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

Fear - Dirk Kurbjuweit Review

"You'd die for your family. But would you kill for them?

Family is everything.
So what if yours was being terrorised by a neighbour - a man who doesn't listen to reason, whose actions become more erratic and sinister with each passing day? And those you thought would help - the police, your lawyer - can't help you.
You become afraid to leave your family at home alone. But there's nothing more you can do to protect them.
Is there?"
 

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Books for providing me with an ARC! All opinions are honest and my own. This isn't released until January 25th 2018 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon UK for kindle and in paperback.

Reading the synopsis, I went into this thinking it was going to be a tense, fast-paced thriller however I was left disappointed. This was an interesting read nevertheless however it was not the one that I was expecting.

This story follows Randolph and their family as they move into their new home only for them to be stalked by their neighbour who lives in the basement. He sends’ Randolph’s wife letters and poems, spies on the family and even reports them to authorities with false accusations. This all sounds quite chilling and terrifying especially when since this story is loosely based off the Authors own experiences with being stalked by his neighbour. You already know how this is going to end in a sense, as this book begins with his father in prison and you find out early on why he is in prison.

The writing of this made it feel a lot more like an autobiography than a fictional story which is what I was expecting or really wanting. This is only confirmed with all the backstory which is littered throughout the plot about Randolph’s childhood and growing up and also his father’s passion for guns. Whilst some these backstories were interesting, they did pull away from the main plot and I didn’t find a lot of them useful to the main plot line of the stalking neighbour. I understand that a lot of the backstory about Randolph’ relationship with his father were meant to lend to how his father perhaps helped him with fixing the neighbour problem but a lot of it could have been cut out to make for a more streamlined story. 

I feel like this book did portray “fear” itself well and how it can have an effect on how you act both in the moment and also how it effects your everyday life. The false accusations make Randolph start questioning whether what he’s doing is wrong even though he knows what he’s doing is 100% right and OK and he starts overthinking everything that he does and how other people will see him doing these things.

This wasn’t a bad book itself and I didn’t see the twist at the end of the book coming either. I enjoyed how it went on to explain how life after the stalking incident and twist is like and as mentioned, shows how much fear can affect you even when the threat of the fear has disappeared. I just didn’t enjoy the way this was written and how much backstory was involved which I didn’t feel was necessary. As this was a translation from the original language of German, maybe some of the flow of the main plot and back story was lost? Or maybe that’s how the Author intended it to be, who knows? Either way, the writing wasn’t for me, but I did enjoy the actual storyline.