I was lucky enough to be given a copy of The Missing Wife by Sam Carrington in exchange for my honest review. The Missing Wife will be released on 06/27/19 by Avon Books UK. As always, thank you to NetGalley for letting me sneak a peak at it early!

(From Goodreads)

Imagine turning up to your own party, and recognizing 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’s faced with a new source of anxiety altogether: 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…?

Here's the thing-there wasn't anything wrong with this book, per se. Maybe I related too much to Louisa and that's why I couldn't connect with her as a character. I spent the majority of the time wishing she would stop whining. I get it...your husband sucks, you have a teenager, and you're more than likely fighting a huge case of postpartum depression, but we all are. Suck it up, buttercup.

Oliver was another character who just didn't grab my attention. He was meant to, but it just felt like a story I've read before. Girl has trouble in marriage. Ex-boyfriend shows up to cause more trouble. Charismatic best friend throws a party.

There was nothing wrong with the story. I just think I've read too many thrillers for this to resonate with me.

🌟🌟🌟/ 5 Stars

The Missing Wife explores what happens when the past you’ve tried to forget collides with the future you’re trying to build.

Plot:
Louisa has just become a mother for the second time to son Noah. She is sleep deprived and exhausted and, even though her 40th birthday is looming, all she wants is a night alone to get some rest.

But her husband Brian and best friend Tiff have other plans, surprising her with a party filled with guests they invited from her Facebook page. Guests that she hasn’t seen since college and doesn’t really want to see now.

But there’s one guest in particular that she wants to see the least. Oliver Dunmore. Her ex-boyfriend who left her broken-hearted years ago and who has turned up at her party with his new wife Melissa.

When Oliver turns up at Louisa’s door the next day to say that Melissa has gone missing, she finds that she can’t remember actually seeing her at the party at all. Was she just too drunk, or is there more to Oliver’s reappearance than he is letting on.

A thriller is a thriller.
Anyone who’s read my blog before knows that I love a thriller. Being kept on the edge of my seat, always asking if the characters are trustworthy. I love it. Even a not-so-great thriller is still enjoyable to me, and that’s sort of where I am with this book.

I know from the fact that I didn’t feel the need to stop reading at any point that I enjoyed this book. I gave it 3 stars, and I always give my star ratings soon after finishing a book so it’s all still fresh in my head and the feeling I have when I finish is the feeling that dictates the rating. So I thought it was an average book. Not bad, not great.

But I have to admit I’m struggling to come up with anything really good to say about it.

The pacing is interesting, as it’s slow at times then fast at others, so there isn’t a consistent pace. But that works for a thriller so I suppose that’s good.

It was a little bit predictable at times, which disappointed me. I like to be kept guessing at what a character is going to do, or who they really are, but I thought parts if this book, especially Oliver, were obvious. And I’m not saying that to make myself seem smart or anything. I think everyone will figure out the truth about Oliver before it’s revealed.

Louisa isn’t a bad character …
… but I was torn as to whether or not I actually liked her for a lot of the book.

She’s a bit whiney. But then again she has just had a surprise baby at 40, who wouldn’t be whiney?

I didn’t understand a lot of her motivations or why she made the choices she did. I don’t know why she didn’t just ask Brian and Tiff what they were texting about and save herself a lot of mental anguish. And I didn’t understand why she didn’t tell Oliver to go and shite when he was manipulating her with his whole ‘you owe me’ nonsense. She let the other characters treat her like crap and I just didn’t get why. I suppose I’m coming at it from the angle of someone who knows something is off about the whole situation so I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but still. Cop on, love.

She’s not the best at the whole ‘being a mother’ thing either. I was half expecting the book to turn into a kidnapping mystery every time she left Noah alone somewhere while she went off to have a snoop or a lie-down.

But despite all of that, I couldn’t help but have a soft spot for Louisa. All she wanted for her birthday was a good night’s sleep and her daft best friend and clueless husband couldn’t even let her have that, instead, she gets messed up in a whole heap of crap from her college days. No one needs that.

The ending was … something
I was disappointed with the end of the book. I read most of it with that confused Britney look on my face.

I found it all a bit far-fetched and unbelievable. But then again, most thrillers do require a little suspension of disbelief, so maybe I’m just being too picky.

I did enjoy this book, despite the negativity in the review. I’m just not sure why I enjoyed it, or how to put it into words. Maybe you’ll just have to read it yourself and see if you can explain it.

I had no idea where this book was going to end up and felt quite unnerved by it but at the same time couldn't put it down so job done by the author!

