"What Gates was to personal computers, Jobs was to smartphones, or Musk was to electric cars, Tim Scott was to AI (Artificial Intelligence); or would be, very soon."

So, when his "Perfect Wife", Abbie, goes missing, and has still not been found, nearly five years later, Tim does what any brilliant CEO of his own Robotics company would do...he recreates her as a "Cobot"-short for "companion robot"-designed to alleviate the loss of a "loved one".

After all, they do have their autistic son, Danny, to raise...and who better to raise him than his own mother?

Naturally, as chapters from the PAST alternate with chapters from the PRESENT, we learn that things are not always as perfect as they seem, and Tim Scott may ulterior motives...

Though I am not a reader of Sci-Fi, JP Delaney manages to seamlessly merge this aspect of the book into the thriller genre, treating readers once again to a UNIQUE and perhaps cautionary tale of things to come!

I grew to care about cobot Abbie, as if she were a human...

Though not a fan of the debut novel, released under this author's pseudonym, I was impressed by the sophomore release, "Believe Me" and again with this book, and cannot wait to see what J.P. Delaney dreams up for us next..

I would like to thank Netgalley, Random House-Ballantine, and the author for the digital ARC, I received in exchange for my candid review!

This title will be released on Aug. 6, 2019!

I've read several books by JP Delaney, so I was thrown off by the first chapter, wondering if I was mistaken and had received a sci-fi book instead of a thriller. Knowing how good Delaney's previous books were, I stuck it out and I'm glad I did! The way that the author "humanizes" the robot, Abbie, and shows how her AI learning pieces together parts of her past life is fascinating. As you read you discover along with Abbie that both she and her husband Tim have/had many secrets and hidden motivations. There have been enough stories on the pages of Wired magazine to know that some very realistic robots exist, and AI is quickly advancing, so I was able to have just enough "suspension of disbelief" to be a bit unnerved by The Perfect Wife!

I am a fan of this writer. However, this book fell a little short for me. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I prefer realistic books and the idea of a human robot was something I just couldn’t sink my teeth into. However, the mystery did keep me reading to find out how it all came together.

I have reviewed this book for New York Journal of Books where it will be posted on their site the evening before the publication date.

"The Perfect Wife"
By JP Delaney
Ballantine Books
August 6, 2019
10-1524796743
Psychological Thriller
432 Pages



Abbie Cullen-Scott awakens in what she believes is the hospital, with no recollection of where and how she got there. In fact, she has no recall of who she is. Was she in an accident?

In horrible pain, things start coming back to her. She then remembers her husband, Tim and her son, Danny. Were they hurt too?

A woman dressed in a blue uniform adjusts something by her side.

"'She's up and running,' she murmurs.

"'Thank God,' Tim's voice says. So he's alive, after all. And right here, by your bedside. Relief floods through you. . . .

"'. . . .Was there an accident? Is Danny okay?'

"'Danny's fine. Rest now. I'll explain later.' . . .

". . . 'It's incredible,' he says, not to you but the nurse. 'Amazing. It's her.'"

When Abbie is more cognizant of her surroundings Tim explains that she is a "cobot," which is short for ''companion robot.''

Abbie tries to digest this, but how can it be true? She feels pain and emotions, and she is beginning to remember her life.

Tim, who possesses a brilliant mind, is the owner of a robotics company in Silicon Valley. He tells her the "real" Abbie went missing five years ago, and she is an exact duplicate of the wife he loves. But she is a machine. She does not eat or drink nor does she have female parts to be a complete woman.

"He's tried to minimize the differences between this body and your old one, you discover. Your chest rises and falls, just as if you breathe. You shiver when it's cold, and if it's warm you have to take off a layer of clothing. You blink, sigh, and frown in ways you can't always control. And at night you go to a guest bedroom, so as not to disturb him, and sleep; or rather, enter a low-power mode, during which you recharge your batteries and upload more memories."

As you become more like the human Abbie, you remember things, especially your son, Danny, who you love more than life, but when you "meet" him, he shows no emotion. Could he be a robot also? It all comes back . . . Danny suffers from "Childhood Disintegrative Disorder," normally known as autism.

"CDD has been described by many writers as a devastating condition, affecting both the family and the individual's future. As is the case with all pervasive developmental disorders, there are no medications available to directly treat CDD and considerable controversy as to whether any treatments or interventions can have a beneficial effect."

A heartbreaking diagnosis, this "new" Abbie tries to get through to him, though Tim and Sian—once a teaching assistant at Danny's school, but now his live-in nanny—want complete control over the child.

Recollecting the human Abbie's life, the robot, Abbie researches all she can about her. Gone missing years ago, Tim was arrested and tried for her death. Though no body had been found or evidence of a crime, Tim was exonerated and spent the time between then and now devising a robotic Abbie to match his wife.

