An okay read, although I did find it a little slow in places, also I think the motherhood act was overstretched, to say the least. The whole thing was a little unbelievable and too cosy for my liking. Still not a bad read overall.

The was odd.

Louisa was tough to take. Reading about how Noah was a mistake and then her abysmal care of him was depressing.

I ended up skimming through some of this, some areas stretched on without adding all that much. There were twists and surprises. It definitely went outer limits, over the top.

I finished so it had something to keep me going but overall I didn’t love it. Others did though so pls give it a try if it sounds interesting to you.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Avon Books UK for a copy in exchange for a review.

A super book, the first I have read from this reader. It was an intriguing story with viable characters and plot lines. There is always room for more, however this is a decent read in a busy market.

This was quite a different read, slow moving at parts and then fast at others. Louisa an exhausted mom, had a surprise party thrown by her friend where everyone was invited including ex and his wife. The wife went missing and everyone had a different tale to tell.

My first book by Sam Carrington, saw me turning pages fast to get to the twisty parts. Overall I enjoyed it barring a few parts.

Just weeks ahead of her fortieth birthday, Louisa’s life has been completely changed. When the wife of her first love disappears after the surprise party she didn’t want or remember, Louisa is pulled into the efforts to find her, it can she trust the man she once loved?

The Missing Wife was a difficult read and often the perspective in the narration shifted so abruptly it was hard to follow, partially due to the formatting of the ARC I was reading. This story was difficult to get invested in and at the conclusion of the story, I was left feeling unsatisfied.

Louisa's friend throws her a birthday party. Louisa is exhausted being a new mom and doesn't want to celebrate. Tiff invites all of Louisa's facebook friends and her exboyfriend Oliver. Oliver brings his wife Melissa and she goes missing. Everyone's story is different and trying to get to the truth of what happened leads to lots of twists and turns. This story is a great thriller and one I couldn't put down! I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

The Missing Wife does not fulfill every promise to the readers. It is a nice enough read, but sometimes the reading is slow because of all the whining and moaning of Louisa, and sometimes things happen really fast, such as the ending. It is all a bit unbalanced in my view.
I'm not a mother so I wouldn't know about being too tired to do anything during the day but Louise takes this to a higher level, I think. Half of the time she doesn't know what she is doing because of being so tired, but the other half she doesn't know anything because she is too drunk.
Seriously, I sometimes felt it in my stomach, reading about the amounts of alcohol Louisa (and other people, like her best friend Tiff) drink. No wonder she cannot function properly.
Who the 'bad guy' is in this book is clear from the beginning, and the whole story has a feeling of being not quite finished. Except from Louisa the characters all stay a bit flat and there are a little too many coincidences to my taste.
But all in all, it was a nice book for some light reading.

Thanks to Netgally for this digital review copy.

This was an entertaining read. I found the plot interesting and the characters had good substance to them. I had guessed the ending before the end but if I'm honest it wasnt much before the end. I would read other titles by this author and would reccomend this book for others to read.

I really enjoyed reading this book by Sam Carrington. There were plenty of twists and turns to keep me going until the final chapter. The main character Louisa is just about to turn 40. Her best friend and husband throw a surprise party for her which will change all of their lives forever,. If you are looking for a fast paced whodunnit, this book is for you.

When I first started reading this novel, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to enjoy it. However, it quickly became interesting and had me hooked on the storyline quite early on. If you enjoy domestic thrillers, this twisty read is worth it.

I liked and disliked this book at the same time. The premise of it was great and the writing was pretty good, but I felt like it was choppy. It didn't have a flow that I could get into. The last 20% of the book was great although it felt like a shift that didn't relate to some other parts of the plot. I would have liked to see more development of the relationships between the characters and when the end is revealed more closure to the characters. It wasn't great and it wasn't bad, it was an entertaining read even through the flaws.

I found this book quite frustrating to read. In fact, I ground to a halt somewhere in the first half and didn't pick it up again for a week or so, which is rare for me and reflects the fact that it hadn't really gripped me. Once I came back to it, though, I zipped through the second half quite quickly.

I never really warmed to Louisa, the protagonist; she was all over the place, a bit of a coward, and none of the other characters moved beyond 2D supporting roles. I found the plot rather thin and yet at the same time implausible.

Overall, I'm not sure I can recommend this book, though it would pass a few hours for a casual reader.

This was a book with a story but not a book with characters. The main character, Louisa, is not likable nor relatable from the very beginning. The characters make the story move slowly. It wasn’t awful but I wouldn’t recommend it either.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Louisa is a new mom for the second time around but this time she is 40 years old. I was expecting a different sort of story than the one that developed. I didn't particularly like Louisa, she wasn't the most interesting character. There was too much emphasis on sleep deprivation but not in a good or positive light - where there might be ideas of how to handle it, how to get support, who to get support from.

