Release date: February 22, 2022

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Genre:

Synopsis:

When money and lies come between Faiza and her husband, Faiza will do anything to fix it, even if it means taking risks that could ruin their lives forever–if she’s caught.

At the school gates, Faiza fits in. It took a few years, but now the snobbish white mothers who mistook her for the nanny treat her as one of their own. She’s learned to crack their subtle codes, speak their language of fashion and vacations and haircuts. You’d never guess, seeing her at the trendy kids’ parties and the leisurely coffee mornings, that her childhood was spent being bullied and being ashamed of her poor Pakistani immigrant parents. When her husband Tom loses his job in finance, he stays calm. Something will come along, and in the meantime, they can live off their savings. But Faiza starts to unravel. Creating the perfect life and raising the perfect family comes at a cost – and the money Tom put aside has gone. Faiza will have to tell him she spent it all.

Unless she doesn’t…

It only takes a second to lie to Tom. Now Faiza has mere weeks to find $100,000. If anyone can do it, Faiza can. She’s had to fight for what she has, and she’ll fight to keep it. But as the clock ticks down and Faiza desperately tries to put things right, she has to ask herself: how much more should she sacrifice to live someone else’s idea of the dream life?

Review:

This is a tricky one for me because there was plenty that I enjoyed and I was definitely entertained by this one, but there was also plenty that didn’t work so well for me either. The first half really held my attention, Faiza was digging herself a huge hole with all of her lies that I wondered how she would ever climb out of it and honestly, I was totally hooked. I think about halfway in is where I started to lose interest. I think it was too long, seriously one hundred pages could’ve been cut and it would’ve been fine, there were some side plots and characters that just didn’t add anything of value to the story, unnecessary for me personally. I did appreciate what the author was trying to say about money and class and I loved reading about the desi culture as well. But overall this one just ended up being a middle of the road read for me as so many of the plot points were silly and too over the top for me, they ventured into the unbelievable and absurd unfortunately. However the audio narration was top notch so if you’re gonna give this one a shot I can definitely recommend that version.

Overall rating: 3/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.