Evelyn's best friend, Susie, is overrun by a car. To make matters worse, Susie's father, Mr. Hart, who is suffering from dementia, misconstrues something Evelyn said, and drives to Edinburgh. Evelyn and Finlay, Susie's brother, set out to find him. While the pair is touring sights of Finlay's childhood, they start to talk about their past.
- Seeing someone you know well in a totally different context is always disorientating and vaguely impressive. You realise you have them on loan from the other lives they lead.
This novel contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: The Harts. Mr. Hart regularly beat Finlay until Finlay got big enough to fight back. Mrs. Hart pretended not to know and accused Finlay of lying. Finlay also recalls how he and Susie were locked inside a closet once.
- All for Nothing: When Finlay and Eve find Mr. Hart, he is already on his way back home.
- Amicable Exes: What Eve and Ed try to be. They fell in love as teenagers, but Ed started dating Hester during University, thinking Evelyn got uninterested during their time apart.
- Attention Whore: Hester. It starts with her taking over the microphone at the Pub Quiz to propose to Ed, who never wanted to get married, but couldn't say no after this, over using Susie's funeral to talk about her wedding plans and how to replace Susie as a maid of honor, to using Jeremy's birthday brunch to accuse Evelyn of having an affair. Not bad for somebody who was only in those 3 Chapters.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Finlay and Susie's family is this. Every time Finlay talks about a relative his father could try to visit, Eve is surprised she never heard of them. Finlay then has to explain they didn't talk to them anymore since his dad had a fight with said person. It seeped into the next generation; Finlay and Susie also didn't talk anymore, and Finlay moved to America to be away from his family.
- Bookends: The book starts and ends with a Pub Quiz.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Subverted. Eve is telling Mr. Hart he is the toxic one of the family, but due to his dementia, he doesn't understand what she is talking about.
- Children Are Innocent: As a child, Eve sees a couple kissing on the telly. She immediately goes to Finlay and asks him to snog. As an adult, she recalls it was the last time she talked uninhibited with a boy about such things.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover and synopsis suggest this is a Rom Com. That the author wrote just that with her last books does not help. Many people express in their reviews that they were not ready for the gut punches that followed.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to the other books of Mhairi McFarlane, who are a lot more Rom Com.
- Dark Secret: Susie seems to have had at least two.
- Evelyn learns after going through Susie's things that Susie and Ed had a One-Night Stand a couple of years ago.
- Susie also refused to listen to Finlay about the abuse he suffered at the hands of their father, and calls him a liar. But then again, she calls herself Laura Palmer, which prompts Finlay to think she knew more than she let on.
- Deadpan Snarker: Evelyn is this. Finlay remarks that he couldn't say half the things she does, because he would get arrested for it in America.
- Disappeared Dad:
- Eve's father left the family when she was 16, moved to Australia and raised the children of another woman.
- Quite literally, Mr. Hart, who left England for Scotland in his demented state.
- Dysfunctional Family: Both Finlay and Evelyn have this.
- Finlay moved to America when he was 20 and stopped talking to his family, because they were so dysfunctional.
- Evelyn's parents had a rough marriage, which cumulated in her father moving to Australia when she was 16, followed by her brother. Her mother then married the first man interested in her, who Evelyn calls "a living burp." This marriage also wasn't successful.
- Foreshadowing: Susie called herself Laura Palmer once in a while. As Finlay points out, Laura's dad in Twin Peaks is possessed by a demon. He behaves completely ordinary most of the time, but sometimes he does awful things. Just like Mr. Hart.
- Got Volunteered:
- Since Susie's mother is dead, her father is demented, and Finlay lives in America, Finlay tells Eve bluntly to take care of the funeral.
- He does it again when Mr. Hart vanishes because the latter doesn't remember Finlay and he needs a person Mr. Hart would trust, so he takes Eve with him to Scotland.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Finlay. Susie never spoke well of him, when she was in the mood to acknowledge his existence, anyways. Eve is surprised he is decent and actually nice if given the chance.
- Naked People Are Funny: Finlay is locked out of his hotel room after his shower. To make matters worse, his towel is stuck in the door, and he can't move around without exposing himself. Eve has a good laugh about it before getting the key for him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Evelyn wants to take care of Mr. Hart in Susie's stead, but doesn't really know how to talk to a person with dementia. It ends with her asking about Scotland and his siblings in Edinburgh, which plants the idea in Mr. Hart to go visit them.
- No Antagonist: This book is about Eve and Finlay, trying to navigate their mourning, and searching for Mr. Hart.
- Missing Mom: Susie's mom died when Eve and Susie were 30. It was the first parent of the friend group to die and shook them quite a bit.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Evelyn's reaction after Finlay tells her Mr. Hart left for Scotland, recalling the innocent conversation between them about Edinburgh.
- Again Evelyn when she learns why Finlay needs Susie's diaries, having them destroyed earlier.
- Riddle for the Ages: How much did Susie know about the abuse Finlay had to endure by their father? After learning about her thinking of herself as Laura Palmer, he suspects she knew a lot, but refused to talk about it. He wants to read her diaries because of this, but Evelyn destroyed them, making it impossible to know for sure.
- Separated by a Common Language: Some children on a tourist site talk Glaswegian. Evelyn thinks it's a foreign language til Finlay explains they are just talking about a movie that was filmed there in Scottish.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted and subverted. Finlay had to deal with his panic attacks by himself because he couldn't afford therapy in America. He when studied psychology and became a therapist himself.
- The Topic of Cancer: Susie's mom died of ovarian cancer. Eve recalls it was so quick, she was basically diagnosed and gone the same time.
- The Unfavorite: Finlay is the black sheep of the family.