What Tim doesn't realize is, though the cobot may be a machine, she displays feelings and recollections and the more she learns about the human Abbie's life with Tim, the more determined she is to get to the truth of the real Abbie's disappearance.

At the onset, this book is a bit difficult to comprehend, as the cobot Abbie speaks in the third person, referring herself to "her" not "I" or "she" as one would normally see in a novel. Once that hurdle is passed, it becomes easier to visualize her as a piece of equipment, though she encompasses almost all human traits.

The concept of this novel is both terrifying and disturbing. Could this be something like The Stepford Wives? But those women were drugged and were human. This is an entirely new species: robots. Will it ever come to be that humans will be replaced by machines? A chilling thought.

A narcissistic A-driven scientist along with excellent information on autism and its many differing treatments provides the reader not only with some salient facts, but also a cause for reflection, both on the illness, and the mind of a crazed man.
A provocative read, one cannot help but wonder if this is a sign of the future.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️— The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney (Out 8/6/19)
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Thank you to @netgalley and Ballantine Books (@randomhouse) for a copy of this book.
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I will keep the synopsis out because I honestly am not sure how to describe it without spoiling!
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What I Liked: I really liked that this one was different. The plot was unique compared to many suspense/thrillers in a while. It was a great page turner and i loved that we didn’t know the other narrator who was telling the history.
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What I Didn’t: There honestly was not too much I did not like. It was slightly slow at times— I found myself reading the history chapters pretty quickly until it got closer.

JP Delaney does it once again. No one does twists, turns, and constant second-guessing quite like JP Delaney - this one is possibly the best yet!
If you loved The Girl Before as much as I did, you will love this one!

(can't say too much as I don't want to give anything away!)

actual stars...4.75

I simply Loved this book !!! think X-Machina on steroids mixed with an episode of ‘Black Mirror’.
JP Delaney has created a new genre of stories, part thriller, part murder mystery, part futuristic, part science-fiction without ever drowning the reader into technological mazes nor courtroom drama.

The reader is following the life like robot of Abbie Cullen who disappeared five years prior in strange circumstances. Her devoted husband, Tim Scott, is the entrepreneur genius behind Scotts Robotics groundbreaking AI technology.
One ‘almost’ forget that Abbie is a robot, as the chapters go back and forth in time trying to find out what happened to the real Abbie.
Add Abbie and Scott autistic child to this disturbing and fascinating story and somehow you get a compulsory read.

The story is fast paced and keeps you on the edge to the last chapter.
The book questions what i means to be human, questions the treatments for autistic children, question the future of humanity.


I feel so privileged to have read all of JP Delaney books.

Thank you to JP Delaney and to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review
publishing date Aug 06, 2019. Perfect summer read.

This book was just not for me. I didn't read past 50%. I didn't like about being a robot. It had thriller parts but a bit too sci fi for me.

This book isn't even remotely close to what I thought it was going to be when I started reading it, and it's not what I would typically pick up to read, so it took me a little bit to get over my surprise and get into the book. But once I did, I found myself really enjoying it, far more than I expected to. Without giving too much away, it explores the idea of AI, and how far we as a society may be willing to go in our quest for advancement and "improvement" in our every day lives. While it explores what is clearly a futuristic look of society, I'm not willing to say that it's fantasy or science fiction. And that's frankly a bit scary to me. This is not my typical genre, so I'm actually glad I didn't realize the subject ahead of time. Otherwise, I might have skipped what turned out to be a super interesting read, and a real page-turner for me. Highly recommend!

I liked this book. It was an extremely unique point of view and not at all what I was expecting. What I liked about the book is that again, it was a super creative concept, focusing on artificial intelligence and "cobots" (companion robots) after the mysterious disappearance of Abbie Cullen-Scott, the wife of tech genius Tim Scott. Tim creates "Abbie" the cobot for what she initially thinks is to replace the human Abbie as the wife in the household to help Tim and their autistic son Danny move on from their grief. I also really enjoyed the portrayal of young Danny, his disease and his therapies. It was a very well written and realistic portrayal of autism (you learn in the author's note that Delaney as a son with autism) and was really the only full fledged character development in the story.

4.5 stars (I'm careful with giving out my 5-star ratings, so this is rounded down on my stars up above)

Wow! Totally intriguing!! I had absolutely no idea what this book was about before I began reading it, so I had no preconceived notions or expectations about anything. I was unprepared for finding out what Abbie is (early on in the book) and how that all factors into the story. I immediately thought of a connection to <i>The Stepford Wives</i>, and it's even directly referenced in the book. There are similarities to Stepford, but this book stands on its own without being a copycat/retelling in any way.

There are so many twists that I was unprepared for. Things I thought I had figured out, I hadn't, not even close. There are two sets of chapters for this book and there's a switch in perspective between those two sets, and the reason for all this comes together at the very end. I immediately saw the differences between the two Abbies, but yet there were similarities, so I was kept guessing at her "memories" and "feelings" and the connection between the real and the creation.

