The Perfect Wife is a great page-turning read! JP Delaney is back and in fine form. Well worth the time.

JP Delaney never fails to disappoint when it comes to unusual, mind bending stories. The Perfect Wife is no exception, as the reader gets to know Tim & Abbie. Tim is a tech innovator and visionary who is devastated by Abbie’s death. He comes up with a groundbreaking way of bringing Abbie back, complete with memories and empathy. I was astounded at the early premise of this novel, as it wasn’t expected, and Delaney weaves a story of deception, where nothing is as it seems. What makes one human? Can humans can be less than the empathy coded into robots? So many good questions raised here.

Riveting and unsettling at the same time. JP Delaney created a story of Artificial Intelligence that is not far from where our society is headed.A true modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

So it began when Abbie woke up from her accident to find she is not who she is, in fact she's not even human. She's a robot or more specifically a cobot (companion robot). Her husband, Tim Scott, built her to replace the human wife that he lost. Soon, the robot Abbie is not longer a replacement Abbie, but an outside person trying to find out what happened to the real Abbie. Little by little she started to become human herself and understands the true story of Tim and Abbie. Tim is a genius borderline into madness scientist. An amazing character with many scientific references that was intricately woven into the storyline.The way the story was written made me dove right into the story as if I was Abbie instead of a reader looking through a window as the story unfolded. I was living the story. At first the story reminded me of the book "A Simple Favor"; however, the story is so much more than that. There are twists and turns that I could have never predicted. Again, Delaney came up with a story that no one has ever written before. Characters were not one dimensional. The characters became alive and human. There is no guessing in this story.

The acknowledgment at the end was nothing short of spectacular. I know many would skip it, but it's a must read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this fabulous ARC in exchange for an honest review.

No no no

I'm a fan of JP Delaney but this book is a non-starter. From the first pages I wanted to skip to the ending and then close. After reading about 25% I didn't even feel the need to find out what happens.

This book is the movie "Ex Machina" written from the POV of the android and I'm not interested.

Spectacular! I admit it that I was quite nervous going into this one after reading the blurb. I was worried that it was going to be strange and science “fictiony” and it is somewhat BUT it’s also so much more!

The writing and character development is excellent. The story alternates from AI Abbie’s point of view and that of a “historical” perspective that serves to show how things have progressed to get to this point. The chapters that AI Abbie narrates are unbelievably good. I was totally immersed in this story, I could so clearly picture it.

There are surprises and twists. The ending was perfect! I rarely give 5 stars. I’m stingy with them. They are reserved for something that is so unique and pulls you so far in you don’t want to stop reading until the end and you want the ending to never come (Dot Hutchison, The Butterfly Garden comes to mind). This earned every star. Kudos!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Random House Publishing for a copy in exchange for a review.

A unique premise for a psychological thriller. Very intriguing and different! I would recommend if you're sick of reading thrillers with the same premise.

Wow. So very different, original, stunning in its conception. Some reviewers will call it dystopian; at times Stepford Wives kept coming to me. The main character, Abbie, is a robot woman created by her tech genius husband, Tim, as an experiment to replace his missing wife. But she has feelings just like we imagine the real Abbie had. So...this story is fascinating, but I felt a certain frustration - an almost coldness in that we don’t know if we can trust Tim, or anyone else in the story or even Abbie’s memories. This came close to being a five star book, but those are the reasons I could only give a four.

Thank you to the publishers at NetGalley for inviting me to read the advanced copy for review. Delaney’s writing and creativity are amazing, brilliant, and it's definitely a page-turner.

The premise of the story--a techno whiz kid building a robot to substitute for his deceased wife--was strange and unsettling, But this book just blew me away. Stunning in its writing. And shocking as the characters evolve in the most sinister way. Indescribable. I have never ever come across a book of this magnitude--ten stars for everything that could possibly be contained in one book. I can't find the words to describe this novel. Read it and you will see what I mean. But beware--you will NOT be able to stop reading it until you have finished the entire book. Without a doubt, the strangest most enticing and stunning mystery I have ever read, TEN STARS!!!!,!,

Wow, this is an amazing psychological thriller! This thriller kept pulling me in compelling me to keep reading to discover what was going to happen next. It has an extremely clever and highly entertaining and thought provoking plot with just enough suspense to keep you guessing. Gripping, intriguing, compelling with an absolutely awesome ending. I was fortunate to receive this novel from Netgalley as an Advance Reader Copy, in exchange for an objective review.

