University friends Stacey, Paula, Bev and Valentina used to be inseparable, until one weekend before graduation, then nothing was ever the same again.

Thirty years later the friends are reunited for Valentina's funeral. Stacey receives a letter written by her late friend asking that the three friends return to where things fell apart and finally bury the hatchet.

I did find this book intriguing and gripping and the way the story was told from multiple POV's.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed reading this and watching it all unfold. It had some interesting characters, although not sure any of them were likeable. It highlights the lengths people will go to to try and fit in (albeit a little too far sometimes) and that we all have insecurities. I can't wait for the next book from Dawn Goodwin

A good read
A book over two time lines
The one where they where so close then one weekend before graduation everything changed
To now altogether again thirty years later at the funeral of their friend
This story has plenty of secrets you will be hooked
Thanks NetGalley

Told in a dual timeline , 1992-now. I found this book to be a slow burner story about friendships. I was disappointed in the ending. This book was very well written and had me flipping through the pages.

A tense and twisted thriller perfect for fans of Big Little Lies, When We Were Young is a chilling and compulsively readable page-turner by Dawn Goodwin.

Stacey, Paula, Bev and Valentina had been the best of friends at university. Always together, the four friends had once been inseparable – until one weekend before graduation where everything had changed and nothing had ever been the same ever again. Thirty years later, Valentina has died and Stacey receives a letter from her late friend with one final wish: for her three remaining friends to bury the hatchet once and for all by going back to where things fall apart. Stacey, Paula and Bev all agree to fulfill their late friend’s wish, however, will they find the answers they desperately seek? Or should some things be left in the past?

Going back to university and retracing their past steps brings to light surprising revelations that makes their friend’s death look suspicious. What really happened to Valentina? Who is truly responsible for her death? And how well do Stacey, Paula and Bev know each other? Can they trust each other? Or do they all have something to hide?

As old secrets that have been buried for decades come out into the light, will Stacey, Paula and Bev manage to put past ghosts to rest and move on with their lives? Or will they continue to be haunted and tormented by events that happened so long ago?

Dawn Goodwin’s When We Were Young is an intelligent, engrossing and terrifying thriller that brilliantly explores female friendship, the ties that bind us together and the dangerous secrets that tear us apart. Full of shocking twists and turns and moments that will have readers jumping out of their skins, Dawn Goodwin’s When We Were Young is an enjoyable thriller that is hard to put down.

Compelling but not quite what I expected. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

One of my favourite things to read about is friendship. I love a story which looks at the nuances of friendship so imagine my excitement when I picked up When We Were Young and along with friendship I get the added element of a murder mystery.

When news of Valentina's death comes the panic of Stacey, Paula and Bev rises. See, the four girls have a secret, one which one of them has taken to the grave…or has she.

When We Were Young looks back at toxic friendship and how one persons obsession can land others into a whole world of trouble.

This is a great book to read and allows you to remember the friendships of your youth and begin to wonder whether they were are innocent as you thought.

When We Were Young by Dawn Goodwin is available now.

For more information regarding Dawn Goodwin (@DGoodwinAuthor) please visit www.dawngoodwin.com.

For more information regarding Head of Zeus (@HoZ_Books) please visit their Twitter page.

“Four best friends. One of them is dead. Are their secrets safe?”

..

This is one of those books, which definitely underpins my assertion that rating, and reviewing books are really very subjective processes, as storylines mean different things to different people and evoke similarly diverse emotions and reactions. I was so undecided about just where on the spectrum my true feelings lay, but all things considered 4 stars seemed a fair and true reflection of my thoughts.

So, first of all, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of the storyline…

..

Which opens in present day Northumberland, with three middle-aged women preparing to attend the funeral of a fourth, who they knew back in their university days. In fact they are the only attendees at a very orchestrated event, which appears to have been organised and specified in great detail, by the deceased person herself. Paula, Bev and Stacey were childhood friends and still only a very short distance separates them physically, although that might as well be a million miles, as they have neither met up, nor spoken to one another, in the last thirty years.

