MARCH 2026: Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester

1st March 2026

Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester, a dark and humorous novel set in LONDON

Kate and Jack are married and living in a smart house in London. They have humour in their relationship, they enjoy each other’s company and generally, life bowls along quite well for them. There are flashbacks to how they met and to pivotal events that have formed them as individuals and as a couple. And then life takes a downward turn on several fronts.

Kate discovers a TV show called Cheating which is unbelievably modelled on her relationship with Jack. There are cute terms and mannerisms that are specific to their couple relationship. She immediately assumes that affairs have blighted their hitherto comfortable life, which then challenges everything she thought she knew about her husband.

Running concurrently is Phoebe’s story. She is with Tony, an unassuming and caring man and, it transpires, she is the woman behind Cheating which is proving at the moment to be a hugely successful series. She has a twin in Australia and she has a mother who is utterly hell bent on undermining those around, a narcissist and all round unpleasant person. Phoebe does her best to assuage and cajole but she is a lost cause.

The story of course melds the two women’s lives in an entertaining way.

Buy Now

I love John Lanchester’s writing and storytelling and he is a regular go-to author-of-choice for me. His characters are well-rounded, he has terrific observational skills that translate so well into words and situations, and he often slides in cultural and political themes. If I was being pernickity with this story, the two narratives featuring the two women were great but you could see he needed to tie them together. The background hum of ‘Cheating’ felt more like a device – a skeleton on which to hang the well developed and rounded women’s accounts – than a truly integral part of the story. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this novel for entertainment value, great observational skills and for excellent writing.