The Guilty Wife - Elle Croft Review

Thank you to Net Galley and Orion publishing for providing me with an e-ARC copy! All opinions in this review are my own and are honest.

This was such a great debut novel and kept me hooked and just wanting to know who did it! I’ve seen a few people state that they guessed who did it and I had my suspicions and they proved completely wrong and I didn’t manage to figure it out! This had me wanting to read more and more and I was struggling to put it down. This is all told from Bethany’s point of view apart from the last chapter which is told from the killer’s point of view and I think this worked so well. 

This is another one where I don’t want to say too much as it is meant to be a mystery thriller. This is about Bethany Reston who is married to Jason but also having an affair with one of her clients, Callum Bradley, a millionaire businessman who is also married. Callum ends up dead after one of their meetings and Bethany starts receiving notes and other things that point to her being the murderer. She decides the only option she has is to find out who actually murdered Callum and get to them first before they destroy everything for her. I did enjoy the ending, but I feel like it could have been more plausible if it didn’t go as far back – I don’t want to say anymore because it will ruin it and contain spoilers! It wasn't a bad ending by any stretch though and I'm really happy with how it all wrapped up.

The pace was great and I found it was a really nice, easy quick read which is always a plus. The character building was done really well too -  there wasn't too much reveled about a character so it spoiled the story but there was just enough revealed to send you on your own little manhunt for the murderer and keep you guessing.

Overall this is a great debut thriller and I’m really looking forward to see what else Elle Croft comes out with! ‘The Guilty Wife’ was released on the 1^st of December  for kindle and can be found on Amazon UK! You can also pre-order the paperback version from Amazon UK and Waterstones which releases on the 25th January 2018!

The Perfect Girlfriend - Karen Hamilton Review

“Juliette loves Nate.
She will follow him anywhere. She's even become a flight
attendant for his airline, so she can keep a closer eye on him.
They are meant to be.
The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing.
Because Juliette has a plan to win him back.
She is the perfect girlfriend.
And she'll make sure no one stops her from
getting exactly what she wants.
True love hurts, but Juliette knows it's worth all the pain...”

Thank you to Net Galley and Wildfire publishing for providing me with an ARC copy! All opinions in this review are my own.

This was yet another brilliantly realistic psychological thriller! Again, because this is a thriller there’s not too much I can say about the plot without ruining it, so sorry! It follows Juliette who is sure that she is the perfect girlfriend and will stop at literally nothing to show that she is the perfect girlfriend and win back her ex-boyfriend no matter what the cost. The things she does at first are slightly creepy but very realistic and could actually happen if you put enough thought into it and that’s what makes this so creepy! As Juliette escalates in the things she does to prove that she’s so perfect they escalate again in creepy, realistic ways and that’s what makes this so great!

Again, one of the best things about this was that the story was told from the psychotic side and not the victims side. This gave us so much more insight into her reasonings behind her actions and it’s so fascinating to see what goes on behind the scenes. Juliette truly believes that she is in the right and is doing everything to prove that she’s the best girlfriend and the ex-boyfriend is just being temporarily blind to how great she is, and people are dragging him in the wrong direction and he’ll soon see how perfect she is. Using the Airline jobs as a pilot and air hostess really helped make this book come together and was a new and interesting setting for a book that worked so so well!

This another one of those books where you’re not really sure what to make of the main character; you feel sorry for Juliette at first, especially since the book starts with some of Juliette’s background and what happened to her brother. But to me she was obviously delusional and one of the things that got me the most, was that I was sort of rooting for Juliette to be back together with her ex, Nate despite all that she was doing and most of it, if she hadn’t taken it that one step too far, I could see a lot of people doing in normal everyday life which is crazy!

I figured out the twist literally a few pages before it was revealed and it was a well thought-out a rounded twist that made sense and wasn’t ridiculous which again, was great. It didn’t have a solid ending but in a way, it sort of made sense and I wasn’t mad at it!

Overall, this is a great thriller and I would definitely it! It’s being released on March 08^th 2018 and you can find pre-order links below:
Amazon UK: Hardback / Kindle 

Waterstones 
Book depository

Make Me Want - Katee Robert Review

"Lucy Baudin’s ex did a number on her self-esteem, but it’s time for her to regain control. In her job as a lawyer she’s bold, confident. But in the bedroom she needs inspiration to reawaken her inner seductress. Asking her friend Gideon Novak for help seems wrong…yet so deliciously right! "

Thank you to Net Galley and Harlequin Dare for providing me with an ARC copy of this book. All opinions are truthful and my own. 

This book follows Lucy who needs a husband within the year to help her get the promotion she wants at work and in order to find her this husband, she asks one of her old friend Gideon for help as he runs a recruitment company. Gideon was also best friends with Lucy’s ex-fiancé and was the one who had to break it to Lucy that her fiancé was cheating on her.

Ok so my main issue here was the plot – the main point of this whole book was that Lucy needed a husband because otherwise she wouldn’t get the position as partner. She then goes on to mention that a previous co-worker went for partner but was overlooked and her male counter-part got given the position all because she was single. I just find that whole notion and concept so backwards and ridiculous and I honestly can’t believe that a book written in 2017 is using this as a plot point and as an excuse to find a blood fake husband to get around it!! Lucy is a lawyer and helps defend criminals, yet she stands for that sort of bullshit? What a lad of crap – I honestly can’t believe that her solution to this is to find herself a fake husband – it really annoyed me.

The other thing was that she not only asked Gideon to find her a husband, she also asked him to teach her ‘sex tips’ and basically give her sex lessons as her ex-fiancé told her one of the reason that he cheated on her was because she didn’t keep him satisfied in bed. I’m just going to interject here and say that I did enjoy that Lucy couldn’t shake the toxic things her ex said as I think it’s very realistic of coming out of a toxic relationship as all the bad things they said about you sticks with you the most and can leave you feeling like you’re not good enough for anything or anyone. So I definitely liked how this was shown in the book but I did think that the fact she was asking for bloody sex lessons from Gideon was a bit ridiculous. I mean there are god knows how many articles online to help or other ways she could help learn to improve her sex life without using Gideon.

So it’s obvious where this was going to go – Lucy develops feelings for Gideon and Gideon had feeling for Lucy way back when she decided to date Jeff over him so that wasn’t going to be made better by sleeping with Lucy. But what annoyed me again, was that despite Lucy having he balls to somehow date and marry and sleep with whichever random man that Gideon found to be her future, she couldn’t tell him how she felt?! She was willing to marry a complete stranger instead of simply telling Gideon how she felt and maybe marrying him instead. She had nothing to lose as he is meant to be finding her a bloody fake husband so why the hell did she not tell him and possibly have a fantastic life because of it! Gideon was just as bad – he also had nothing to lose and yet he still didn’t say anything to her despite having  had feelings for her for however long – he’d rather find her a fake husband than admit his bloody feelings and it’s all a pile of crap. 

The writing for this book is what saved it slightly and despite the bad plot points is was a well written book and the sex scenes were super steamy. But ultimately, as mentioned above I couldn’t get over all the bad plot points which is why I rated this 2 stars.