A great read. Strong characters that you get to know as the story of an illicit love affair unfolds. Only as the story is reaching the climax do we get to know the darker side of the story and it changes from a casual romance to something far more sinister. A story you wont want to end, but you have to know the truth, which is worse than you imagined. I will look out for this author again, crisp writing and perfect tension.

I very much enjoyed this book ,although it starts quite dramatically with the death of Frank travelling from France to Heathrow ,the pace of the book then draws us into all the secrets from the past that come back to haunt .This book is all about relationships and betrayal and secrets .I found all the characters very self absorbed and not at all likeable except Jem and Walter ,Frank was simply horrible .This all made for a very enjoyable read which was interesting and very well written with a very satisfying conclusion .Many thanks to the Publishers the Author and NetGalley for my review copy in return for an honest review .

When Frank drops dead abruptly at Heathrow, his estranged daughter Jem travels to his home in France to arrange his effects. She learns that Frank has a son she knew nothing about. With no other living relatives, she soon resolves to make contact with the son, throwing his family into chaos.

The Frank Business has just the kind of writing I enjoy, close observation of a small canvas, casting a wry eye over characters who are in conflict with themselves as much as the people around them. The author plays gleefully with our expectations too.

When we see Frank’s last night, he seems an amiable character. He is an artist, living alone in a farmhouse in Provence, listening to Radio 4 on his laptop as he paints a Christmas card for the neighbours who insist on sharing the day with him, a kindness he could do without. For Brits of a certain age and class, this is the dream life, and it seems natural to include Frank in that warm embrace. But as the novel progresses a rather more complicated picture emerges.

Similarly, Frank’s son is part of an outwardly successful and happy family, working in the media and the arts and enjoying a comfortable London life. Even when they bicker they are witty and stylish. Jem’s bombshell forces issues to the surface that might otherwise have been comfortably avoided.

The author has a lovely, arch voice. She deftly combines humour and some very dark and difficult episodes as the characters confront the past and their relationships. Then suddenly it all goes wrong. The ending is rushed, key events take place off camera, and those complex and contrary characters suddenly fall into an implausibly neat ending.

I realise there’s an injustice here. It’s the end that stays with us. If the middle portion of the book had been baggy but she’d pulled it back in the final chapters, all would be forgiven. But for me, she has raised some very interesting questions and then shied away from answering them.

There is so much that’s great about this book, I would still recommend it. For myself, I want to forget how it ended and remember the good times.

This is a book that seems to defy genre; it has family at its heart but the main characters don't quite seem to be people tou would expect then to be. I enjoyed it, cleverly written and perceptive.

When Frank dies suddenly. It opens a can of worms and leads to some tricky problems for his family.
Although I enjoyed the witty, assured style of this novel, I still found it difficult to engage with. The characters are self absorbed and superficial. With one, possibly two, exceptions it is impossible to warm to them and so I really didn't care what happened to them.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC

I enjoyed The Frank Business by Olivia Glazebook very much. It’s about a rather dysfunctional family in crisis and it begins dramatically - when Frank dropped down dead on Christmas Eve at London Heathrow airport, having travelled from his home in France. His next of kin is his estranged daughter Jem, who hadn’t seen him or had any contact with him since she was a child. Trying to find out why he was at Heathrow, she travelled to Frank’s house and discovers that she was not an only child as she had believed, because Frank had also had a son. She finds his name and address on Frank’s laptop and as Frank had died of a congenital heart defect, she decides that she has to warn her half-brother that he may have inherited the defect. But this results in chaos for his son’s family as secrets from the past come to light.

At first I liked Frank, an illustrator. He had been listening to a performance of Hamlet on the radio and was astonished to find that Kathleen Griffin was playing Gertrude with her son Scott playing the role of Hamlet. He had had a brief affair with Kathleen years earlier and on googling Scott he realises that they look so alike that he must be his son. He decides he must see Kathleen to discover the truth.

It quickly becomes clear that Frank is not the nice man I had first imagined – he’s a violent, cruel man, capable of abusive and despicable behaviour. Just what is the truth? What had happened in the past – why hadn’t Jem, a young woman of 26, not seen Frank since she was a small child and why was she brought up by a guardian, Marian, who had been her mother’s nanny?Scott, known to his family as Sonny, had no idea that Walter was not his biological father and the whole family find it almost impossible to come to terms with their situation.

