I was a bit disappointed by this story. It had great potential but it built up and up to nothing. The ending was very frustrating and the characters not very likeable. The constant passive aggressive conversations between the two women were annoying, more than anything else. Such a shame because the story itself could have been so much more. ( )

Polly is Rose’s oldest friend, so when Polly’s husband Christos is killed in a road accident, Rose doesn’t think twice about inviting Polly and her two sons to stay with Rose and her husband Gareth, and their children. But soon after Polly, with her wild ways and dangerous habits moves into Rose’s carefully ordered life, things start going wrong. As Rose watches her own world starting to fall apart, she realises one thing – now that Polly is there, it’s going to be hard to get her out again.

I thought this psychological thriller was pretty good. It was certainly fast paced, with lots of twists and turns, and I found it hard to put down. The characters were well drawn, although none of them was especially likeable. I did find myself rooting for Rose at the beginning of the story, but about halfway through I got exasperated with her reactions to certain events. Gareth was difficult to like, although there was a backstory which went some way to explaining his moods, and Polly was so selfish and thoughtless that I was amazed that either Rose or Gareth could stand being in her company for more than a couple of days.

The story is told in the third person, but from Rose’s point of view, which added to the suspense, especially as events took a firmer hold on her, and she became a more unreliable narrator. I did think some of the phrasing was a bit clunky (a particular example was, “A dull nausea, like the smell of new carpet, began to seep into her toes…” Is the smell of new carpet particularly nauseous?!) but overall it did not detract from the action, and certainly did not stop me from reading faster and faster as I got towards the end, because I was eager to see how things turned out.

There were a few loose ends and unanswered questions at the end of the story, but the major plot line was resolved, although not in the way I had hoped for. However, I would recommend this book to fans of thrillers – it’s exciting and tense enough to be devoured in just one or two sittings, and I look forward to reading more books by Julia Crouch. ( )

This book would make a great film. Well drawn characters and a gripping plot. I thoroughly enjoyed it. ( )

Ever read a novel where the 'protagonist' is just so horrifically obnoxious that you hope they will soon suffer an inventive and drawn out demise? That was me with Rose Cunningham, the saggy housewife who finds her dull domestic existence taken over by her creepy and cadaverous best friend Polly. The first half of the novel reminded me of the daytime TV show Escape to the Country, where pretentious city 'bankers' decide they would like to invest obscene amounts of money in a rural retreat, but never buy anything because their demands are so ridiculous and contrary, like a spacious cottage or modern period features. Rose the drippy housefrau and her 'troubled' husband Gareth the 'cerebral artist' would be right at home on that programme, raising chickens and popping out in the people carrier to Waitrose. (Rose actually has a 'special wicker basket' for shopping at the farmers' market, so she feels like a proper 'village woman'!) I was sort of glad when Polly the drug-raddled, skinny and self-absorbed 'heroin' appeared on the scene to destroy the dream.

Crass characters and product placement aside, Julia Crouch's debut novel is a fast-paced and strangely engrossing read - I got through the whole sorry saga in a day. Rose, Gareth and Polly also carry enough 'emotional baggage' to save any of them from complete lifelessness - Rose is a born victim, which goes some way to explaining the monumentally stupid decisions she keeps making, like trusting Polly again and again, and Gareth has issues from the start, so nobody really notices him getting stranger under Polly's spell. And even though the dialogue is trite, Crouch injects just enough middle-class realism into her writing to make the story convincing.

Really, though, what spurred me on towards the end was hoping that either Rose would get some sense knocked into her - stop drinking and take better care of your children, woman! - or meet a satisfyingly sticky end. The sudden switches in her personality from capable mum to paranoid victim and back to resourceful heroine made my head spin, but hoping that she would learn her lesson was too much to expect. The final chapters were equally random, including a flying visit to Brighton and my favourite use of caps, 'SHOPPING AT WAITROSE'. As Rose herself says, 'We've all been idiots. It's like we're making it up as we go along'.

The messy ending also left me with a few unanswered questions, like what did they find down the drain if not the cat, what happened to the replacement kitten, and is what Gareth did to Rose in bed even physically possible? If she was that accommodating, then no wonder he wanted to jump Polly's protruding bones! ( )

When I sat down to start reading Julia Crouch's debut novel I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. The synopsis appears to give you an idea of what the book is but as you get drawn deeper and deeper within the book the plot almost seems to swallow you in. I found that the further into the book I got the harder it was to put down, I was more and more gripped with the more I read.

The major characters are all really well written. I found them to be very three dimensional, no character was all good or all bad. I loved that it was written from Rose's perspective, I found that when she was wondering about what was going on I was wondering too. Within in this I liked the fact it was written in the third person rather than the first - for me this helped to build the suspense.

Cuckoo feels very realistic as you read it. I think it taps into the world of friendship so well, most people will find thoughts that resonate with how they've felt about a friendship in the past. I think the fact it is so believable makes it all the more creepy. There are twists and turns throughout the book, but the ending still managed to blow me away. This was a book that stayed with me for days, I kept catching my thoughts wandering back to it.

If this is what Julia Crouch writes for a debut novel I'm very excited to see what's going to come next. ( )