This book was one of the ‘quiet’ reads that I sometimes enjoy. It was a slow burn but this time it worked for me. Rachel Goodchild is a 49 year old GP whose life is in a bit of a rut. She is married to teacher Nathan and has an adult daughter, Lizzie, who doesn’t really get on with her mother.

One afternoon she gets a late patient, Luc Lefevre, who is crying his eyes out in her room. She listens to him which is all he really wanted and she prescribes some anti depressants. She feels strangely attracted to him but will never see him again. Soon, she and Nathan are invited to a housewarming party in the newly renovated canonry in old Salisbury. Rachel is surprised to learn that Luc and his wife Ophelia are the new owners. Luc draws Rachel out into the garden and it is clear these two are hot for each other even though Luc is younger and they are both married. They start a brief affair which has far reaching and disastrous consequences.

This was beautifully written and the characters came alive for me. Most of them were not that likeable although I did have some some sympathy for Rachel. It is so easy for women of that age to feel invisible and undesirable. The story is set in Salisbury, England and a small village in Provence, France.

While the build up was slow, there were definitely things happening. Rachel often felt that someone was following her, watching her. Only she is way off base about who it was. The story roars to a fast paced, shocking conclusion where murder is afoot, truths are told, lies are told and betrayals are rife. Just when you think you have worked out what is happening it gets twisted again.

The story is ultimately an elaborate ploy in the service of naked greed. I think after a couple of fast paced murder thrillers this book was a pleasant counterpoint. There was, however, enough tension to satisfy those who enjoy a psychological thriller. I really enjoyed it. Many thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, Harper Fiction for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

Give me all the English fiction! I am always drawn to books that are set in England. I frequently look at British books and authors to see what’s out and what’s coming out. In the novel, The Patient by Jane Shemilt, Rachel is a doctor who lives in a wealthy neighborhood. She meets a French painter, married to an American woman, named Luc. She is drawn to him and suddenly she finds herself in an affair. With a patient. This is wrong, isn’t it?

But is Luc who he says? Should Rachel be scared? (yes)

What price would you pay for falling in love?

Rachel isa respected doctor who lives in a picturesque and affluent English village where her husband Nathan teaches at an elite private school. Competent, unflappable, and nearing 50, Rachel has everything in her life firmly in her control, even if some of its early luster has worn off. But one day a new patient arrives at her practice for emergency treatment. Luc is a French painter married to a wealthy American woman who’s just bought and restored a historic home on the edge of Rachel’s posh neighborhood. The couple has only recently arrived, but Luc is struggling with a mental disorder, and so he goes to the nearest clinic…to Rachel.

Their attraction is instant, and as Rachel’s sense of ethics wars with newly awakened passion, the affair blinds her to everything else happening around her. A longtime patient appears to be following her every movement, turning up unexpectedly wherever she goes. Her somewhat estranged adult daughter Lizzie is hiding a secret—or at least, hiding it from Rachel. Nathan has grown sour and cold as well—or is that merely Rachel’s guilty conscience weighing on her? But when one of her colleagues winds up murdered and Luc is arrested for the crime, everything Rachel didn’t know about her life explodes into the open—along with her affair with her patient—a disgrace and scandal that will have consequences no one could have predicted.

Coming out on May 3!

When Rachel, a GP at a surgery in Salisbury, meets Luc, he is sitting in her Dr's room professing potential suicidal thoughts. She treats him and thinks nothing more of him until they meet again at a new neighbours housewarming party. Luc is the new neighbours husband.
When Rachel starts feeling as though she is bring watched she can hardly imagine how get life is hoping to implode on her and the effect it has on others.
A quick enjoyable read for me, lovely descriptions of Salisbury City Centre and the Cathedral Close. Fairly predictable story line but an interesting one nonetheless.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the opportunity to read this advanced copy, my opinions are my own and I'm under no obligation to leave them

Thank goodness the book is beautifully written with an intriguing story as the main character, Rachel, is not likeable and medically unprofessional.

She is a 50 something year old GP in Salisbury. and one evening a good looking man turns up at her surgery with an emergency mental health issue. Her way of helping him, Frenchman Luc, seems to be falling in love with him and giving him drugs! He is also married.

This is a real page turner with excellent twists, lurching from Salisbury to France and involving French art masterpieces. Inevitably it was 'happy ever after'.

Thanks to Net Galley and Harper Collins UK for the chance to read and review.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for arc.

Rachel is a doctor and One evening Luc enters her surgery in a distressed state, he becomes her patient and that is the beginning of Rachel’s downfall.

The characters are not very likeable and I found it very hard to enjoy the book with such dislike for the characters, for me this was of putting and I found myself irritated by the main characters.

I found it to be a slow burner read for me, however it had a twist and I know this book will be enjoyable for many.

I would recommend giving this title a read as it was well written.

A slow burn with a light mystery thrown in. The storyline was ok, but it lacked something for me, the story just went along nicely and then it sped up during the last 10% of the book and then it ended. I was waiting for the wow moment but it just wasn’t there for me.

This book was obviously not for me but I’m sure other people will enjoy it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This drew me in right from the very beginning. The suspense and drama kept me hooked throughout. It’s a well crafted novel.

really enjoyed this book, it’s a really atmospheric and broody read.

