The Girl Before was a great book. My Darling Daughter not so much. Playing Nice restored the faith – the quickest read in a long time although probably not the best choice when your daughter’s expecting identical twins who will probably be delivered prematurely by C-section and spend some time in NICU!

Pete Riley and Maddie Wilson. Miles and Lucy Lambert. Two couples. Two premature baby boys transported from the same private hospital to the same NHS Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the same time. Two years later Miles materialises on Pete’s doorstep to deliver the devasting news – the boys were mixed up at birth and each has been raising the other’s biological son.

The nightmarish, domino-effect chain of events that unfold are told from Pete’s point of view, Maddie’s point of view and case note documentation in over one hundred super short chapters with both characters and plot developing at breakneck speed keeping the reader reeling, the mind buzzing and the pages turning.

This is a book you can race through without having to invest too heavily in the characters. It’s full of dark and disturbing twists. It questions parenting practice versus a child’s needs, nature versus nurture, nice or just playing nice.
I was gripped from start to finish and just desperately wanted to know what happened in the end – and I wasn’t disappointed. ( )

The premise of this book intrigued me. Can two families actually make this sort of arrangement work? Are there hidden agendas? Reading this book, it is in someways easy to figure out what is going to happen, but the means taken to get there are downright stunning as to what lengths people are capable of going to in order to get what they want. The end result is also typical however it is not the end of the story. It was definitely enough to keep me turning the pages anxious for it all to come together. ( )

Playing Nice or just Playing?

J.P Delany books are one of the few books on any book platform that I recommend to anyone without even needing to think. If You love thrillers or an outside of the box concept these books are truly for you. I started my reading love with The Girl Before and never really stopped. Now lets talk about Playing Nice. The story begins with Pete and his partner Maddie have an adorable and precocious (get into everything) son named Theo. Pete is a stay at home dad after his job as a freelance reporter disappears. Miles and Lucy Lambert are the wealthy parents of little David, not precocious, in fact barely aware of his surroundings. Pete and Maddie don’t believe any of this until they decide they go to the home of the Lamberts and meet David.
After meeting they make a pact not only to try and have a good relationship for the sake of the kids but also to make an alliance against the hospital who made the mistake. The more pages I turned the more I realized that I wasn’t sure if the hospital had made a mistake or there was another evil entity that is at play here. I love the couple dynamic that occurs with Maddie and Pete. I also have a soft spot for both kids they are innocent in this whole story. This was a very good slow burn book for me. It gave me the creeps and was layered with deception and questions all the way through. I want to apologize to NetGalley and everyone involved in my delay with this review I did actually finish it in July just never realized my review never went through. Hands down a five star review I can not wait to see what is next. ( )

Did not care for psychological baby switch storyline. After a few chapters, I had to put it down. ( )

3.5 great suspenseful, psychological thriller ( )