The Swimming Pool By Louise Candlish

[amazon_link id=”1405927321″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]Louise Candlish is back in the Summer with a new book called ‘The Swimming Pool’.

It’s summer when Elm Hill lido opens, having stood empty for years. For Natalie Steele – wife, mother, teacher – it offers freedom from the tightly controlled routines of work and family. Especially when it leads her to Lara Channing, a charismatic former actress with a lavish bohemian lifestyle, who seems all too happy to invite Natalie into her elite circle.
Soon Natalie is spending long days at the pool, socializing with new friends and basking in a popularity she didn’t know she’d been missing. Real life, and the person she used to be, begins to feel very far away. But is such a change in fortunes too good to be true? Why are dark memories of a summer long ago now threatening to surface? And, without realizing, could Natalie have been swept dangerously out of her depth?.

‘The Swimming Pool’ is the latest dark poolside read from Louise Candlish, it’s a creepy story about bullying and fitting into society.

The story is seen through the eyes of school teacher Natalie, who becomes close friend with Lara Channing, the voice behind the establishment of the local lido. Natalie is in awe of Lara, with her glamorous career, rich husband and busy lifestyle and jumps at every opportunity to hang out with Lara and her sophisticated friends much to her husband, Ed’d dislike. He thinks that Natalie spends too much time with Lara and that all this time has changed her. Meanwhile their only daughter Molly is spending her time with Georgia, Lara’s daughter and hoping to overcome her severe fear of water.

The book is cleverly written in various tenses, flashing from the past to the present in quick succession and gives the reader an informed insight into the background of Natalie’s life.

To be honest I didn’t like Natalie, the more I read about her and her past, the more I realised that she wasn’t a nice person, even though she expresses some regret for her actions as a child, I still found her dislikable, as she craved Lara’s attention and left her old friends behind.

The story is filled with many characters and Louise has created characters for me, that weren’t nice at all. Everyone had secrets, ghosts and a history to hide and this made for dark reading for me as the story flowed along and the plot developed.

A claustrophobic and sophisticated story set against the balmy backdrop of a cluttered lido, ‘The Swimming Pool’ is a thrilling, psychological story filled with drama and twists, Louise has written another observant and complex book about society that made for gripping reading.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”1405927321″ target=”_blank” ]The Swimming Pool from Amazon [/amazon_link]and is available to buy from good bookshops.