Valentina, the deceased, had shared a student let with the others for their final and what turned out to be, very tumultuous university year. It was Bev who had interviewed Valentina and agreed that she could take the empty room, however when they were together, it had always been Stacey who was the strongest and most forthright of the three childhood friends, so it was towards her that a seemingly very vulnerable Valentina had gravitated when she moved in. It is therefore no surprise that after all this time, it is now a very spooked Stacey who begins to receive messages and packages from Valentina, in which she indicates that Paula, Bev and Stacey, should investigate the circumstances of her death, although none of them had parted on the best of terms with her, leaving Stacey to wonder what is behind the sudden plea for help and hand of reconciliation, being offered from beyond the grave.

How simple life must have seemed for Bev, Stacey and Paula back in 1992, their pick of the boys, partying the night away, drinking in seedy pubs and clubs, and maybe the odd spot of course work and exam revision when it was pressed upon them. In fact, their extreme and maybe rather naive lifestyle, may have been the catalyst and trigger for everything that happened in that fateful graduation year, particularly the behaviour of a rather promiscuous Stacey. Into their lives bursts Valentina, needy, demanding, pushy and desperately wanting to be accepted as one of the group. The terrible threesome soon works out that much of Valentina’s childhood as she describes it, is fabricated, embellished and often downright lies. Yes, there is no doubt that her father is very wealthy and throws money at his daughter for a quiet, easy life, but the adoration he so-say has for her, is all in her troubled mind and vivid imagination. In trying too hard to fit in, Valentina only succeeds in making the others close ranks against her, tipping her unbearable sadness into an uncontrollable rage and anger, which can only be satisfied by payback and revenge.

As time moved on towards their final exams, events which had spiralled further and further out of control, were only ever going to end one way, although not one of them could have guessed the scale of the impending disaster and the life-changing consequences of what its implications might be. Valentina had made a discovery about a couple of the boys who shared a neighbouring apartment, which in a moment of genuine friendship, worried her enough to want to warn her flatmates and seek their help in outing these sexual predators. However, given her past record for being less than truthful and well-meaning, and as she and Stacey have become embroiled in a very vitriolic and jealous game involving one of the men, she might have cried ‘wolf’ just once too often, as her accusations were treated with disdain. The red mist descended for Valentina, and she vowed to expose the men for what they were, very publicly and in full view of a stunned Stacey. However, Valentina hadn’t quite got the details of her plan right and it spectacularly backfired on her, placing all four women in danger when they were chased into a wooded area. Now they were prepared to hear Valentina out and they quickly realised the truth of her accusations – but what to do about it, especially as their hunter was closing in on them…

When the academic year mercifully ended and the four girls were free to go their separate ways, they vowed never to contact one another again, in a bid to both maintain their individual sanity and protect their perceived innocence of any wrongdoing, should events from that fateful evening resurface and be investigated.

Those dark and long-ago events have definitely shaped the path of happiness and re-defined the dreams of the three estranged ‘besties’, although it hasn’t been for the better! Having been rebuffed by her choice of partner, Paula had gone on to marry Sue, a romance seemingly made in heaven but more like a living hell for Paula, who was hiding her mental and physical abuse behind Sue’s cleverly positioned shield of gaslighting and coercive control. Bev it would appear, has the perfect domestic idyll, homemaker to a devoted husband and two adoring children, however the cracks in her life are spreading and beginning to show, so badly that at any moment her world might implode and shatter into a million pieces. Stacey, always the strongest, most ebullient and determined to get things done her way, has gone literally to pieces, overweight, verging on alcoholism, her short marriage in tatters, living and working on the edge of existence, with only her cat and the bottom of a bottle for company. Guilt, fear, and shame, still dominate and control the nightmares which the three girls have never been able to shake off and which now still dominate their adult lives, meaning that none of them has ever reached their full potential, leaving them to tread water without a lifejacket.

Now Valentina has forced their hand, sending them in a direction and on a journey which none of them want to make and which it seems certain will probably not end well, just as it hadn’t all those years ago. Just how badly wrong things are going to go, they have no way of knowing and what will ultimately be asked of them before closure can even begin, may break them rather than heal.

..

