3.5 stars
This story was not what I expected and I’m glad I had read of some reviews before starting it.
It’s a good read but is very different to other books I’ve read by JP Delaney.
It’s still a psychological thriller at its heart, but there is a strong science fiction theme running through it as well.
Tim has created a co-bot of his wife who disappeared. The new ‘Abbie’ has all the human Abbie’s memories uploaded gradually and Tim sees her as his perfect wife.
Co-bot Abbie finds it easy to adapt to life with Tim until she comes across an iPad and starts to learn things about her predecessor’s relationship with Tim.
It’s a hard one to get your head around but overall an enjoyable book.
Thanks to Quercus books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Great concept for a book, enjoyed the ideas being explored here very much.
And strangely by the end was rooting for 'Abbie' - especially after the touching scenes with Danny.
There were probably a few too many red herrings for me - Nathan in the shop, the thought the real Abbie could be alive etc.
Also the final part of the book took us on quite slow journey as Abbie and Danny escaped only to speed up and twist about so quickly it felt rushed.
I'm actually still not quite sure what happened if I'm honest! And I am left wondering who the narrator in the company was, I get it was a piece of tech but they described themselves as a Friend - the same name given by the phone that tempted robot Abbie to robot Tim.
Also why did Tim make robot Abbie and Danny make that massive journey only to meet them there?
And if Danny was saved at the last minute by the family in the boat then what was robot Abbie seeing in her arms at the end? Was she imagining?
So overall a very interesting read and good concepts, also nice to have a sci-fi book aimed at women but a little too twisty for me with no real satisfaction at the end. Much preferred 'Believe Me' from this author - which genuinely really surprised me!

What a fabulous story this is, certainly a new theme to me, where the characters are as well crafted as the story. The central character is a construct who goes on to be almost indistinguishable from the original, so much so that I found myself rereading segments so I could fix which was which.

Overall, 5 Stars, each one of which is well deserved. When you buy this book, be prepared to lose sleep as, by the end of chapter 1, you will want to read this book in one sitting - it is worth that effort.

Abbie awakens with no memory of who she is. The man by her side claims to be her husband. But Tim has made a mechanical replica of Abbie. Abbie had disappeared five years ago leaving behind her husband Tim and their autistic son. Tim has created the perfect wife, but is he the perfect husband?

Be prepared, once you pick this book up, you won't want to put it back down. The book explores the idea of artificial intelligence, where a person is supposed to live on after their death. This is different to anything that I've read recently, but it kept my interest throughout. I liked the authors style in writing this book. There are plenty of twists and an ending I never saw coming. The challenges of having an Austin child were well covered. A little bit scary and creepy but I loved it.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Quercus Books and the author J.P. Delaney for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Brilliantly written and plenty of twists. Loved it. Well worth a read. Thank you for letting me review this book.

I started reading but at the beginning it got too confusing with the uploaded memories premise. It's a shame as I thought this would be in the same vein as The Girl Before and Believe Me, both of which I thought were fantastic. Although, it won't put me off reading anything else by this author.

Wow. Just wow.

This is honestly something else. There are so many twists and turns, referring to it as a rollercoaster of a ride is honestly not far wrong!

It did drag a tiny bit in the middle, with everything starting to feel a bit repetitive, but it soon picked back up, and I was still regularly being surprised and thrilled throughout.

My only criticism is with regards to the ending - there are some big reveals, and some big twists, and it could maybe have done with a little more clarity in this area. Personally, I had to reread it a few times to make sure I had a full grasp of exactly what occurred. But that might also be because I was reading it at 2am!

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This has not influenced this review, and all opinions are honest and my own.

This is not my usual genre of book, however I loved it. The story is clever, unusual and kept me intrigued throughout. JP Delaney is a fabulous author and this book will stay with me for a long time after reading it as it is truly unique.

This was not the type of story I expected based on JP Delaney's other novels. However, this just shows the versatility of the author! I did not think I would enjoy this as I am not a science fiction fan, but it was really enjoyable and thought-provoking. Well done to the Author for another cracking read!

