A holiday in Spain, two couples, several questionable life choices and enough relationship baggage to require an extra suitcase.

There are some books that make you want to jump into the story and shake the characters while shouting, “FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, HAVE SOME SELF-RESPECT!” From Something Old by Nick Alexander is one of those books.

And I mean that as a compliment.

Published in 2021, From Something Old follows two couples — Heather and Anthony, and Joe and Amy — whose lives become increasingly entangled after they end up sharing a holiday in Spain. Their children are friends, which is apparently enough justification for the adults to think that spending a considerable amount of time together in the sunshine is a good idea. Anyone who has ever travelled with people they barely know will already be thinking: What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Heather is the sort of character who desperately wants to believe that she has found love, even when the evidence is waving a giant red flag directly in her face. Ant is confident, controlling and, frankly, the sort of man who would have me reaching for the emergency exit before the first round of drinks had arrived.

Then there’s Joe, who is almost aggressively nice. He meets Amy, falls for her and appears to decide that her happiness is now his full-time occupation. Amy, meanwhile, is lively, independent and considerably more complicated. Put these four people together and you have the emotional equivalent of leaving a toddler alone with a permanent marker.

Spoiler Alert

What I liked most about the book is that Alexander doesn’t simply give us “good” and “bad” characters and leave it at that. He gets inside their heads and shows how people can end up trapped in relationships that aren’t making them happy.

That sounds terribly serious, doesn’t it?

Don’t worry. There is plenty of ordinary human absurdity along the way.

One of the pleasures of the novel is watching these relationships from different perspectives. You can understand why someone behaves the way they do while simultaneously wanting to grab them by the shoulders and say, “NO. Absolutely not. Put your shoes on. We’re leaving.”

Heather, in particular, made me feel this way several times.

The characterisation is generally strong, and Alexander is good at making his characters feel like real people rather than cardboard cut-outs who exist purely to move the plot along. Some are irritating, some are sympathetic, some are infuriating and, occasionally, you find yourself liking someone you were convinced you couldn’t stand.

This story occasionally takes the scenic route when a slightly more direct road would have done perfectly well but the writing makes up for that. There are moments when I thought, “Yeah this relationship is unhealthy, but I understood this about 30 pages ago.”

There aren’t endless shocking twists designed to make you fling the book across the room. Instead, Alexander concentrates on the gradual consequences of people’s decisions.

And actually, I liked that.

Because the most interesting question in From Something Old isn’t simply “What happens next?” It’s “How on earth did these people get themselves into this situation in the first place?”

The answer is painfully believable: people settle, people compromise, people ignore warning signs, people convince themselves that things will improve and people stay in relationships because starting again seems terrifying.

In other words, people behave like people.

The Spanish setting also provides a welcome contrast to the emotional chaos. There is sunshine, warmth and the promise of a relaxing family holiday, while underneath it all everyone is quietly falling apart. It’s rather like putting four people in a beautiful Mediterranean postcard and then discovering that somebody has hidden a live grenade behind the sun loungers.

Alexander’s writing style is straightforward and accessible, which makes this an easy book to get through. The writing focuses on the characters and their relationships, allowing the drama to develop naturally.

And there is plenty of drama.

There are also some genuinely uncomfortable moments, particularly when you recognise behaviour that isn’t healthy but can understand why a character is tolerating it. That’s where the book becomes more than a straightforward relationship story. It asks questions about what we deserve, what we’re prepared to put up with and whether finding happiness sometimes means admitting that the life we’ve built isn’t the life we actually want.

The title From Something Old feels increasingly appropriate as the story develops. Old habits, old insecurities, old ideas about relationships and old emotional baggage all come along for the ride.

It’s an absorbing, sometimes uncomfortable and occasionally maddening look at relationships, self-worth and the messy business of trying to work out whether the grass really is greener somewhere else.

If you like character-driven relationship dramas with plenty of emotional baggage, flawed people and the occasional urge to shout at the page, this is well worth picking up.

Just don’t expect a relaxing Spanish holiday.

The characters have already ruined that idea for you.

A thoughtful and entertaining relationship drama with believable characters, plenty to think about and enough questionable decision-making to make you feel positively saintly about your own life choices.