Best Friends 4 Ever?

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER? Watching Edie by Camilla Way Watching Edie is a psychological suspense novel set in a small West Midlands town and south-east London. The title character of Edie is living in London with her new baby when her ex-friend Heather comes back into her life. But there is a dark secret between them. The trouble is, this secret is not revealed until the book is nearly over but is alluded to all the way through and this becomes a bit annoying after a while. There have been a number of psychological suspense novels lately that coast along with not much happening and rely wholly on the quality of the twist at the end - Local Girl Missing, springs to mind. The problem with this approach is that even if the twist is a brilliant one you still have to trawl through a (usually) pretty average book to get there. And, despite the quality of much of the writing, this is partly the case with Watching Edie. There's nothing wrong with the book per se - and parts of it are very well written - but it's just nothing you haven't read before. After reading dozens of recent psychological suspense novels, I've come to the conclusion that I don't really like the kitchen sink variety unless they're police procedurals (it's just a matter of taste, I think). But when it comes to psychological suspense/thrillers, I prefer my books a bit more on the imaginative, fantastical, if not downright weird side - like Sophie Hannah, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, S. K. Tremayne's The Ice Twins or The Last Thing I Remember by Deborah Bee. Watching Edie one of those "domestic thrillers" - an oxymoron if ever there was one - and for most of the book, it relates the usual teen stuff in the flashbacks about school and boyfriends, while the present-day thread describes Edie's struggle with being a new mum. Again, there's nothing wrong with this for a while but it's only halfway through that the book grows darker and more interesting, for reasons I won't go into here. This is a shame, as from this point on, the book becomes much more interesting and I found myself whizzing through the last part of the book to find out what happens. Another admirable thing about the book is the darkness and complexity of the characters, who are very convincing and three-dimensional and were very well done. Overall, Watching Edie is an enjoyable book but a little too slow and earthbound for my tastes. But, if you like your psychological thrillers with a large dollop of realism, then this should suit you down to the ground. 3/5 I would like to thank Netgalley for a copy of this book in return for a balanced review.