‘Behind Her Smile’ by Caroline England

Published by Bullington Press,
27 November 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-91929910-5 (PB)

It's bad enough when a relationship goes bad and you've nowhere to go expect your childhood home – but things get worse for Laurie Dunn when another ex turns up in her home town. She never really got over Finn Ballentine, and is drawn back to him against her better judgement. But that's not her only problem. Her job as a solicitor in a small inner city office is compromised by a shady client; and something odd is going on at home. 

Finn has problems of his own. On the run from a toxic marriage, his own job in a law firm much bigger and glossier than Laurie's is proving harder than he hoped; and though he would love to revive his relationship with Laurie, it's fraught with difficulties not of his making. 

Both Laurie and Finn have tricky clients, and equally challenging private lives. Laurie's dentist father is showing signs of instability, and the past keeps coming back to haunt her with unanswered questions. Finn's own past keeps threatening to catch up with him despite his best efforts to escape, and he finds it hard to tell Laurie the truth. Eventually all the secrets intertwine in a totally unexpected and potentially dangerous way.   

A new psychological thriller from Caroline England is always worth waiting for, and Behind Her Smile is one of her best. She's strongest on character. Laurie and Finn are both a rich mix of confident façade and deep vulnerability. Finn's workmates all have distinct personalities. His client Genevieve Armstrong is beautiful, fragile and completely enigmatic. Laurie's father is sometimes distant, sometimes upbeat and sometimes frail; her sister Jules is self-possessed and serious. 

The settings, too, come to life; England clearly knows her home town of Manchester very well; a polished, slightly impersonal office building; a canal bank that exudes menace. She makes good use of her background in the legal profession to portray two very different solicitors' practices; and she taps into all too common fears of the dentist to create the Dunn dental surgery. 

When the story strands finally came together for an explosive and unforeseen denouement, it sent me back into the novel in search of clues. Needless to say, they were all there, well buried or disguised and subjected to careful misdirection. Behind Her Smile is a masterclass in the psychological thriller genre, leavened by a touch of romance.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Caroline England was born in Yorkshire. She studied Law at the University of Manchester and stayed over the border. She writes multi-layered, dark and edgy ‘domestic suspense’ stories that delve into complicated relationships, secrets and the moral grey area. Her debut novel, Beneath the Skin, was published by Avon HarperCollins in October 2017, followed by My Husband's Lies, Betray Her and Truth Games.  Under the name CE Rose she has also penned gothic-tinged psychological thrillers The House Of Hidden Secrets and The House On The Water's Edge.  Drawing on her days as a divorce and professional indemnity lawyer, she loves to create ordinary, relatable characters who get caught up in extraordinary situations, pressures, dilemmas or crime. She also enjoys performing a literary sleight of hand in her novels and hopefully surprising her readers! Her fifth psychological thriller The Sinner was published in June 2022.

www.carolineenglandauthor.co.uk

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.