterly ground down by life, Stella realises that her mother has been psychologically abusive and manipulative her whole life. It felt to me that Stella’s mental health issues were directly related to having a narcissistic parent. It’s clear that Stella’s mother belittled her, knowing exactly which buttons to push to inflict the most pain. There was also an element of gaslighting, where her mother would deny things she’d said or convince Stella she’d misconstrued them. She never validates Stella’s feelings, so instead of acknowledging her words and apologising, she says she’s sorry that Stella felt upset. Her mother’s love came with conditions, turning Stella into a perfectionist constantly feeling she has to change or placate the other person to deserve their love. The perfectionism has bled into all areas of Stella’s life. Her mother wanted her to be successful, because it reflected on her own skills as a mother. Stella is very aware of how others might see her, because it was all her mother cared about - the emphasis on how things appear rather than caring how they actually are. If Stella was well-behaved, we’ll turned out and looked pretty it didn’t matter to her mother how she felt. As she wrestles with these issues in later life, Stella doesn’t really have anyone in whom to confide. However, when she’s recovering from a serious accident, she starts a dialogue with a woman called Connie on social media. It may be the safety of not being seen, being able to hide behind the anonymity of the keyboard, but Stella feels this is someone she can trust with even her most private thoughts.

Connie is a stay at home Mum, on a compound of British families in Dubai. Her husband was offered a great job opportunity, but it left her in an unfamiliar place with all her usual support network thousands of miles away. Connie doesn’t find Dubai inspiring and, perhaps because of where they’re living, she doesn’t feel as immersed in local culture as she expected. Dubai is a man made and designed space. Although it existed as a small fishing village as far back as the 18th Century, the current expanded city is very much focused on tourism with sculptured and themed island complexes such as the Palm Jumeirah. This is a place that people pass through, rather than stay. Feeling increasingly lonely and isolated Connie needs something to do and her husband Mark suggests they have a live-in housekeeper. Connie’s keen sense of social justice means she finds this a difficult prospect, she simply can’t ignore the exploitation of local people by the foreign settlers. She simply can’t ignore the inequality in front of her and her marriage starts to feel the strain, not helped by her in-laws. Although this two women are geographically miles away from each other, their growing sense of isolation and loneliness is very similar.

I thought the author was brilliant at letting her characters tell the story. Stella narrates in the first person and I felt completely absorbed in her narrative. Maybe because she is talking like a client would speak to me when counselling, I was soon drawn in to her world and the difficulties she’s having. Connie’s narrative is in the third person, so it didn’t feel quite as immersive as Stella’s, although it did allow for the points of view of other characters like her husband or in-laws. I thought the authors insight into an ex-pat life in the Middle East was brilliant, because it felt raw and honest, and a million miles away from how people often describe Dubai. I really became incensed with the social injustice and know I couldn’t have lived there and let it wash over me, without trying to change things. I also liked her honesty about motherhood - there are no rose- tinted spectacles here. I thought that her complete change of genre and time period showed her range as a writer and her incredible skill at creating such complex and believable characters. I loved this look at themes of self- worth and what we draw on to create our identity, is it our inner life or our outer appearance that informs us of who we are? One idea that fascinates me as a therapist is congruence. Are we presented the authentic person we are inside or a constructed identity based on outer appearances? Do our inside and outside selves match up and how does it feel when they don’t? This was a thoroughly enjoyable novel that will be fascinating to anyone interested in character driven narratives, identity and social justice.

I was intrigued by this story of two women who’d never met and yet seemed inextricably bound to each other.
The story is so cleverly written that I couldn’t see how they were connected and the reason was kept a secret almost to the end of the book.
When it was finally revealed I was really impressed with how the author had dealt with such a complicated and intricate subject. It was moving, heart-breaking and yet in the same vein, uplifting and inspiring of hope for such a complex subject. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

The storyline is original and as the book went on it gradually all began to become clear what the connection was between the two women. Whilst I enjoyed that aspect of it unfortunately I did not get on with the style of the book. I found it quite disjointed to read, not the alternating chapters between the two women but mainly Stella's jumps up and down the timeline of her life.
I read till the end because I wanted to discover the link between the women but I found myself beginning to skip pages.