JP Delaney has another hit on his hand with The Perfect Wife. It is a very fast paced story that fits into so many different categories that I really don't know where to begin. It is clever, futuristic and makes you think about where to draw the line. I can see that this book won't be for everybody, but for me it was something completely different from the run of the mill basic storylines and I really enjoyed.

Tim Scott is a Silicon Valley multi millionaire. 5 years ago his wife Abbie disappeared without a trace leaving him heartbroken. Now he has built a co-bot of Abbie - with all her memories downloaded from social media and feelings. She looks exactly like his wife, only she is artificial. Her family are distraught, believing that he has done this all without Abbies consent. As more and more memories are loaded Abbie begins to remember that she did not trust her husband and wanted to take their autistic son away.

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

I’m not a big reader of science fiction and hadn’t understood from the blurb that this was a robot story. It was an imaginative concept with lots of threads

Are cyborgs our future? Are they machines or if we build them in our image do we automatically give them a soul? Surely if you kick a Roomba he makes nothing of it, but what if you impose relationship on a cyborg that has ‘feelings’ or at least is programmed to feel just like you do? The legendary Isaac Asimov’s first law of robotics is that a robot would never injure a human. But what if it’s the other way around? These ethical questions are just some that rise from “The Perfect Wife”, JP Delaney’s latest book.

Is “The Perfect Wife” a thriller? Is it Sci-Fi? Maybe Psychological? The book seems to escape standard definitions, which gives it immediately that X-factor. The certain fact is that the author uses this novel to teach us about autism, its related stigmatism and ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis – a method trying to embed “normal” behaviour to autistic patients), subjects which are no doubtfully close to his heart, and thus making this a rather educational experience as well as an entertaining one.

Tim Scott is a multi-millionaire Silicon Valley founder of an AI robotics company. He has built a ‘Cobot’ (Companion Robot) to replicate his wife Abbie Cullen-Scott, who disappeared five years before, presumed dead. The story is told from Abbie the robot’s point of view, who had been uploaded the memories of the real Abbie through social media, videos and pictures, and her brain was built in a way which is meant to “fill in the gaps”, by using her deductive AI abilities.

The story shifts between timelines, making narrative not altogether straightforward, and leaving confusion between someone who is telling us the alternate story of Abbie and Tim’s history. The couple also have a ten-year-old autistic son Danny who is the source of much tension and is essential to the development of the plotline. The more we read about Danny’s autism ‘outbreak’ the more we learn about Tim & Abbie’s marriage, which is far from the utopian relationship that everyone imagines.

This is a compelling story, well written by an experienced author. However, there were a lot of problematic points which disturbed me personally, as a critical reader. I‘ll endeavour to point these without giving away too much of the plot:

Abbie disappeared, so the upload of her memories is done from social media etc. If this is the case, how can she remember other events? How can she possibly know all of a sudden what Tim had told her during their wedding in India, as an example. The readers are intelligent, and the author should have sorted this issue, and not just hand the reader a “black hole” of data, expecting us to think nothing of it.

The second main issue lies within the story’s characters: while it is apparent that Tim is more sinister than he seems from the start – his true nature is even worst than you’d suspect. This is revealed only later in the story, which is very implausible, given how intelligent Abbie is. In comparison – while real Abbie is this cool-surfer artist who ‘rebels’ against society’s norms, Cobot Abbie is an eager to please wife. That simply didn’t cut the mustard for me. Besides, these are the only two complex characters in the novel, while everyone else has a sketch of a personality, nothing too deep. This makes it a bit unbelievable as the story reaches its climax, and the necessity of these supporting characters is discovered.

Addressing again the issue of autism. I salute the author of finding a fictional-comparable situation to autism, via AI beings. This was a clear well thought of paradigm, which makes readers who know nothing about autism or mind degenerative syndromes to relate and understand the issues which parents to autistic children face their entire lives. The author himself addresses this in his afterword.