I found Rachel so annoying, so unprofessional and meh 😂, to be fair most of the characters were annoying.

The storyline was really good, a slow burner which ended with a bang, tho some parts were a tad repetitive, over all this is a good domestic thriller and I plan to read more by the author.

Rachel Goodchild is a doctor in a community surgery. Married to Nathan who is chasing promotion at the local school where he teaches.
Luc is the patient that is Rachel's downfall.
I wasn't sure where this was heading to be honest and got a little bored. But by two thirds of the way through it really picked up pace.
The setting by Salisbury Cathedral made it feel very eerie, all those dark shadows had me holding my breath. The tension was palpable.
There were plenty of twists and red herrings to keep the reader guessing.
None of the characters were particularly likeable. Only Victoria, Rachel's friend and neighbour was likeable.
Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Rachel is a doctor and Luc her patient but there is an attraction between them .
He wants drugs and she gives them to him.
But what will happen if they are found out?

Couldn't get into this book,couldn't sympathise with the characters and the storyline was fairly predictable.

Too slow moving for me I’m afraid, with unsympathetic characters. The mother and daughter relationship was not at all believable and neither was the doctor/receptionist one. I’m afraid I guessed ‘whodunnit’ very early in the book. I stuck with it until the end, but it wasn’t for me I’m afraid.

Interesting characters, a compelling storyline and unexpected ending.
What more could you want?
I was really drawn into this story

I really enjoyed this book. Rachel is a 50 something year old GP in Salisbury. One evening a man turns up at her surgery with an emergency mental health issue. She talks to him and helps him out and there is clearly an attraction between them. It then transpires that he has moved in to Rachel's neighbourhood with his beautiful wife and young stepson. He and Rachel embark on an affair, but things go dramatically wrong when Luc is charged with a serious crime. This is a real page turner with some good twists, and will keep you guessing to the end. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

I really enjoyed this, the story arc was great and very unexpected.

The characters were likable and the story was well paced.

Enjoyable thriller/mystery although I struggled to like or care about the main character.

Mix of murder mystery and romance, I really wanted to know what happened but mainly for the surrounding characters as I didn’t find Rachel relatable-which is fine, I just want to cate a bit more about main characters. I’m not sure what it is about her.

Still a good read and did keep me wanting more.

Very descriptive, we meet Rachel as she starts going back over a series of events to work out what happened and why. Her job as a doctor is central to events and we have a few suspects to choose from as events unfold. Slowly, with her we, piece together what has happened and her part in it. Some very dysfunctional people and relationships come together. I was very surprised by the ending.

Wow what a gripping read!!
So many questions you start off with and then slowly peeling back the layers, i was pulled into this book i really wanted to know why Alicia killed her husband and what emotions run deep that she has been keeping.

A very well written book with a intriguing storyline. The characters are all interesting and I think that the author did a overall good job with the book. However it was all a little bit too unbelievable to me. But I'm sure others will love it.

Three stars from me means I believe the author has achieved all they set out to, but that I personally didn’t fall in love with the book.

One thing I did really appreciate was that, for me, this book encapsulates perfectly the warning we are always given about writing in first person - it has the advantage of letting the reader directly into the mind of the protagonist which allows us to examine thoughts, feelings and motives more specifically, but it means if a reader dislikes the character there’s a danger they’ll lose interest.

And, oh, my, did I find the protagonist, Rachel Goodchild, tedious. At first I was engaged by her off-kilter observations. For the first third of the book I assumed she was going to be an unreliable narrator who was justifying nefarious deeds to herself and, therefore, to us as readers. But, no. She turned out really to be trying to justify what she told us she was at the start - her distant relationship from her daughter, Lizzie.

And, unfortunately, I found Lizzie even more tedious. As a librarian myself, I initially thought I would be drawn into her world at the library more, but, no. Partly because we only see Lizzie through her mother’s self-obsessed eyes, the library, Lizzie’s flat, her friends, and her budding new romance are glimpsed very opaquely. Her distance is put down by Rachel to feeling her mother was more interested in her than in her career. Well ... I’m not convinced. The world is peopled by busy professionals and their children who grow up to understand their parents were just ordinary humans doing the best they could. Is Lizzie then just particularly childish and unaccepting? Is she a bit rude and odd? Or is it because we can only see her through Rachel’s eyes? Maybe Lizzie is distant because her mother is so self-obsessed she needs to protect herself? I don’t know. What I do know is we are treated to a portrait of a very rude, disobliging woman whom I find it impossible to believe would be employed by any library.

Ditto Rachel’s husband. Are we supposed to see him as controlling? All that wrist-holding and the marital rape scene. I mean, I know what I feel about it, but I’m not sure what I was meant by the author to feel?

And then the patient himself. Again, is it Rachel’s self-obsession or is he really the shallow stereotype he seems?

All in all, it’s clear to me that this is a good book if, unlike me, you can get along with or at least not object to Rachel’s thought processes. It’s very well-written, and despite the odd backstory of two of the main characters, very believable. I just wish I had found Rachel, her viewpoint, and, because we only have her viewpoint, therefore all the other characters, less tedious. Mea culpa, perhaps. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.