Readers cannot look at this book as "oh, that could never happen" or focus on the implausibility of the scenario Delaney has created and instead simply focus on the story-telling on its own, because it's quite brilliant. The scenario is close enough to what technology is trying to achieve on many levels but also hopefully serves as a warning for what humanity is also becoming, along with showing the narcissism and twisted "love" that Tim has and exhibits (which is also real with all the murders and criminals we hear about). It definitely brings up the moral and ethical issues of artificial intelligence and what could happen, in both positive and negative ways.

However, there is also a strong mother's love woven throughout the story, with Tim and Abbie's son having a form of autism. That connection between Abbie and Danny is executed beautifully, with the mother's love and struggles and depression and frustration displayed realistically, between both Abbies. (And in the acknowledgements the author mentions his own struggles with raising his autistic son, so that connection shows through in his writing.) I loved the Thomas the Tank Engine references, as my son also loved the Thomas stories/toys/show as a little boy. I loved how Abbie figures out how to interact with Danny using Thomas, extremely well done.

Excellent book. Extremely well-done, well-thought-out, and well-executed. Again, anyone reading this book needs to focus on it as its own world/reality/book and not compare it to anything else, even reality. This is my second book by this author, and I look forward to reading everything he writes to how well he executes his imagination and brings it to life for me.

Content: Strong language throughout, though not until about halfway through the book, but from there through the rest of the book. There are a few sexual references that are dark, when the investor meets with Tim and becomes pretty crude, as well as an encounter that's not overly graphically described and also scenarios of workplace sexual harassment against women.

Wow. Just wow. You won’t want to miss this amazing novel. I couldn’t put it down. The story, the ending... my mind is still reeling. I loved everything about it.

Another great psychological thriller from JP Delaney. We recently added this author to our automatically yours list, so we will be getting all future titles by this author! I could not put this down, from start to finish.

This book got me from page 1. I could not put it down, I was at 10% and then all of a sudden I was at 30%. I really enjoyed this book.

JP Delaney really surprised me with this one. I have read all of his books thus far and have loved every single one. This one I enjoyed just as much but perhaps have an even stronger appreciation for due to the unexpected sci-fi elements. Keep'em coming, JP!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. The sci-fi element of this book made me a little unsure if I would like it, but I had read the author’s two previous psychological suspense novels - The Girl Before I loved and Believe Me I had hated - so I figured it could go either way.

After reading a few chapters, I was hooked! The twists and turns kept my interest and it is clear that the author has personal experience with an autistic child - the writing draws you in and speaks from the heart. The story keeps you guessing until the end. Fast paced thriller.

Well that was a thought provoking and fun ride. Nicely done!

Abbie wakes up and wonders where she is and how she got there. A man in the room says he is her husband. He also happens to be the brilliant founder of a tech company in the Silicon Valley. Abbie is not only his wife, she is an avid surfer, an artist and the mother of his child -she is the perfect wife.

When Abbie comes home memories begin to come back to her. She begins to question things. She begins to seek the answers to her questions, and she begins to realize that although she is the perfect "wife" her husband may not be the perfect husband.

This book had quite a few twists and turns thrown in and asks some questions about advancements in science, artificial intelligence, power, marriage, and treatments for autism to name a few. This was another great book by Delaney. I was fully invested in the story and wondering what was going to happen in the end. WOWZA is all I can say. If I had the time, I would have read this in one sitting. I really didn't want to put this book down. High marks for creating a riveting plot with twists, turns and shocking reveals. You may never think about technology the same way again (or sale floor mannequins for that matter). This was a refreshing psychological thriller which did not disappoint.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Tim Scott is a tech genius. He builds an AI cobot identical to his missing wife. Abbie wakes up thinking she in a hospital and finds out she's just been activated. She doesn't know how to feel about herself but sson she's looking into the mystery of what happened to the real Abbie Scott.
This was a plot you may have read before with an artificial intelligence twist. I've read other books by this author and after this book I'll read more.

The Perfect Wife was an amazing book right up to the end. I thought I had it figured out before the end of the book but I was totally wrong. Great ending though although it made me sad a bit. Abbie was a sensational character and Tim truly showed his colors more and more throughout the book. Mike and Jenny really played a bigger part than originally expected. Great read and fantastic writing. #aperfectwife #netgalley

This book was just as good as I had hoped it would be! The main character Abbie is both a person and a robot, which makes for an interesting story. As the book progresses, the robot Abbie starts piecing together the real Abbie’s life, and starts on a quest to discover what happened to Abbie in life.

The end of the book felt a bit rushed, which was a shame considering all of the build up to get there. I definitely enjoyed this book and look forward to more by this author.