I’m not going into any more detail about the plot, other than to say that the whole sad story is revealed as Kathleen remembers the past and her affair with Frank. It’s well written and had me gripped right to the end. The characters are all flawed in one way or another and come across as real people. I read it quickly, keen to find out how they sorted out the mess this has made of all their lives and my only criticism is that the ending seems a bit rushed and I think it wraps everything up a bit too neatly.

Frank wasn't a particularly nice man. He had an 'artistic' temperament - which seemed to mean in his case that he was a skilled painter who drank a lot and was cruel to other people - to the death of other people. His wife was lovely - everyone thought so. Kathleen, who became his lover, was a narcissist.

We begin as Frank dies on his way to confront Kathleen, who, he has discovered, had his son after a two week affair. Kathleen is relieved that he didn't manage to do that, but Jem, his daughter needs to talk to Kathleen's son - Jem's half brother - as Frank died of a genetic heart problem and he needs testing for it. It makes for a chaotic Christmas for them all - except Frank.

What a delicious read about family dynamics and consequences of keeping secrets!

Frank Martell finds out, quite by accident, that he has a grown-up son and sets off from his home in France to find his mother in London. However, a fatal heart attack in Heathrow airports ends his quest. There is no way Frank could have known the rumpus his discovery causes with both his natural daughter - estranged, and the Griffin family where the boy and his mother are ensconced in family life.

This is an enticing read; the author has a keen eye for the fragility of family relationships and how the ups and downs of everyday life affects this. The Griffins are no ordinary family though - mother Kathleen and son Scott - or Sonny, as he is known - are both actors, whilst father Walter is a war photographer and daughter Lauren is involved in the technical side of films. As their lives become entwined with Jem, the only daughter of Frank, who comes to warn them about the genital heart condition which affected her father, the effects ricochet through each of them. We find out in retrospect what happened in the past to the main characters and what kind of person Frank was. 

My attention never wandered from this one .. it is a compelling read and one I enjoyed from first to last. The characters - good or bad - are all true to life; the circumstances they all find themselves in are believable too and the result is an attention grabbing read which made me desperate to find out where it was all heading. I'm delighted that, at the end of the book, everything was neatly finished off and every question raised was satisfactorily answered. A really rewarding read, and another author to watch out for in future. Another 5* read!

My thanks to publisher John Murray Press for my copy via NetGalley. This is my honest opinion and unbiased review.

The Frank Business was a delight and not at all as I expected. After Frank dies at Heathrow Airport all sorts of problems crop up for his estranged daughter Jem. The storytelling is vivid with lots of twists and turns that I didn't see coming. I read it over three bedtimes and would have started another Olivia Glazebrook title immediately if I had one.
Get a glass of wine and start reading ....... It is a superb read. A great book club read as there is plenty to discuss.

This book has a great opening, it really catches your attention, and makes you feel sympathy for Frank who dies so painfully and abruptly. What follows reveals Frank as a destructive man who cared for no-one, and whose thoughtless actions had far-reaching effects on those he came into contact with.

The plot is not remarkable, although it is good, it's the characters, the pertinent observations of what motivates people to react in certain ways, and most importantly how families work in a contemporary society that resonates with this story.

All the characters are authentically flawed and most are not particularly likeable, but they are understandable. Even though the family dynamics are magnified, the interactions between mother and son, father and daughter and husband and wife are recognisable.

The pacing suits this type of book and the characters and settings are full of vivid imagery, which makes this an easy but definitely intriguing read.

I received a copy of this book from John Murray Press via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

A quick easy read. Franks death turns a family upside down and changes all of their lives. This is a story about love and betrayal and people not always being what they seem.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

An interesting read, not a stereo-typical tale, of family dynamics. The characters are well drawn and come to life. It is easy to dislike the self-obsessed actress and the eponymous Frank and the likeable Jem, exasperating Scott.
An interesting telling of the history a family.

The Frank Business is a very enjoyable read about a more or less functional (if pretty self absorbed), family whose lives are turned upside down by revelations of the mother’s past infidelity. The author deftly deals with some serious incidents without the book becoming heavy. Her lightness of touch belies the very clever structure - she moves from the present to the past and back again to reveal surprising aspects of the characters who we think we know, I happily read it in one day.

Frank receives a shock Frank runs to Heathrow ,Frank collapses and dies at Heathrow and the story begins.Drew me right in who is this man why is he considered a monster .As the story unfolds as new characters are introduced more and more is explained.I was completely involved till the last page .#netgalley #johnmurray

This book starts with us feeling sorry for Frank but we soon learn that he is a most unpleasant person and we don't want to like him at all. A number of interesting characters are introduced although I felt that there was a shallowness to most of them. The ending ties up neatly - fortunately there is a reasonable amount of forgiveness!

