Family Friends

With Family Friends Ashby has created a piercing portrait of marriage, friendship and parenthood. It is a propulsive story with intrigue, secrecy and drama – I had a wonderful time reading it

Jenny Mustard, author of What a Time to Be Alive

With delicacy, sensitivity and atmospheric depth, Ashby writes the way I imagine an artist paints, with attention to the tiniest of details; it’s in this attention and astute observation that she so deftly captures what it means to love and to betray

Huma Qureshi, author of Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love

Sultry and very evocative ... Contains the sort of characters you'd die to have as neighbours: chaotic, and always on the verge of their next mistake — perfect, in other words, to gossip with friends over

Jo Hamya, author of The Hypocrite

A beautifully poised and riveting novel about the intricacies and entanglements of a group of friends holidaying in the south of France. I was gripped from the start

Claire Powell, author of All In

All the hallmarks of a perfect literary holiday read: an idyllic setting, eclectic cast of characters, and multiple unresolved tensions that keep unfurling … Such is Ashby’s skill that you won’t want to put it down (other than to reapply your suncream)

Roxy Dunn, author of Wants and Needs

Family Friends yanked me out of a reading slump. Ashby has such a precise eye for the detail that exactly fits the scene. Filmic and absorbing, I enjoyed it very much

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of The Sleep Watcher

Delicious! So good on the way that time ties knots in relationships that trip us up further down the line. Chloë is so patient with her characters, even when they’re making terrible mistakes, whilst also keeping us hooked on her tangled plot

Lizzy Stewart, author of Alison

An intelligent, evocative, elegant novel simmering with tension and drama. Family Friends is a forensic examination of friendship and desire, and the perils of mixing the two

Lisa Owens, author of Natural Disaster

More complicated family entanglements, secrets and lies, set against the backdrop of a sultry summer holiday in the South of France. Chloë writes in a painterly manner - with precision and subtlety

Book(ish), Natasha Poliszczuk: Good Books for 2026

I read Family Friends in winter and was transported to a warm, languid summer in a French country house where two families gather yearly. In Chloë Ashby's expert hands, a hot summer is the perfect setting for mistakes to be made and for tensions to simmer until they reach a boiling point

Rukky Brume, author of It Comes in Waves

Atmospheric and seriously stylish, Family Friends is the perfect sultry summer read that will transport you to the simmering heat of the South of France. With these intriguing characters, Ashby continues to cement herself as a deft observer of the knots and tangles of human relationships

Ela Lee, author of Jaded

An involving and psychologically acute portrait of marriage, friendship and loyalty tested to the limit. A sophisticated summer page-turner for Tessa Hadley fans

The Bookseller, Editor's Choice

Family Friends is a novel of simmering tensions and sultry summer nights. Ashby writes so astutely about female friendship, marriage, motherhood and adolescence, and has created a quietly compelling novel dissecting the unspoken tensions that exist between loved ones

Hannah Beckerman

Poised and elegant. Skewers the intimacies and dynamics of friendship, desire, trust and betrayal on a summer holiday in the sultry French heat

The Good Stuff, substack

My kind of summer read ... If you love elegant writing, observations on old and new love, friendship and grief, you will love Family Friends. Chloë has a beautiful way of observing detail to bring you in really close to the drama

Georgina Moore, author of The Garnett Girls

[Family Friends] has everything I like in a literary summer read: stunning location, complicated friendships and messy, long marriages under the microscope. Bliss!

Good Housekeeping

A gorgeous, sun-soaked novel set over one eventful holiday in the south of France, shared between old university friends with a host of secrets ready to break the surface. This is quintessential summer reading, with decadent, idyllic settings that bring out the characters’ true colours, heightened with a healthy dose of unreliable narration and tense conversations over dinner

The Cold Magazine

Ashby's background in art comes to full force in her physical descriptions ... Family Friends is at its best when it evokes the singular sensory pleasures of a summer holiday

The Sunday Times

Grief and temptation gather under the August heat in Ashby's psychologically acute novel about loyalty

The i paper, The best new books out in July

Ashby writes with an eye for detail … The deft plotting makes this a novel that preoccupies you even when you’re not reading it

The Irish Times

A riveting novel of rising temperatures and rising tensions ... A stylishly written and sultry novel about two married couples (and their children) holidaying in the south of France

Crib Notes, Substack

With meticulous prose and nuanced characters , this fraught tale of people standing at an unexpected crossroads is as vivid as a picture postcard

Mail on Sunday

As the sun beats down relentlessly, everything starts to fracture and unfurl, the edges of their lives curling like paper left out in the sun ... Chloe Ashby is an art critic and it shows on every page of this sophisticated, highly atmospheric novel, which evokes the feeling of summer heat and abandon so brilliantly

Book(ish), Summer Books 2026, Substack

A sun-soaked work simmering with secrets ... Ashby handles dialogue and subtext masterfully ... Devastatingly sensual ... A portrait of long-standing friendships and the ways in which they can be warped, this novel is a sharp insight into the lengths to which we'll go to preserve the ways we view ourselves, and others view us

Spectator