What You Did

By: Claire McGowan

Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt, Karen Cass

Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

“A brilliant, breathless thriller that kept me guessing to the last shocking page.” - Erin Kelly, Sunday Times bestselling author of He Said/She Said

An Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestseller.

It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.

When Karen staggers in from the garden, bleeding and traumatised, she claims that she has been assaulted - by Ali’s husband, Mike. Ali must make a split-second decision: who should she believe? Her horrified husband, or her best friend? With Mike offering a very different version of events, Ali knows one of them is lying - but which? And why?

When the ensuing chaos forces her to re-examine the golden era the group shared at university, Ali realises there are darker memories too. Memories that have lain dormant for decades. Memories someone would kill to protect.

©2019 by Claire McGowan. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Hitting the rare sweet spot between a satisfying read and a real page turner, this brilliantly written book deserves to fly high.” (Cass Green, best-selling author of In a Cottage In a Wood)

Great Mystery!

I loved the premise and it didn’t turn out like I thought it would. I could hardly stop listening to it. It was really good!

Convoluted with plot twists and turns. Good read.

What ever you think happened is probably not what happened. Friends are often different from how we see them from the outside.

story was great

It was a captivating story line, the narrator's voice took a little getting used to. But the story was great made it hard to stop listening.

Not great, not terrible

You were reminded of certain things so many times that I almost stopped listening simply because of being bored. The main character was not particularly like able. The story was predictable.

Loved it

Not sure what the bad reviews are about, I enjoyed this book very much! Suspenseful and well written. Im going to look for more books by the author now!

Engrossing story, infuriating characters

I had read another book by the author (Are You Awake?) and I quite liked that one, so I decided to look for another one of her books to read. This one was interesting and kept me reading because I wanted to know how it ended, but was not as good as the other one. Mainly because the main character was so unlikable. I couldn’t sympathize or empathize with her beyond the back story that she came from an abusive household, which made some of her choices (such as basically marrying for money to get away from that life) somewhat understandable. However. The stupidity and hypocrisy of this woman in the present day garnered no sympathy from me. She volunteered for an organization that helped women dealing with domestic violence, and in the beginning is very vocal about it. Her husband is very dismissive about her “feminist issues”, and I found myself wondering why she would be with a man who felt that way, but she stood her ground so I was like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But once her friend says she was SA, the MC starts parroting the cliché phrases she claimed to hate in the beginning. “She was drunk” “she’s a flirt” “She sleeps around anyway” etc, etc.
The accused was her husband, so some sort of denial that her own husband would SA her best friend is understandable, but the continuation of this hypocrisy through the WHOLE BOOK was super annoying. She kept making excuses for the r*pist, even after more things come to light, even after she has a talk with the friend who was SA. There is no growth on her end.
Anyway, I would definitely recommend caution for anyone reading this that is triggered by topics of SA. While the perpetrator does get caught, the constant invalidation of the survivor by her own friend could be very damaging for someone to read.

The narrator was pretty good, my only qualm is the voice she did for the 10 year old boy; she made him sound like a whiny 5 year old and it was a bit distracting whenever he was in the scene. Luckily, he wasn’t in the book much so it didn’t ruin it over all.

England's Desperate Housewives & Husband's

You and your husband plan a party in your home for your best college buddies 25 years later, and no one could have prepared you for what comes next, or what is revealed. I thought the book was okay for what it was. I was hoping for a better kindle first choice. The premise of the book sounded really interesting as described. I know plenty of people will love this book but for me it was just okay. I didn’t real like any of the characters. The narrator's heavy English accent I found to be quite distracting. The writing is not too bad but this is not a psychological thriller. It's a boring soap opera with the usual lies, betrayals, cheating, drinking until passed out, annoying children, rape, and a 25 year old murder. By process of elimination I guessed the rapist and murderer halfway through the book. I wouldn't recommend this book.

good

Good story and characters. The author keeps you on your toes and your mind reeling trying to figure out what happened.

Wow! Great story...that ending!!

I really enjoyed this. The narration was quite awesome. She has such a pleasant voice and it's so easy to differentiate the voices...I just really liked this entirely.

The story was jaw dropping! I found myself thinking WHAT IF....what would I do if this happened in my own circle of friends. Sadly this story isn't unheard of...you just never REALLY know anyone do you?

I truly recommend this book/story. So many emotions..most of them conflicting.

What You Did

I almost gave up, however, I did stick with it and the story picked up.
I only had a couple of "wow" moments. But all in all it was a good story and will look forward to reading more from this Author.