Playing Nice

By JP Delaney

Psychological Thriller

My Review

Playing Nice is about two families who discover their babies were swapped at birth and each has been raising a child not biologically theirs. To begin with both families get along fine and cooperate — agreeing not to swap the toddlers back but to involve the other couple in the children's lives. But it doesn't take long before things start to go terribly wrong — one couple wants custody of BOTH children and will stop at nothing to get it.

I haven't read anything by JP Delaney until now and I was quite impressed with this one. I really enjoyed the twists and turns which made it an exciting and suspenseful read.

Main characters were fully developed and could easily have been real people. As with most psychological thrillers, plenty of secrets were revealed along the way. The ending was both unpredictable and satisfying. I thought it was a quality read.

Book Source: Review copy from the publisher

My Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Paperback: 400 pages

Publisher: Quercus (18th Feb 2021)

The Blurb

Pete Riley is a stay-at-home dad; his partner Maddie works in advertising. After Pete drops two-year-old Theo off at nursery one morning, he's politely accosted by a man who looks just like Theo.

The man, Miles Lambert, breaks the devastating news that Theo is in fact not Pete's son, but his - the two babies got mixed up at hospital, and Miles and his wife Lucy now have the Rileys' son at home. They've already carried out DNA testing to prove it.

The two couples agree that, rather than swap the children back, they'll try to involve each other in the children's lives. But a plan to sue the hospital triggers an official investigation that unearths some disturbing questions about just how the babies got mixed up.

And when Theo is thrown out of nursery for hitting other children, Pete and Maddie have to ask themselves: how far do they want this arrangement to go? What are the secrets hidden behind the Lamberts' smart front door? And how much can they trust the real parents of their child - or even each other?

The Author

JP Delaney is a pseudonym for a writer who has previously written fiction under other names. 

Delaney is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Girl Before, which is being brought to the screen by Academy Award winners Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment.

Author Links:

Website