Julie Mayhew’s LITTLE NOTHINGS is a novel about a woman’s power to manipulate other women. Liv, her husband and daughter travel from their home in London to an exclusive Greek Island with friends. It’s a classic set up for disaster. No, not wife-swapping, not inclement weather, not a stomach complaint from the moussaka. Something worse. To say much more would be a spoiler. It is a complex story of female social behaviour as Liv slowly realises the destructive power of her woman friend, a supreme schemer. How far will the woman go? And will Liv wake up to reality?

This is a very female novel. There are pages and pages of chatty-batty talk of clothes, restaurants and accessory fetishes. The women are mostly self-centred, ego-driven social climbers. Then finally, about midway through, you begin to see where this female drama is heading, and you’re hooked. You just have to keep going to find out what happens.

There’s an intriguing twist – Liv’s nine-year-old daughter figures out what is going to come next. She is an observer, watching the adults drink themselves silly as they plot and scheme. She is the one who sees disaster coming.

LITTLE NOTHINGS  is not great literature or a deep investigation into social behaviour. But it is an intriguing read for a rainy day by the fire or sunny day under a beach umbrella. Enjoy the escapism. 

Julie Mayhew is also the author of a 2019 thriller Impossible Causes, and four novels for young adults, including The Big Lie. Julie also writes and directs for film.

Julie Mayhew LITTLE NOTHINGS

Published by Raven Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, April 2022.

ISBN: 978 1 5266 0634 1

$30 paperback

Also available as an eBook.

Review by Carol Dance