Before I Knew You

Would you swap houses for the summer with a family of strangers?

For Sophie and Andrew, exchanging their shabby West London home for a stylish Connecticut house seems the perfect chance to escape from the daily grind, and inject some new life into their marriage.

In return, newlyweds William and Beth are looking to spend some time in London with William's teenaged sons. Ex-pat William relishes the opportunity but Beth, his American wife, doesn't find London - or her stepsons - quite as welcoming as she'd hoped.

Over the course of the summer these four lives intertwine with dramatic consequences no one could have foreseen. The house swap brings to light devastating secrets and lies and the two marriages - one crushed by the weight of years, one shiny and new - begin to slide into reverse...

Praise for Amanda Brookfield:

'Unputdownable. Perceptive. Poignant. I loved it' Patricia Scanlan

'Few contemporary British novelists writing today explore the messy tangles of close human relationships with quite such warm perceptiveness as Brookfield' Daily Mirror

''Amanda Brookfield could lead the women's novel a few steps further out of its cultural ghetto' Sunday Telegraph

'This novel walks a line between comedy and wrenching sadness. It is fluently written and its depiction of domestic chaos... is all too recognizable' Sunday Times


Amanda Brookfield was born in 1960 and educated at Oxford University. She began her career working in advertising and then as a freelance journalist in Argentina. Her previous novels include The Simple Rules of Love and Life Begins, and her new novel, The Love Child, is published in January 2013. She is married with two sons and lives in London.