Louisa is having a pretty bad time in her life at the moment. Having a grown-up daughter already and, becoming a mum again at almost forty had been a shock, but sleep deprivation and being more than a little paranoid that her best friend is having an affair with her husband is just the tip of the iceberg. She feels like she is losing her mind at times, especially when it affects the care of her baby son so much.
A surprise spa weekend away for her fortieth with her best friend seems like the perfect gift from her friend and husband but it turns into a nightmare when they have organised a party from FB friends with people she doesn't really know and old school acquaintances that she would rather not remember.
Seeing an old flame there triggers suppressed flashbacks to her teenage years with things taking a further dive when someone goes missing after the party. Louise is on a downward spiral as her life and the people in it take on surreal roles. If she is to regain her sanity then she must go further into her past.
Oh my, Louisa was one complicated and frustrating character that at times I just wanted to shake into reality. She isn't always an easy person to like, not really very maternal and pretty self-centred but I must admit I was pretty unsure who she could trust myself. I was totally intrigued with the past and what had happened which had more curveballs than a Wimbledon final. Each more shocking than the last.
Was I wowed with this book? yes, I felt that I was. The further that I got into the story the more I needed to know. I enjoyed the build-up and conclusion. I wish to thank NetGalley for an e-copy of this book which I have honestly reviewed.

I love delving into the work of an author that I know I enjoy. One where, so far in their career at least, I have never once been disappointed. Sam Carrington is one such author and since I first read Saving Sophie, almost unbelievably nearly three years ago, I have always looked forward to seeing a new title appear on Amazon. So when I saw that The Missing Wife, was up for pre-order, I didn't hesitate. It was one of those impulse, don't even read the blurb kinds of buys. I love the setting of Devon, an area I know, if not intimately, at least fairly well due to work, and the author has never failed to create characters that I became fascinated by, even if I couldn't always like them.

The Missing Wife is once again exactly this kind of book. Focused on our main protagonist Louisa, this is a book with an undulating rhythm - , sometimes surprising, sometimes emotional, often tense - but ultimately highly entertaining. In it we meet Louisa, a practically forty-year old second mother who is finding adjusting to the whims of a newborn quite difficult after over a decade's gap since her first child. Her husband and her best friend think that what they are planning, a surprise party, will help but ultimately they set off a chain of events which bring Louisa face to face with a person from her past - former boyfriend - a.k.a. the love of her life - Oliver Dunmore. Oliver and Louisa share a secret, one that she cannot remember, but one which threatens to change Louisa's safe and comfortable life forever.

On a very broad scale, this is a book about a woman who is struggling with lack of sleep, perhaps a touch of post-natal depression, and definitely more than a bit of well meaning friends who seem hell bent on ruining her life. Not that they actually know this part, but there were times I could definitely identify with Louisa. I have to say that is anyone in my family tried to organise a surprise party for me, even without the added torture of new baby sleep deprivation, there would be murder but it would be no mystery. And as for it being almost entirely made up of Louisa's Facebook friends ... well, you can see where this is going can't you? I completely got where Louisa was coming from in her anger and in some ways, this whole episode made me warm to her more as it's safe to say she's not necessarily a character you will like immediately. Yes there is the fact that she is struggling as a mother, something which felt very authentic and well drawn out on the page, but there is just ... something about her which had me second guessing her from the off. I didn't quite trust her but you'll have tor read for yourself to see if my trust, or lack of, was misplaced or ill judged.

Speaking of trust, her best friend Tiff was someone I just could not get a handle on. On the surface they seem completely mismatched, and then with the sneaking around with Louisa's husband, Brian, I was never quite sure how innocent it all was. Certainly there were moments in the story where i began questioning quite seriously how good a friend Tiff really was and if there might be some darker, far more dangerous game in play here than even Louisa realised. The author has done a brilliant job in creating this suspicion and misdirection, leaving me as a reader not knowing who to trust. There is a level of paranoia from Louisa's point of view too which again had me questioning what was true and what was imagined.

And then there was Oliver. Louisa's first love. Husband to Melissa, the eponymous 'missing wife'. But was his reappearance in Louisa's life just a mere twist of fate (aka Facebook), or something planned, perhaps packed with more intent. He was a little too far on the wrong side of charming for me to ever be wholly comfortable with him as a character. He always seemed to be right there, crowding Louisa. There was definitely no trust involved when it came to him but the author still managed to create an element of surprise the more the story progressed and the more of Louisa and Oliver's past was revealed.

