"Strangers" by C.L. Taylor

An audio book set in Bristol.

Alice Fletcher, clothes shop mananger, is 46. Lynn's her friend. She lives with her daughter Emily. She's dating. She's helped by Simon when she's mugged by a date. Simon dates her. She gets anonymous warnings about him. He tells her he was about to marry then called it off.

Gareth failed to get into the police. He's been a shopping centre security officer for 25 years. He has a demented mother and a father who disappeared years before. A spiritualist/psychic, William McAsee, has been given a donation by his mother. She's been receiving cards - "To my darling Joan ... John". From McAsee? Gareth's being blackmail for £500 by a subordinate, Liam Dumford, because he'd taken an unannounced break.

Ursula, tall and fat, ex-teacher, shop-lifts to order, and delivers parcels. She has to move out of a house-share with Charlotte. She moves in with eccentric Edward. She wonders what is in his cellar. She used to be in an affair with Nathan but we died in a street fight. She thinks a woman that she delivers parcels to is being abused by her husband, Wilson. He complains, and gets her sacked. But she's right.

3 men have gone missing. One of them is Liam. Gareth is questioned.

Alice goes to the cinema with Simon. She sees Ursula in the audience. Simon suddenly says they have to leave. He breaks off the relationship. She's puzzled. She discovers that he's an ex DJ who did pranks. He's being stalked and threatened.

Gareth's mother disappears. He thinks that Georgia, the 13 y.o. daughter of his single-parent neighbour Kath, knows something.

Ursula hears scatching from the cellar. Maybe the missing men are there. She breaks in to discover ferrets - Ed's secret pets. Ed has many pictures of Simon on his wall. Ed is the stalker?

As Alice is closing her shop, Georgia is found hiding. She'd made a friend of Gareth's mother because her own mother was too busy. She sent her the postcards to make her happy. Her classmates had bullied her into shop-lifting. Ed holds Alice, Ursula, Lynn and Simon at knife-point. Gareth gets in a fight with Ed. Ed dies, the others are saved. Gareth's mother is found dead, sleeping rough.

Emotions are objectified -

• "indignation bubbles in Alison's chest"
• "She forces a smile onto her face"
• "Irritation is starting to show on his face"

etc

Other reviews

• meredithrankin (The other issue was the number of flashbacks. A chapter would open from one character's point of view in present tense. Then it would immediately switch to past tense and recount what had happened recently. ... the switch from present to past to present again confused the order of events and felt unnecessary. Why not simply tell the story as the events unfold?)

"The Guilty Couple" by C.L. Taylor

An audio book.

In 2014 Olivia, 39, is found guilty of conspiring to kill her husband, Dominic. Their daughter Grace is 7. She doesn't know who framed her. She had raised Dominic's life assurance. She had a lover, Jack, who ran away when Olivia was arrested.

5 year later she's out. Grace has severed contact. Dominic has been in an on/off relationship for those years with Dani, a policewoman who needs money to fund her sister's rehab. Dominic decides to end the relationship. Dani thinks Dominic is rich but he's gone bust.

Eisha is still Olivia's friend. So is Nancy, but her husband Ian sides with Dominic.

Smithy, Olivia's prison friend, is released soon after Olivia. They break into Olivia and Dominic's house, hoping for evidence. Dani sees/photographs them, and gets Smithy to pass info to her.

Grace wants to leave home. She's being framed at school, but classmates are making it look as if Grace is doing the bullying. Teachers and Dominic believe her classmates.

Dominic repeatedly speaks to someone on a burner. He's involved with a scam involving a loan.

By speaking to Jack sister and looking at photos, Olivia finds out that Dominic used to be Matt Platt at Uni, and was friends with Jack there. Jack had been in and out of prison because of fraud. Dominic was a fraudster too.

Olivia finds a cleaning job that lets her into Dominic's office. She thinks he's been hiding a secret there. The evidence that was in the safe is stolen from Smithy, who's left gravely injured.

Olivia discovers that Dominic has got plane tickets for him and Grace to Dubai. They plan to leave in 3 days. She can't legally stop them if it's a "holiday". She discovers that the house is up for letting.

Lee backs gets in touch for the first time since the trial. He's a gay uni friend and business partner (they own a failing gallery).

It's revealed that Nancy has been having an affair with Dominic, and they've been scheming to defraud a bank and leave for Dubai with Grace. Nancy s to marry Dominic. Nancy has been faking txts from Jack. Dominic has killed Jack. Nancy helped hin dispose of the body. Nancy locks Olivia into a lock-up where Jack's body is. Olivia escapes and makes for the airport, calling the police. Dani, Dominic, Nancy, Grace and Olivia meet at the airport.

A few months later, Dominic is found guilty in court. Nancy is now disabled, planning to escape prison. Olivia has decided not to clear her name, which clears Dani. It somehow means she can keep the money found on Dominic or Nancy. But Olivia makes sure Dani knows she's in debt.

The drama of getting into Dominic's office safe fails for me. The scheme depends on Dominic not closing his safe when there's an emergency, which seems unlikely to me.

Olivia's PoV chapters are 1st person. Dominic's and Dani's are 3rd person.

"[emotion] in her/my eyes" is a common template. Variants are

• "Fear flooded my body".
• "Indecisiveness written ... over .. his face
• "Rage smoulders in the pit of her stomach".
• "Indecision gnaws at my brain".

"His heart spasms in his chest" needs re-writing - where else would his heart spasm? The phrase "inside ... for a very long time" is used at least 4 times