Read with Fern

Warning: Spoiler-Filled Rant Ahead!

Okay, here’s our list of main characters (and it’s a big one):

• Nina – A recent widow who inherited her husband’s small restaurant empire
• Ash – Nina’s daughter, who was struggling with a mental breakdown 6 months before her father’s death
• Paddy – Nina’s recently deceased husband, who was pushed onto train tracks by a stranger
• Martha – A middle-aged woman, single-mum-turned-wife with a new baby and a flourishing flower shop
• Tara – A middle-aged woman, single-mum-turned-wife who has begun to distrust her husband
• Emma – Tara’s daughter 
• Jane – Paddy’s first girlfriend, now famous, and a wild character in Paddy’s stories
• Amanda – A wild card of a wife
• The Con Man – Nick/Alistair/Jonathan/Justin/Damian

And in chronological order, here’s how The Multi-Named Con Man scammed these women:

1. Birth – His name is Simon and he’s a nasty, petulant, spoiled brat. His mother ends up writing him out of the will even though she’s terrified of him.
2. Damian – Marries Amanda, has two boys with her. Pretends to be a restauranteur. Fakes his death in the Philippines, Amanda has been living as a widow for two decades with £90,000 in debt.
3. Justin – Marries Laura, has two girls. Works as a life coach, scams other people. Sends a text that says “I can’t do this anymore” and disappears. Laura assumes he committed suicide. She’s left with £15,000 in debt.
4. Jonathan – Marries Tara, a widow with two adult children. Pretends to be a hotel consultant.
5. Alistair – Marries Martha, a single mum with two pre-teen boys. Martha owns and operates a flower shop. After two years of marriage, Martha and Alistair have a daughter. He pretends to be a hotel consultant who then quits to work full-time with Martha, skimming £3,000 from her company.
6. Nick – In the process of wooing Nina, a recently widowed single mum. Her husband, Paddy, was a well-known restauranteur who was pushed onto train tracks by a stranger and killed.

And as a note, he’s already seducing the next woman in line before the current one has decided to end things. He uses his (often fake) jobs as excuses to take the new woman on weekend trips, fancy dinners, etc. And when the old one finally kicks him out, he’s prepped the next one to let him move right in.

But wait, that’s just the marriage timeline! There’s more on the scam & crime timeline!

As “Jonathan” is getting ready to leave Tara, he’s racking up debt like always, including buying a brand new Tesla to impress Martha and her boys. Tara is getting more and more angry with “Jonathan,” and ends up kicking him out of the house with the support of her very pregnant daughter, Emma. “Jonathan” knows it’s too early to try to move in with Martha, and he’s out of other options, and cash. So he appears at Amanda’s door, his first wife, with whom he has two children, and who thinks he’s been dead for TWENTY YEARS.

He sells Amanda a quick sob story about having a heart condition, a stalker of an ex-wife, and “dangerous connections” that forced him to fake his death and not reach back out until now. And she buys it, hook, line, and sinker. She even borrows money to help fund a trial treatment for his heart (that doesn’t exist). Then Tara comes knocking at the door, demanding to see “Jonathan.”

Tara and “Damian/Jonathan” both panic. He decides to strangle Tara, and then he and Amanda dismember her and abandon the body in a park. “Damian” sends texts to Emma from her mother’s phone, saying that Tara and Jonathan reconnected and are moving to Algarve together, and don’t want to be in contact with Emma any more. Then he tells Amanda to move to Algarve, and he’d follow as soon as he could.

Emma reports her mother as missing after a month, and Amanda’s sons soon follow suit. When the dismembered body is found, it is not identified as either woman.

“Damian” moves onto Martha’s home as “Alistair,” and forgets all the nasty dead wife business. He and Martha go on a date and end up at a restaurant owned by Paddy, a larger-than-life, gregarious restaurant owner. When Paddy stops at their table, “Alistair” remembers an encounter the two had where Paddy told off “Alistair” for slacking off on the job. “Alistair” then convinces himself that Paddy was inappropriately touching Martha.

Thus begins “Alistair’s” obsession with Paddy and his family. He stalks Paddy, his wife Nina, and his daughter, Ash. He finds out that both Paddy and Nina are having affairs. He also finds out that Ash has a crush on her boss. He first sets up Ash to expose her crush by forging love letters to and from her boss. He sends the boss’s letters to Ash, essentially cat-fishing her, and even convinces her to surprise her boss on his family holiday. Ash is diagnosed with a mental breakdown, and moves home.

Six months later, “Alistair” pays a mentally unwell homeless man to push Paddy onto the train tracks. He waits another 6 months, then reaches out to Nina, the grieving widow, pretending to be an old friend of Paddy’s named Nick. He and Nina start dating almost immediately, but Ash has extreme reservations about him. She reaches out to Paddy’s ex-girlfriend, Jane, asking if she ever met a “Nick” when she was dating Paddy. Jane says no, but immediately offers to help Ash investigate him further.

As “Nick” gets more invested in stalking/invading Paddy’s family, “Alistair” has been away from home more and more. Martha is starting to lose her mind, and it culminates in a night where “Alistair” took the only car, turned his phone off, and the baby is running a fever. She asks a friend for a ride to the emergency room, and then, at the friend’s suggestion, hides a tracker in the car.

As Martha investigates her husband and his current activity, Ash and Jane dig into “Nick’s” past and discover his multiple identities and connect with many of the women he’d wronged. It takes a lot of proof to get Nina on board, but she finally sees the light. Once the women find Martha, they reach out and explain exactly what’s going on.

Ash and Nina contact Tara’s daughter, Emma, Amanda’s sons, and all of “Nick’s” other previous marks, and have them meet at a set location. Then Martha, who’s tricked her husband into a drive, arrives with him, forcing him to face everyone he’s wronged. And “Nick” runs straight into the ocean. His adult sons chase him, but can’t catch him. And the police say, “Yeah, he’s probably dead, so case closed.”

Wrong! The epilogue takes us to Algarve, where Amanda has patiently been waiting for FOUR YEARS. And “Damian” just appears, easy peasy. Amanda admits that she’ll always love Damian and the sPeCiAl BoNd ThEy ShArE, and they live happily ever after.

If the ending had been different, or if the story had included even one police detective, I probably would’ve given this four stars. But this ending had absolutely zero pay-off, and I didn’t even care.