Can I say that I was 100% caught unaware by the big reveals? No, not if I'm being honest. I'd second guessed a few, if not quite all of them. But there were still enough secrets being kept, enough surprises kept in store, that I was kept hooked on the story from start to finish and keen to see how it all played out. Certainly not quite as I had been expecting, that's for sure, even with the killer opening chapter.

If you have enjoyed any of the author's other books, you are going to enjoy this too. Definitely recommended.

Louisa is approaching 40. She's a new mum to Noah, a baby she had not planned. Her daughter, Emily is now a teenager and Louisa has forgotten just how exhausting being a new mother can be. Her best friend, Tiff is try to boost her self esteem by throwing Louisa a surprise 40th birthday party. But Louisa doesn't remember much about her past. After the party her memory lapses just get worse. A boyfriend from her past had turned up at her party and his wife disappears the same night.

This book had me hook after the first few chapters. There are parts of the story that are quite slow but the parts where the pace gets quicker make up for it. When you think you know where the story is headed, it changes direction. What are the secrets Louisa can't remember? But she's not the only person with secrets. There are several twists right up to the end of the story. The characters are believable but not always likeable. A really good read.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Avon Books UK and the author Sam Carrington for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A good psychological thriller. Definitely a slow burn. I put it down a lot, but always kept coming back to finish it. Interesting characters and a solid story, though!

I requested The Missing Wife because I’m always on the lookout for books that contain a little more of a suspenseful storyline. I have mentioned that I seem to be growing out of YA slowly but surely, but I’m not sure whether it’s the genre or the tropes that seem to permeate it. The Missing Wife seemed to be the perfect book to step out of the genre with and I was right. This book had a great balance between suspense but also great characters. What this book did well was subtlety and you definitely find yourself doubting what was being said and what was happening. There were definite moments within the book where I began to feel disorientated the writing was very well constructed in that sense.

Talking about the writing, although there were moments where it was really well done, there were moments where the writing became simplistic and felt a little lacking when compared to the calibre of the other writing. I felt there was things throughout that could have been explored a little more deeply especially the use of memory loss. I felt as though there were things that still weren’t explained even at the end, moments that had seemed to be instrumental were sort of brushed off which was a little weird. I think I wanted there to be a little more depth to some of the situations.

I have to talk about the memory loss and the characters in The Missing Wife, the way that they both meld together and become one was extremely well done. I think there were parts of this story that genuinely made me question myself, and I don’t mean let’s reread a paragraph or two but in the kind of I have no idea what the hell just happened. It was so scary to read and be so disorientated by a book and not know what was going on. I don’t think I’ve read a book quite like this one, the only one that comes close was The Girl on the Train and I wasn’t a huge fan of that.

What I think makes The Missing Wife so good is that it didn’t try to be over the top with the twists and turns. I loved the way the storyline was almost obvious but also had enough to keep you as the reader on your toes. I hate when you read a crime/thriller book and there is so much going on and nothing is actually there to move the plot on but to have a shocking twist. It’s annoying more than anything else.

I would definitely recommend The Missing Wife, the story blew me away and the writing was really well done. I thought the way everything works out in the end is perfectly done and I actually appreciated the closure. If you’re looking for something new to read, this might be up your street.

Good premise for a storyline but failed to fully deliver for me. A bit slow so my attention wavered. Unlikeable characters. Just an ok read. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review it.

3.5 stars but rounded down.
I'm still not quite sure about this book even nearly a week after finishing. Yes, on the whole I did sort of enjoy it but, at the same time, there was just so much that simply didn't work for me along the way. With an ending that seemed to degenerate a bit into farce. It also didn't help that I failed to connect with pretty much all of the main characters so there wasn't even that lifeline for me to hold on to. We start with Louisa, new mother, suffering sleep deprivation, with scant help from her husband, although best friend Tiff appears supportive. So, what better plan to cheer her up than to throw her a surprise 40th birthday party. Oh yeah! What a great friend, just what she needs and wants! Especially when you consider the guest list is made up from Facebook friends - we all know how real they are! Surely nothing can go wrong...
And that's the premise the book relies on. An old college boyfriend, a dark secret from the past that now threatens the present, a missing person, alcohol, sleep deprivation, unreliable narrator. It all became a bit "thriller bingo" in the elements that made up the story. Inconsistent pacing also didn't help as it made the book feel a bit disjointed especially with all the twists, some of which coming a bit out of nowhere and occasionally a bit contrived.
All in all not the best read but not bad enough to sack the author off just yet. I have read and enjoyed two of the author's previous books so I guess this one just wasn't the right fit for me. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

The wife is missing, or is she?

