I've was intrigued by the stunning cover (gorgeous colours) and the immediately hook-worthy title and synopsis. This follows three housemates and one of their dates who get trapped in the attic, when the door handles breaks off, and their kitchen is flooding. How will they get out?
The narratives switches from each of the four characters, who are:
- Ellen - in her late 20s, fun and vivacious, but stuck in a menial job.
- Alexis - Ellen's best friend since they met in university. She's a civil worker, responsible and quiet. The complete opposite of Ellen.
- Jack - their housemate. He's tall and lanky, with a somewhat awkward personality.
- Ben - Alexis' date, who previously ghosted her.

The opening set-up was great. The writing was snappy and I adored all four of these sweet and relatable characters. There was lots of humour in the dialogue, and their interactions. Unfortunately the plot slowly fizzles out and there just wasn't enough plot keeping me hooked. There were lots of flashback scenes describing these characters' lives, but story wise it just pulled me out and I wanted more tension and energy in the plot. On the whole not a bad read. A sweet, funny contemporary read.

This was a really bizarre read. There were some chapters of this book that were incredible - the humour, the writing, the character's personalities shining through and the plot being so gripping that it was hard to stop reading.
And then there were the other half of chapters that were just void of anything worthwhile. The characters felt flat, the humor was gone, the writing felt clunky and slow and all the fun and excitement of the plot seemed to just disappear. With such a fun and unique plot idea so much more could have been done with it but the author seemed to shy away from all the interesting setting based shenanigans that could have occurred and instead went for a lot of flashbacks which pulled you out of the interesting stuff to get some fluff of a backstory that had no bearing on the characters now or the plot that was developing.
And then when the end came around and they were finally able to get out, everything just went back to usual. There was no impact or development because of what happened. You could argue that there was for Jack but that was it. Everyone else left basically the same as when it started so the end just felt really flat and deflating. (except for the MSN plot - that was brilliant the whole way through)
Overall not the best read, but there were definitely redeemable instances throughout.

Talk about a book I couldn’t put down! My first day off in weeks and I’ve been curled up on the couch all day with this joy of a book!
The story begins with Ellen waking up to find the ground floor of their house share flooded. After waking her housemates, and an overnight guest, they all congregate in the attic where the houseguest accidentally breaks the door handle, locking them in.
Over the course of time, the story is told by all 3 - Ellen, Alexa and Jack - with humour and interest. Ben is revealed to share a past with one housemate - but which one and why?

I really enjoyed this book - it made me smile and laugh and cringe and inwardly cheer at different points.
Thank you NetGalley for my copy and would recommend to anyone who enjoyed The Flatshare.

Unfortunately The Lock In wasn't really my kind of book - I'm not a big fan of commercial fiction that isn't romance-focused, so it might be that I'm the wrong reader for this book! I enjoyed the nostalgia of the flashbacks and the depiction of London life, but I wasn't a fan of the writing style - it was too distanced for me to really inhabit the characters' minds - and the locked attic scenario wasn't as exciting as I had anticipated.

What a fun read!

Ellen and her best friend Alexa have lived together for the best part of 10 years.
Currently living in a London house share with new comer Jack, the housemates live in fear of Elias, their rude, arrogant and frankly, scary landlord!

One Saturday morning, Ellen awakes with a hangover to find their kitchen is filling with water at an alarming rate and panicked, she alerts the household and they find themselves searching for the stop tap.

Finding themselves in the attic, the three housemates are about to give up and face the warth of Elias when Alexa’s ‘hinge’ date, Ben walks in, accidentally breaks the door and locks them all in the attic!


This story was a light, entertaining read. The little back story plots really added to the tension of the attic and I really warmed to the shy and awkward character of Jack!

I’d love to see a Ben and Alexa follow up story, as I feel I could have read so much more about these
two!