Author Dawn Goodwin certainly has a penchant for these strong and fluent, easy to navigate, dual timeline stories, often with the additional voice of a watchful, yet unseen, third party. Her plots are never fast-paced, action packed, pot-boiling thrillers. She would appear to luxuriate in the rather more lugubrious, slow-burning and tantalisingly evolving storyline. On its own, this wasn’t a particularly complex plot, however the many added layers, which were peeled back intermittently, really ramped up the suspense level giving it great depth and staying power. I had worked out the identity of the stalking interloper within the space of a couple of chapters (or at least I hoped I had!), however those last couple of twists right towards the end, definitely caught me unawares and left me with my mouth hanging open.

Dawn has created a wonderful cast of complex, emotionally starved, wickedly clever and genuinely twisted characters, who although well developed and fleshed out, are not authentic or reliable. They are manipulative and duplicitous in the extreme, which gave me no compelling reason to relate to, invest in, or engage with them. The only certainty in this complex jigsaw of human emotions, was that their own volatility and unreliability, would be their eventual downfall, however it still almost made me feel sad to witness the struggles they all went through in their later lives, which were so entwined with that single life-changing event they had experienced as teenagers, especially Valentina who never really understood or could cope with the realisation that even the privileges of money alone couldn’t make her happy, coming as they did with the ultimate price-tag of being instead of, rather than as well as, the love and comfort of genuinely meant support from friends and family, especially in her real hour of need.

There are glimmers of some happy endings to be found, although they may still be fragile and a little raw, but time is a great healer, or so they say. However, for some, there is no time for new beginnings. Theirs will forever be the silent voices.

This home-grown suspense story, whilst having a small physical footprint in the Northumberland area, is very textured and atmospheric, wonderfully described and full of detail, so I would in no way call this a wasted journey for any confirmed ‘armchair travellers’ who would like to come along for the ride.

What always makes reading such a wonderful experience for me, is that with each and every new book, I am taken on a unique and individual journey, by authors who fire my imagination, stir my emotions and stimulate my senses, so I recommend that you read When We Were Young for yourself and see where your journey leads you!

I have loved the dual timeline of this book, this is a real opportunity for us to really get a full picture of the characters and make informed decisions about each of them.

I love a reunion book, however this shows the stark reality of individuals only seeing each other at events such as funerals. The mystery of this book is just superb, there are moments you feel claustrophobia and this shows the talent of this author.

This is a lively story when we flash back to the younger years. There is a clear contrast between the characters in the younger years to the older years.

This is a book I have devoured in just one sitting. I have loved this book and the events which have taken place, have taken me on a journey as I’ve read this one.

Goodwin is definitely and author I will be wanting to read more of. This is a great read and one I definitely recommend to other readers.

⭐⭐

I really don't have much to say about this one. I didn't love it. I am not really sure why. The synopsis made it sound like it would be right up my alley. but I just found it boring. They can't all be hit, right? 🤷🏻‍♀️

**ARC Via NetGalley**

Initially, I was not sure if this would be a read for me, as young characters can be a little hit or miss, but I decided to read it regardless.

I am pleased to say I enjoyed this fast-paced coming-of-age thriller about friendships, fitting in and revenge a lot more than I expected. With a suspenseful atmosphere and an intense and intriguing storyline, I definitely don’t have any regrets about picking this up!

The characters are well created, with all four girls taking on their unique roles within the friendship group. My feelings towards each of them changed as the plot developed and their flaws and insecurities became apparent. Admittedly, some behaviours were questionable, but readers will relate to a great set of characters.

The author’s writing style is easy to follow, and I enjoyed the duel timeline of the then and now. The history between these girls was told well without spoiling any concluding details. Some very sensitive issues are discussed throughout this storyline, but the author successfully prevents them from becoming too heavy.

Although the ending felt a little underwhelming and was not the greatest I’ve read, I am sure many readers will enjoy this character-driven story. This is based on my personal opinion, and it has not put me off reading future releases by this author.

“When We Were Young” is out now and recommended to all fans of this genre.

Seriously compelling!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this book in exchange for my review.

Literally just finished this and loved it! Following three best friends who haven't seen each other for 30 years, we are given snippets of their time at uni - fun filled boozey times - but all through the book were hints at more that happened.
I think this would make an excellent book club read, lots to discuss especially around the friendships - I think we all knew people like the characters and I would love to hear what others would do in their situation.
I really liked the dual timeline and the added mystery. This really added to the whole read and brought it all together.