This was such a beautiful story and I did not want it to stop.

I was intrigued on how both Connie and Stella were connected, especially as Stella was following Connies posts and photos on social media.

They seemed to live such different lives and I loved reading both of their journeys. Stellas coming to terms with her accident and how she never got away from her mum. Connie getting used to life in Dubai and how it was so different to her life back in the UK.

When I finally realised the connection, it made me want to read on more and see how the story ended. I was not disappointed.

This book is beautifully written and has a plot which keeps you turning the pages. Two of the main characters are equally fascinating and they lead very different lives. Stella is basically a hermit who hates leaving the confines of her house, she has scars on her face after a tragic shooting and she doesn't even like answering her door. On the other side of the world in Dubai, Connie a married mother of two children, lives in a world where house maids are the norm. Their stories intertwine but they will never meet face to face. You find yourself becoming quite involved in their lives and it's really emotional but in a fascinating way. I loved getting to know all the characters and I will definitely recommend this book. It's a gripping page turner, rather sad in parts but highly addictive. I would like to thank NetGalley and Quercus for the ARC.

I was immediately drawn in when I saw this book described as 'the most surprising thriller you will read this year' and secondly the beautiful cover!
As a thriller lover anything that claims it can surprise me is a great start, and surprise me it did.
During the first part of the book I was trying to work out how the women were connected, and I enjoyed the mystery and intrigue. It slowly dawned on me what the link was, and it definitely didn't take the turn I was expecting.
I'm really struggling to write this review, perhaps because I was expecting to be reading a twisty thriller with some huge surprises, but what I read was a beautifully written, unique and thought provoking story and you can't help but feel for both Stella and Connie as their stories unravelled.
I did really enjoy this book, however if I was rating it as a thriller, which is how its described I would give a 3.5⭐, but rating the book as a whole I'd give this 4⭐ and definitely recommend

This is one of the most emotional books I have ever read. Two women, Connie and Stella who live continents apart yet have never met; have the most incredible bond you can imagine.

This book will draw you in, suck you in, you will become so invested in Connie and Stella and their lives, their bond and the reason they are so drawn together.

Put this on your must reads - it is amazing!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this.

This is a beautiful and touching story of two women, STELLA and CONNIE who are strangers, brought together by two traumatic events - cruel twists of fate that happen thousands of miles apart.

The story of Stella and Connie are told in alternate chapters, reveals to us about their separate lives, and how they are ultimately linked.

A touching story, that left me in tears,

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. I was very pleasantly surprised. It a good story and the characters have enough depth for you to invest in them. Enjoyed it.

While I enjoyed this book I can't quite work out my response to it.... I felt desperately sorry for Connie, not really sure what the relationship between her and Stella was going to be - stalker, husband's mistress.....
As the story develops the horror of what has happened to Stella becomes clear also where Connie fits into her story.
I felt perhaps I needed a little more in the way of a resolution - hence my undecided response.

This is an intriguing and captivating read. What can be the link between two women with completely contrasting lifestyles? Stella is downtrodden by a demanding and domineering mother who has always put her down, whereas Connie lives an apparently idyllic life with her family in Dubai. The story weaves back and forth between the two women, vividly bringing their characters to life. It gives a disturbing insight into life behind the glitzy facade of Dubai and a moving insight into the stresses of caring for someone suffering from dementia. The link between Connie and Stella when it is revealed is unexpected and shocking.

This is an amazing domestic thriller with a narrative that unites two women living a long distance apart. We encounter Stella, who lives completely on her own in suburban England, as well as Connie, an expat in Dubai. Through their exchanges, we learn what brought Stella to the point of living like a recluse: horrific abuse from a mother afflicted with dementia, and much other trauma are to blame. Meanwhile, Connie’s marriage appears to be falling apart and she is struggling with her position of immense privilege in Dubai. This novel, structured like a thriller, raises many important 21st century issues and is superbly plotted and sensitively written. Very highly recommended! I am grateful to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me a free ARC in return for this honest and unbiased review.

Brilliantly written .
Very intriguing.
Loved learning the stories of Stella and Connie.
And how they are connected.