In conclusion, “The Perfect Wife” is a very interesting idea, written well enough, but story-wise its execution did not live up to its promise. There should have been at least 100 more pages to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of how the Abbie-bot was devised, and who are Tim’s friends and staff. Eager to get this out, I think the author missed the target completely. The one silver lining is that the ending as it is, as well as the mortality of the robots and the subject of AI, mean that a sequel may very well be just around the corner. Given the ethical issues that the book slightly touches and the constant technological progress in real life – I can certainly see one in the near future.

I’ve never read a JP Delaney book before, clearly a gifted author. However, this book for me is still a draft that should have been edited more, especially when it comes to the story.

This book had a very odd beginning and therefore I found it really hard to get into to start with and the style felt very disjointed. However, once I had more of a grasp of the plot and what the author was trying to achieve it made reading it a lot easier.

I liked the flipped perspectives and this really kept me hooked on what was happening in the current events and the events leading up to the present. It added another dimension. Telling Abbies perspective from second person really put you in the shoes of exactly what was happening, and it made it even more chilling.

There were really good cryptic twists that I did not see coming.

Overall a very well written novel and well rounded characters. I really felt invested in finding out what happened and the suspense kept me hooked.

A seamless and unique mix of Westworld and The Stepford Wives, with an undeniable Frankenstein chill, The Perfect Wife is an intensely, gripping psychological thriller that brings 21st century technology scarily into focus.

The Perfect Wife is a unique novel. Focusing on the world of Robotics, Autonomy and real life relationships, it might sound a little scientific, but I think this is a novel for any fan of a gripping thriller.

Five years after a mysterious accident, Abbie wakes to find her husband Tim at her bedside. She is confused about what has happened, but ecstatic to be alive. Until Tim tells her that she isn't actually alive.

Abbie died five years ago, and genius Tim has spent all this time perfecting her replacement - or replica self.

Abbie is a Cobot (A Collaborative Robot) - and yes, I did have to look that up to see what it meant! A Collaborative Robot is one that is intended to physically interact with humans in a shared work space (as opposed to a normal 'robot' that are designed to operate autonomously).

Abbie has been 'uploaded' with software to give her Abbie's memories and personality, so that her still grieving husband can continue his life with his 'wife' by his side.

It's a touching story, and one that Abbie initially finds difficult to believe. Until she 'remembers' how determined her husband is, and what a scientific breakthrough 'she' is.

As Abbie begins to gather more 'memories' she begins to really question her husbands motives for creating her, and his version of events surrounding her mysterious 'accident'. Can she trust the man who bought her to life, or should she be fearful that he is trying to end it?

This book got off to a really great start, but soon lost its pace. I thought it was a poor version of The After Wife by Cara Hunter, which was fantastic.

This book was incredible, I read this in one night, to hell with the housework and prep for the following day, once I picked this gem of a book up I wasn't putting it down until it had been read.
This book is a psychological thriller with a twist of sci-fi to it. The storyline is not totally believable, but that does not detract from how good this book is.
I do not want to give to much away and spoil this book for anyone else This book manages to mix together a psychological thriller, a mystery, Artificial Intelligence, Autism and Narcissism all in one book and it works so well.
This is a must read book of 2019, it totally has the WOW factor and has broken the mold for the psychological thriller genre.This is absolutely a five star book and will recommend this book to anyone who chats to me about books.
Thanks to net galley for allowing me to read this for review.

An amazing read! I did not at all expect the ending. Typically for JP Delaney, this was immediately enthralling, had twists and turns, left you guessing, and made you read the whole book in one sitting! The author’s experience, which I now know after reading the acknowledgments, of raising a child with severe autism really shows in the book too. A wonderful must read for all.

Started to read this and thought I wouldn't like it but persevered and I'm so glad I did. Very cleverly written, with a subject I know nothing about but was very believable and interesting. Finished it in 2 days, definitely worth a read. Would make a great beach read for summer.

A totally engaging book. A absolutely gripping story, well written, with lots of twists and turns along the way.