The story developed slowly and dragged in parts - going over and over mistakes that Louisa might or might not have made with the baby. I had trouble understanding why a husband would plan a surprise party for a wife that he could see is struggling. Why in this day and age of technology would someone let another person set up and control their social media account - not even bothering to change the passwords?

New mom Louisa is shocked when her ex boyfriend Oliver shows up at her 40th birthday party. When his wife goes missing he insisted the last place she was seen was at her party, but no one remembers seeing her. When Oliver starts dropping vague hints about an incident from her past, and showing up around her house, Louisa is convinced that Oliver has something to hide.


This book was not for me.
While it sounds interesting, it does not hold up to the hype.

I did not like the story or the writing style.
I thought it was choppy and that it dragged on.
After the final twist the book just kept going, without adding anything to the story.

Not for me

This wasn't a favorite for me , when a book takes me a while to plod through I know its not going to get a 5 star review for me . The main problem for me was that most of the characters were just unpleasant, also I know its a work of fiction but the end was just so far fetched . The story starts off pretty well , Louisa a new mum with a husband and teenage daughter is exhausted , has blocks in her past memories and is pretty much losing the plot . Her friend throws her a surprise birthday party , with a guest list of people she can't remember apart from one an old flame who is there with his wife . His wife disappears after the party but no one can recall her even being there . Oliver ingratiates himself back into Louisa's life and it just gets worse from there . I read on as I was interested to find out how it concluded but this just wasn't for me

This book has a lot of potential being about a new mother Lou, who is struggling to cope. Her husband and best friend are sympathetic and try to cheer her unsuccessfully as it happens as reconnections from the past overtake her. ...... I found the pace of the writing too slow and constant accounts of Lou's state of mind repetitive and frustrating. All in all the style of writing did not hit the mark to enable me to recommend this read.

Initially I enjoyed this book, even though at times it felt kind of monotonous, but I felt that the ending really let it down.

Beware the Spoiler!

This is the story of Louisa, just turning forty with a teenager and a brand new baby. Poor sleep deprived Louise is also suffering from dissociative amnesia meaning that there are large sections of her past that she just doesn't remember - all she knows is that whatever she has forgotten is pretty bad. Louisa struggles with her baby's sleeplessness and this builds into a paranoia where she starts to think that her long suffering husband, Brian, is having an affair with her best friend, Tiff. Louisa also has very strong and clear hallucinations and at varying times thinks that she is holding her baby when he is in his cot, thinks she has dropped the baby on the floor when she hasn't and she keeps seeing visions of blood.

As a means of making his wife feel better, Brian organizes a surprise 40th birthday party for Louisa which he pairs with a night away in a hotel for her and Tiff so that she can get a good nights sleep without worrying about the baby. Tiff does most of the organizing, inviting everyone from Louisa's Facebook friends list - a list which includes a lot of people that Louisa doesn't know at all or only knows vaguely. One of the invitees is Oliver, Louisa's ex boyfriend, who broke her heart when he moved away to York twenty years ago. Louisa wakes the next morning to find that she can't remember anything about the party at all and isn't at all sure how she got to bed. Soon Oliver is turning up at her house as his wife, Melissa, has gone missing at the party - something which she apparently does on a semi regular basis so doesn't initially cause him any concern. Louisa ends up being roped into attending the police station to report Melissa missing, starring in an appeal for Melissa to return and being questioned by the police about why she can't remember the events of her party.

Through a series of increasingly irritating flashbacks, Louisa starts to wonder whether Melissa was even at the party in the first place and why she is suddenly getting images of blood, matted hair, bare feet on grass and a building terror. Couple this with seemingly to forget feeding her baby all day (seriously!!!) and her mobile phone going missing (something that we never get to the bottom of) and we are taken on a journey as Louisa tries to work out why everyone seems to be lying to her.

The ending left me particularly disappointed - it was ludicrous and completely ruined the story for me. It is a decentish read if you can get past the ending. There are twists and turns but it was just not satisfying enough for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the start of the book, it promised mystery and intrigue, what had happened in Louisa's past, what had happened to Oliver's wife, but then it appeared to lose its way and I skim read a lot just to find out what happened in the end. I liked the twist of who the missing wife was but the ending was way too far fetched for me to give it any more stars.

Absolutely loved this book. At times I had to slow down to read properly as I was galloping through trying to get to the next twist.
Louise is currently on maternity leave with her second child. Absolutely shattered with a newborn the only thing she wants is sleep. Not a surprise party for her 40th. Especially not a party where the invite list is from the friends on her Facebook account. This heralds the arrival of Oliver an old boyfriend.
However, Oliver’s wife disappeared during the party. Where did she go or was she even there.
A fabulous book that has left me wanting to read more by Sam Carrington