Happy Publication day Sam Carrington who’s new thriller is out today.
SYNOPSIS:
Imagine turning up to your own party, and recognising no one. Your best friend has just created your worst nightmare.
Louisa is an exhausted, sleep-deprived new mother and, approaching her fortieth birthday, the very last thing she wants to do is celebrate.
But when her best friend Tiff organises a surprise party, inviting the entire list of Lou’s Facebook friends, she is faced with a new source of anxiety all together: a room full of old college classmates who she hasn’t spoken to in twenty years. And one person in particular she never expected to see again is there – her ex-boyfriend from college, the handsome and charismatic Oliver Dunmore.
When Oliver’s wife Melissa goes missing after the party, everyone remembers what happened that night differently. It could be the alcohol, but it seems more than one person has something to hide.
Louisa is determined to find the truth about what happened to Melissa. But just how far does she need to look..?
One simple Facebook invitation unfolds into something both tragic and monstrous: a story of obsessive love, breath-taking deception and masterful manipulation.
REVIEW:
“It was because she was almost forty. The thought of reaching the milestone was an overwhelming one…She was too old to be doing all this again.”
Louisa Cullen is about to turn forty. She’s not handling it well, especially as she’s found herself unexpectedly dealing with sleepless nights and nappies again following the birth of baby Noah. Her husband Brian is keeping secrets, their teenage daughter Emily is sullen and distant, and her best friend Tiff seems to be keeping secrets too.
When she discovers that Brian and Tiff’s secret was a surprise fortieth birthday party she’s far from happy. In fact, it’s her worst nightmare. She doesn’t know most of the people and there is one particular person from her past there that she never wanted to see again. Oliver Dunmore was Louisa’s first love who broke her heart when he left her. She wakes the next morning hungover and unable to remember clearly what happened the night before. When Oliver turns up on her doorstep the next day saying his wife Melissa is missing and was last seen at the party her memories become more important than ever. But she can’t retrieve them and as she searches for answers Louisa finds her life is increasingly spiraling out of control.
“Her mind had been allowing her these brief visions…it was like trying to do a dot-to-dot in the dark with half the dots missing.”
The author filled this book with great characters that were filled with moral ambiguity and everyone seemed to be hiding something. I didn’t fully trust any of them! I loved that as it meant I could never be sure of my suspicions or conclusions and was always looking for the bear behind the trees. I liked Louisa and related to her in many ways, but I also liked that she was an unreliable narrator. When her first love broke her heart she began noticing gaps in her memory, having flashbacks of things in snippets, nightmares and panic attacks. She was diagnosed with dissociative amnesia which is usually brought on by a traumatic event. She was obsessed with remembering and had therapy to try to help but it made things worse so she stopped. Now it’s happening again. It felt like everything she said was questionable, to both the reader and the other characters, adding an extra layer of tension and unpredictability.
Oliver was also unreliable but not at all likeable. I found him smarmy, creepy, manipulative and didn’t trust him from the moment he turned up at Louisa’s house. He always seemed more concerned with the fact the police suspected him in his wife’s disappearance than actually finding her and the way he inserted himself into Louisa’s life was suspicious to me, especially as time wore on and his actions became increasingly dubious and even cruel.
“Darkness. Blood. A body – crumpled and still, lying on the ground. A figure looming above it.”
The book begins with an eerie and ominous prologue, then becomes a more simple, but interesting, story and is quickly transformed into a riveting, mesmerising and sinister tale that makes you question even your own memories. I devoured it within a day as I needed the answers to my questions and the tense and dramatic final twist had me on the edge of my seat. I loved the little detail of each chapter having a title. That is so rare these days and whenever I see it it makes me happy. The Missing Wife is a fantastic thriller that I highly recommend to fans of this genre.
Thank you to NetGalley, Avon books and Sam Carrington for the chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.
On a personal note: Louisa’s surprise 40th birthday party occurs of Friday, March 15th, which was my own fortieth birthday. I am happy to say that my small celebration of a meal with my family was much calmer and joyous, exactly what I wanted and nobody went missing.
Out today.
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