This book is a total recipe, it has all the ingredients of a decent thriller, its binge able, its plot driven, the typical 2D characters, the clues, the twists, the almost neatly tied up ending with a few stray ends that leave you wanting to call the author demanding explanations to your unanswered questions.

To be honest I enjoyed this, I read it in two sittings, it's a perfect sofa day with snacks book.

If you enjoyed Gone Girl / Girl on the train I have a sneaky feeling this book is right up your alley.

A solid four stars from me.

I so wanted to like this book but it just wasn't for me I'm afraid. Found it a bit slow, sorry not as good as I'd hoped for.

Louise is turning 40, what better way to celebrate than celebrating with your best friend with a couple of drinks and having a quiet night, right? Not when your best friend has other ideas and throws you a surprise party and invites your entire friends list from your Facebook profile. Eek! You know, all those 'friends' that you knew back in college that you haven't spoken to for ages.
Things go from bad to worse when the wife of one of the guests goes missing and Lou starts having flashbacks that scare her.
This was a really enjoyable thriller, that had me second guessing myself and the characters the whole way through. Well worth a read.

The Missing Wife. The First Wife. The Second Husband. The Blonde Woman. ....There's shelves and shelves of books with vague titles that all somewhat follow the same storyline.

Bad marriages, tired mothers, annoying children, bad friends.

The Missing Wife is good, but not as great as it wants to be.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Wasn't sure what to expect in this book. I've never read Sam Carrington before but this novel has the drama, suspense, & twists that make up a great thriller . Louisa is an unexpected mother of a newborn at almost 40. She isn't doing too great this time around though. Lack of sleep, hallucinations, and forgetting everything are just some of her"new baby problems". Her husband & best friend plan a surprise birthday party for her hoping to cheer her up not knowing the huge can of worms they are opening. This is definitely one worth reading!!!!!!! Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for my honest review on this awesome thriller

I really liked the idea behind this book but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. It didn’t hold my attention and I found it difficult to like any of the characters.

This book had so much promise. It just lost it for me about halfway through. Having said that I still enjoyed reading it but it didn't have a wow factor. It just didn't have any twists and turns I am used to. . There was a lot of moaning going on so it in a way became a bit tedious.

I have read and enjoyed previous Sam Carrington books so I jumped at the chance to read The Missing Wife. And for 3/4 of the book it was heading for another 5 star review. And then it swerved well off course and it lost me. It was such a shame as I was really enjoying the story but then the main character became a completely different person. Things then became far fetched and funny and I was disappointed with the end. But for the most part I really enjoyed it, I just hoped for a better conclusion.

Louisa is the mum to a newborn, severely sleep deprived and about to turn 40. The last thing she wants is a party with all her Facebook friends. But that is exactly what happens when her best friend Tiff arranges a surprise party for her. Especially when her ex boyfriend Oliver from college turns up, an ex that she has a dark past with. She drinks too much and has little memory of the night before. The next day she discovers that Olivers wife has disappeared, and the last place she was seen was her party.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for my advanced copy of this book to read. All opinions are my own and are in no way biased

# The Missing Wife #
Sam carringtom the missing wife, is I book I really enjoyed with many twist and turns, it’s not a fast paced book. Which to be honest is Bette for this particular novel. It’s a steady paced in fitting with the storyline. One of which becomes intriguing from the prologue. Once I had read the prologue I knew instantly I was going to be hooked. It is definitely a marvellous book, one I think older mothers at the beginning can truly emphasise with. The tiredness well everything’s so different from being a younger mother. With Louise being so tired at times you just wonder is she suffering from post natal depression. With her thoughts about her best friend Tiff, then a surprise birthday party where people from 22 years some come along and really upset the equilibrium, in such a creepy shocking way. Brilliantly written I am not putting spoilers in. It spoils boos. Now we’ll i have jaw ache truthfully because at no time at all with every twist I could never ever have predicted the last few chapters. My jaw just dropped. Wow I devoured this book. It’s the first of Sam Carringtoms books I have read. It definitely will not be my last. There are a few titles at the back of the book I have noted for further reading from Sam I really think this as got to be a definite definite must read. Fantastic novel

I enjoyed The Missing Wife by Sam Carrington. I found I was quickly drawn into the book and it held my attention throughout. I would have liked it to be more of a thriller as I felt a great deal of time was spent focusing on feeding the baby as opposed to the main plot. With this in mind I’d rate it 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon Books UK and the author for the chance to review.