Thanks Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, I can't find enough words to describe how amazing this book is.
It has a really unique and thought provoking plot with exciting twists and turns and an amazing ending.
Never a dull moment with this unpredictable roller coaster, so make sure you have plenty of free time because once you start reading this book you will never be able to put it down. Enjoy!

Delaney takes psychological thrillers with crazed husbands/wives to another level with The Perfect Wife. It almost feels like dystopian fiction at times. The main character, Abbie, is a robot woman created by tech genius, Tim, as an experiment to replace his missing wife. She is so realistic she can pass for the real Abbie. Everything she knows has been programmed by Tim using data from the original Abbie. But we don’t know if we can trust Tim. We don’t know if we can trust anyone or any memory of Abbie’s. The story could go in so many different directions with this premise. I kept guessing but never really knew more than Delaney wanted the reader to know.
I really liked Abbie as she pieced together clues on her own. I also found Danny’s story interesting and I loved Abbie and Danny’s interactions. It’s probably a 5 star book but I needed one more character Abbie could trust early in the story to keep things grounded.
Thank you to the publishers at NetGalley for inviting me to read the advanced copy for review. Delaney’s creativity was amazing and to call this a page-turner is putting it mildly.

When Abbie woke in a hospital bed not knowing why she was there, she Discovered her memories of the last five years were gone. I almost put the book down thinking it was the same old suspense novel plot. I almost decided not to read further.
I’m very glad I kept going because by the next page I was hooked and could not put the book down until I had finished it. A creative and unusual plot, with many twists and turns, this is a suspense novel you must read. Every time I thought I knew what would happen next, I was wrong and the ending was dynamic and amazing. Clear your schedule. Once you start you’ll do nothing else but read until the end.

Wow, I could not put this book down. JP Delaney has a knack for crafting twists and turns that you never see coming--and I say this as someone who reads a ton of suspense/thriller books and can almost always figure out what's going to happen. I had the same experience with his last book, but this one is even better.

The plot centers around a Silicon Valley mogul whose boho artist wife disappears, so he engineers a robot with her consciousness. (I kept wondering if Delaney had based any of this on Elon Musk and Grimes' recent relationship, because the character types seemed eerily similar.) The robot (or "cobot," I should say) has feelings and acts just as the missing woman does. The novel is written in second person, from her perspective. It's rare that a book is written that way, and in Delaney's last book I didn't so much like the experimental, screenplay-style scenes, but in this case the unconventional technique works really well.

The pacing is great and as I said before, I had no idea how this was going to end until it did. There was one reveal in the last few chapters that had me gasping because it was so perfect and unexpected. The other thing I loved was that this is an explicitly feminist book; there's a lot to unpack about the tech world and the way it treats women. The book also deals with the subject of autism in a sensitive, truthful way. (Delaney says in the afterward that his son is autistic, and that really comes through in the writing when he talks about the main character's son.)

Anyway, be sure to pick this one up. It's a thought-provoking, suspenseful ride, and the questions the story raises about the ethics of AI, the toxic misogyny of Silicon Valley, and the way society treats those with neurodevelopmental disorders will stay with you long after you've finished reading.

What would you do if someone told you you could live forever? Would you do anything? Become anything? Abbie awakens with no memory of the last five years. Her husband, the owner of a highly successful robotics company tells her she was in a terrible accident five years before, and it’s only as a result in his company’s research that she has been able to “come back” to her husband and son. Delaney raises some provocative questions about AI and how it might be used in the future, or if it should be used at all. This book is so original, so thought provoking and so unsettling; it really made me question what I might do to keep a loved one with me.