Carly and Rob have been married for several years, work at the same GP surgery and have had three children together - Pippa, Matt and John. One day Carly asks Rob who he would go for if he wasn’t married to her and is totally unprepared when he reluctantly says Jenni Rossiter, their friend of many years who is married to Craig. Although he doesn’t know it at the time, this revelation is one that has a number of consequences that turn out to be truly catastrophic and will completely change the lives of each and every one of the characters in one way or another.
The story is told from the perspectives of each of the four main characters - Rob, Carly, Jenni and Craig. As a story that is told in this way, I felt that this is something that works really well as it allows the reader to get to know each of them as individuals and really get inside their heads. Whilst I couldn’t relate to the vast majority of what the characters were going through and thought that their behaviour was often quite bizarre and bordering on unbelievable I found that I became extremely involved with their lives, relationships and secrets.
Although I wasn’t massively keen on the erotic scenes that appeared within Obsession, scenes which in my opinion occurred far too frequently and unnecessarily and my rating of the book reflects this, I must say that I think Amanda has done a spectacular job with the book. Throughout the book we see Amanda deal with a number of different themes, including depression, alcoholism and paranoia to name just a few whilst the tension builds continuously. I thought that the book was incredibly well written in an engaging style, with Amanda raising a number of questions throughout that left me desperately turning the pages to find out the answers to them.
Every now and then you come across a book that is appropriately titled and for me Obsession is one of those books - the characters were obsessed with eachother and I found that I was well and truly obsessed with it. For a debut novel I thought that it was very accomplished and it’s certainly left me looking forward to reading more by Amanda in the future. I feel certain that we will see many more great things from her!
