Nicole Graves engages in a summer long house swap of her Los Angeles condo with a strangers’ house in London. What could possibly go wrong?
The Swap is told from Nicole’s point of view, an American staying in Britain. In her own style she forms opinions of the British way of life and her spelling is American English. So it was quite funny for me being British, living and working in Britain, reading a book set in Britain BUT written by an American, centred around an American character using American English spelling! Still, I would NOT allow the cultural and spelling differences to spoil my enjoyment of this book. So I started this book with an open mind. And WOW! Right from the start, this book is a cracker!
The Swap is a psychological thriller, not only is Nicole having doubts about everyone around her but these doubts niggle the reader big time as warning flags fly up on every page. Who can be trusted and can Nicole muddle through her summer in London?
I really engaged with this story and it got my mind buzzing. Everybody Nicole came into contact with, including her husband Brad, had my suspicions raised. Was everybody in this tale dodgy?
I found the pace of this novel good and the plot was very involved indeed. I liked all the little hints here and there, this doesn’t seem right and that doesn’t seem right. The story made me alert to all those little details as Nicole muddled around.
I found it nice that Nancy has done her homework on London and has used real locations for her story. It is one of my pet hates when authors use real place names but invent the local scenes.
Many things within the story made me chuckle for example…
She took the tube to Harrods. By the time she got there is was almost 3:30 p.m., and she remembered she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She sought out the escalator and headed up to the enormous dining room. The sign read “Afternoon Tea; £29.” Why not?
...Gosh! Woman, £29 for an afternoon tea! Why not live like a local and pop into Greggs or Wetherspoons?
...And also this brought back memories…
The she remembered what Muriel had explained in one of her messages. The car had a choke she was supposed to pull out as she started the engine. Or was she supposed to push it in? She stared at it a moment, then jumped at the sound of someone tapping on the car window.
...Oh that brings back memories, old petrol engined cars with a manual choke. I doubt if there are any petrol cars in London nowadays so old that they have a manual choke fitted to a carburettor, as most petrol cars are now petrol injected. Things have come on a long way in the last 30 or 40 years. I remember the old days when you used to push the cold start button in on the right hand side of the injector pump to start a Ford R114 coach - these turbo powered diesel engines produced 140bhp - don’t laugh, they were always better to drive than a Bedford YMT.
...Then I found an American expression that we do not have but would be more word efficient for us to use…
On the other side, the card offered a twofer coupon for an Indian restaurant.
...Ah? A “twofer” - oh, yes, I get it now, a two for one coupon!
The Swap is a contemporary novel set in present day London, however…
In the kitchen, she sat down at the table and dumped out the contents of the purse-her wallet, makeup case, a few loose coins, a pack of Kleenex. Next, she emptied the wallet, pulling out her dwindling supply of pound notes, receipts, credit cards. No slip of paper.
...Sorry Nancy, but pound notes were withdrawn from circulation in 1988. But that would be nitpicking and takes nothing away from my enjoyment of The Swap.
I loved reading The Swap and found it a pleasure to read. I can find nothing wrong with this book, so it gets the top score of 5 stars from me.
The Swap is Nancy’s debut novel and she ticks all the boxes for me. I look forward to reading another novel from her as she clearly has the talent to write an engaging and well plotted novel.
The Swap was written in 2017 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.
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