SPOILERS!!!
The book starts with a woman being attacked and almost choked. Then we are introduced to a domestic context by the narrator, Ali Morris. Ali is married to Mike, and they have two children, fifteen-year-old Cassie, and ten-year-old Benji. This weekend is going to be very special because Ali and Mike's friends from university are coming to stay, and Ali wants everything to be perfect. Karen is Ali's best friend, and she is coming with her seventeen-year-old son, Jake. Karen and Ali used to live close by, but now Karen lives in Birmingham and Ali in Kent. Jodi and Calum are married, and Jodi is expecting their first child after many years struggling with problems of fertility. And the last guest is Bill, who lives in Sweden, and has a kind of Bohemian lifestyle. He recently broke up with his partner, Astrid.
Ali is now the chair of a women's refuge after she featured on a TV programme defending women in cases of rape. That has made a bit of a minor celebrity in her town.
The first one to arrive is Karen with her son, and Ali can't be happier. Karen is early, and Ali apologises and has to go to a meeting with the supervisor in the women's refuge, Vix. Just a few days before a woman was attacked by her husband, and they have to discuss the possiblity of relocating, but they finally conclude that this was a one-off.
That night the six friends and the children have dinner, and there is a lot of booze. Benji is the first one to go to bed, and after that, Jodi and Ali. At some point during the night Ali wakes up and sees light downstairs. She feels thirsty and goes to the kitchen. Jodi is there, making some coffee, and she says that Callum is cold on the sofa. Then the door opens, and Karen appears, bleeding, with marks around her neck, and she says that Mike has raped her.
After the uproar, eveybody is downstairs, and Ali goes to find Mike, who is sleeping on the swing seat, and he is confused. Bill calls the police, and Karen is taken to hospital and Mike is arrested. The police inform Ali that her husband has been charged. When Ali is allowed to see him, Mike says that he did not do it, but he has to tell her that earlier in the day when she was in her meeting with Vix, he and Karen had sex. Ali is shocked.
Things change very quickly. Vix tells Ali that this should be a good change to speak out and say that even though her husband has been accused, she still supports the idea that women should be heard. Ali says that she can't do that, and Vix says that in that case she can't be the chair of the committee any longer. After that, there are a lot of hateful comments against her on social media.
Ali hires a lawyer who tells her that Mike will probably get bail while waiting for the trial. During the hearing, that is what happens. Then when Ali, Mike and Cassie are walking towards the car, Jake, Karen's son, runs towards them, wielding a knife and he stabs Mike.
Apart from the happenings in present time, the book takes us to 1996 when Ali and the others were finishing at Oxford. We learn that Ali did not have a good life at home as her father beat her and her mother, and when he comes to pick her up a day earlier, she refuses to go with him, and he says that she is now on her own and slaps her. There is a mystery about the death of a young woman, Martha Rasby, and it seems that Mike asked Ali to lie.
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