An enjoyable read, who doesn’t love a dual timeline! I preferred the university storyline, the authors detailed writing enables you to get to know the characters (for some reason I preferred them when they were younger).

This is a slow burner, leading up to the truth of what happened, at times I would have liked a faster pace.

I look forward to reading more by the author

Stacey, Paula, Bev and Valentina were at Uni together. When Valentina dies, thirty years later, the other three, now in their fifties go to the funeral but they are the only ones there. They are each sent a request to go back to the place where they spent their uni days and fix their broken friendship...

Told in the past and present format (back to 1992 and now) I found When We Were Young highly engaging. The characterisation of the women's younger selves is very well done and the plot and mystery were intriguing. Very highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Head of Zeus via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

When We Were Young was told on dual timelines and I really enjoyed that. I guess what I actually enjoyed was that one timeline was as interesting as the other. That can sometimes be unusual in this kind of book. The timelines also gave a strong sense of the characters and who they were. The story was mostly focused on Stacey and Valentina. Valentina had to be one of the main characters but I found that Paula and Bev were as interesting as Stacey and could have gotten some more air time.

The mystery within When We Were Young is a good one. It certainly kept me intrigued and I finished the book pretty quickly as a result. However, I don’t think the book is so much of a “psychological thriller with a shocking twist” that the blurb advertises. I feel this was at least equal parts a thriller and a drama about old friends. Also, the twist was good but I certainly had my suspicions, which made it less shocking when it was revealed.

Overall, I did find this a very good book. I especially enjoyed the relationship between the friends. It seemed strong and genuine and I could truly believe them being friends if this were a real-life situation.

I loved the synopsis for this book and thought that it would be right up my street, as I am a big psychological thriller fan so I signed up to review.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, I found this to be a well-written and suspenseful story with plenty to keep you reading.

This is the first book by Dawn that I have read, but I am looking forward to reading more.

Thank you NetGalley and @dawngoodwin for letting me part of this tour and reviewing this book. I was really hooked to when we where young and found the storyline really intresting and gripping. This psychological thriller with a twist and i did guess right to the twist.The story is written in the past and present. Stacy , Paula and Bev go to there friends funeral Valentine. 30 years ago they went to uni togther. Stacy receives a letter about valentine death. I had mixed views about the characters there was time i liked them and then i chage my mind again. I really liked Dawn Goidein writing style and i will be teading more of her books in the future. 5 stars a very enjoyable read.

Today, is my spot on Rachel’s Random Resources blog tour for When We Were Young by Dawn Goodwin. I read this thriller as an ebook for this blog tour and I’m so happy that I took part on this tour as I loved this novel. This thriller was exciting, thrilling and unexpected. This novel tells a story of four friends who meet up at university but all is not what it seems. 30 years later, secrets, lies, guilt and grief remain.
I didn’t want to put this novel down once I started it, and it held my interest and attention better than most novels. When I picked up this thriller I did not expect it to be the way it was, and I was pleasantly surprised by its suspenseful and thrilling nature. It was twisted and wicked in places and overall a fantastic read. I loved discovering an author whose writing style I like. I’m hoping to read more by the author in the future. I also liked the character development in this novel, and discovering what the main characters were really like as the story unfolded.
I loved read this suspenseful thriller and if I could I would given this novel 6 stars. I’m giving this novel 5 stars because I think other readers will love this novel as well, especially if they are fans of thrillers or psychological thrillers.

When we were young is a fantastic read about uni friends Valentina, Bev, Stacey and Paula who were friends at university until the events of one fateful weekend. Thirty years later they reunite at Valentina’s funeral where Stacey receives a letter from Valentina asking the women to retrace their university haunts and mend their friendship. The story alternates between the past and the present and both timelines hold a mystery that keeps you interested.
The story alternates between the past and the present and both timelines held a mystery that keeps you interested.
With a well drawn cast of characters, an intriguing premise and an immersive storyline this has a solid mystery at its heart.
This is a very good thriller with a fabulous twist at the end. It’s intriguing and unique with characters that are well developed.

I enjoyed this book and would recommend to anyone who likes this genre.