The Boyfriend

How it reads

The Boyfriend is thriller (psychological thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are love, secrets and identity. In weight it's light and escapist — easy to fall into.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 368 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.