This is a difficult one to review. I absolutely loved it at first. The writing seemed witty, smooth and wise. The novel starts with the death of the eponymous character, Frank. His estranged daughter, Jem, is left to deal with the aftermath. And what an aftermath it is. Frank has died from an aneurism in his heart from an inherited condition. Jem is left knowing that she too could die from this at any moment. Traumatised, she flees to her father's home in France and discovers he had an illegitimate son. She needs to tell him this devastating news.
The characterisation is superb. Sonny, the illegitimate son, is arrogant, horrible to everyone and just a general adolescent boy (aged 25+) who hasn't really grown up. His mother Kathleen, an actress, is self absorbed and thinks of no-one but herself. The scenes where she has the affair with Frank in France leading to the conception of their son are superb. Frank is a monster.

So if I had read only to the outlining of the affair with Frank I would be giving this 5 stars, But as it went on I grew weary of the characters' self absorption. But then it suddenly changed tack and the ending was just not realistic and in line with the characters at all. Characters have to develop, not just suddenly change direction.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC of this book.

This was a bit of an odd book. Difficult to fit it into any particular genre. Odd because none of the characters were your normal run of the mill people. Nevertheless I really enjoyed it. It’s a compelling read, well I thought so, it certainly kept me interested. Yet I’m really struggling with what to say. That’s annoying because I really wanted to do this book justice.

It’s a story of family, a story of betrayal, of insecurity and hurt. It’s what happens when secrets are kept, when lies are told and when parenting skills fall far short of what they should be.

I enjoyed all the characters in the book. Some weren’t that likeable, but this made the book all the more interesting when you’d read and think ‘I can’t believe you just said that’ while shaking your head in disbelief. That makes the book come to life in my opinion.

With the exception of Jem and Lauren – Sonny’s sister, most of the characters in the book were quite self absorbed people with their selfishness often being a source of hurt for each other. Frank definitely wasn’t likeable being the deeply insecure, manipulative, somewhat obsessive man that he was. A bully, controlling, cold and callous yet it’s his influence and existence that has created the situations all the other characters find themselves in. His actions ripple outward leaving sometimes devastating consequences for those around him. One reviewer describes it as a gentle story with no violence. I do beg to differ on that opinion. Frank’s behaviour and attitude did verge on misogyny on more than one occasion with an often volatile disposition, especially under the influence of alcohol. Although the opening of the book is at the point just before Frank dies, it does go back in time where we learn the background in to how certain characters have evolved through to the present and how their contact with Frank has affected them.

I would say it’s a story of family dynamics, it is well written, absorbing and well worth a read. It was a little too neatly sewn up at the end perhaps and for such a selfish bunch of people they were incredibly forgiving but then maybe their forgiveness was in the name of self preservation rather than understanding.

I really enjoyed this deftly written tale about a complicated family.

Frank has a sudden realisation that sends him to Heathrow only to die in Arrivals. His estranged daughter Jem visits his house in France to try to work out what he was in England for, only to find out that he'd just discovered a son he'd never met. A son who would be the same age as her...

She immediately sets about finding her half-brother and inadvertently (okay, not that inadvertently) sows chaos into his family life. Sonny doesn't know who he is any more. His mother is forced to re-examine the sort of person she was when she had the affair with Frank. Her husband wonders if he still has a place in her life. Sonny's sister is left picking up the pieces. And Jem is forced to remember her own past, and the last time she saw Frank...

We soon find out that Frank was a violent, horrible man who damaged everyone around him. Yet I grew to enjoy meeting every other character in the book. Even at their most selfish they were interesting and sharp and witty. I believed that they had lives beyond the pages.

It does end reasonably abruptly - the book starts with Jem as an almost lead but by the end she is one among the cast, and I had expected to spend more time with her - but I didn't mind that because I enjoyed the journey.

I'd definitely read more by this author.

This book was engaging from the start. Who was Kathleen and how did Frank know her? You get to know the answers to this as you get further into the novel. Was it because of Kathleen that Frank became the monster that he was it was he already like that? Would things have been different if she had lived in France with him and left poor Walter? I would highly recommend this and thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this before it was published.

Frank listens to Hamet on the radio and then looks up the actors in the lead roles. He realises that Sonny who plays Hamlet is his son so books a flight to London from France. But he dies at the airport. What a start to a well written book that reveals a past and a present that is highly complicated and do very intriguing. A great rad, enjoy!