3.5 stars rounded up. This was a good thriller but the outcome was predictable. When I read a thriller, I want to be on the edge of my seat all the way through and have to guess who the bad guy is. That didn't happen in this book as it was given away much earlier. I think that took away a lot of the suspense. But it still had some good twists and turns and was a decent story.

D.J. Palmer’s The New Husband is a psychological thriller that is gripping from the start. The story has many levels: love vs obsession, triumph of good over evil, and the importance of trust and family. The characters are multilayered and complex. The villain is so practiced at hiding his evil, the object of his obsession appears to be weak and needy but there is more than meets the eye.
The opening pages of the book drew me in immediately and the flow kept me in its grip. The emotions the story evoked drove me to keep reading. The story is very well-written.
I highly recommend this book. I read D.J. Palmer’s Saving Meghan and I loved it, and this is better. The New Husband is for anyone who likes psychological thrillers, in particular, or just a good book.
Thank you #Netgalley and #StMartinsPress for approving my request for an advanced readers copy. All the opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.

I started this read without reading any reviews from this and not much of the synopsis except for the title that pretty much tells me all I would ever need. The story opens up with someone’s disappearance from a fishing boat, which we learns later is Glen. Mystery of his disappearance starts to ramp up and as the layers are peeled, the story really begins to take a drastic turn.

I enjoyed this thrilling ride of a read. The excitement that built up will keep you turning those pages. DJ Palmer leaves trickles of hints and clues to a crescendo of an ending that blew me away! This was fun and I enjoyed it!

DJ Palmer wrote an addictive read that I really enjoyed. The built up was so thrilling and the suspense titillating!!

Pick this up now for a cure for any reading slump or a change of pace! Really enjoyable read I recommend!

The New Husband by D.J. Palmer is an engrossing, chilling psychological thriller. The Garrity family’s world is turned apart when Glen Garrity, the patriarch of the family, turns up missing while on a fishing trip. Daisy, the family dog is found alone on his fishing boat which is covered in blood. Glen is presumed to be dead, however his body is never found. Flash forward 18 months, and Nina (the mother) and her children, Connor and Maggie, are moving to a new house. Nina has moved on with her life and has a new love, Simon Fitch who Nina believes is her true soul mate. Simon is also moving in with them. Nina and Simon bought the new house together. Simon seems to around good guy and is a teacher at Maggie’s school. Only Maggie seems to doubt him and a tense relationship evolves between the two. Is Simon well-meaning with good intentions or is he a shrewd cold creepy manipulator? Things begin to turn sinister and there are many dark twists in the story which will keep you on your toes. Is Simon well-meaning with good intentions or is he a shrewd cold creepy manipulator? Read it and find out.

Very good mystery! I couldn't put it down! Lots of twists and turns and keeps the reader wondering what will happen next! Great character development.
4 stars

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this book.All opinions are my own.

Suspense, drama, nail-biting turns - although the plot turns weren't quite as twisty as one might expect, this book was compelling and quite the page-turner. Simon was the perfect new man for Nina, until he wasn't.

Thank you St Martins Press and Netgalley for my review copy. Although I liked this book I definitely had some problems with it. The plot used a similar format to many other thrillers. It seemed a little too much like something I had read before for the first half of the book. There were some interesting characters that really helped move the story along. In particular I liked Maggie and Ben. We realize very quickly what is happening with Nina and Simon and we just need to get to the end to find out how the pieces will fit together. I liked the author’s last novel, Saving Meghan, and I will definitely read more by this author but I just felt like this book was a bit too predictable.

3 Stars

You can read all of my reviews at https://www.NerdGirlLovesBooks.com.

This mystery/thriller messed with my feelings. One minute I liked it, the next minute I hated it, the next minute I scoffed at it. It's a typical mystery book, with a few twists that make it a bit more interesting than the norm.

Nina's husband goes missing on a fishing trip. She and her two teenage children learn to cope with their loss with the help of widower Simon. Simon seems to be the answer to all of their problems: warm, caring, understanding and willing to take care of Nina and her children. But is Simon too good to be true? And did Nina's husband drown to death or did he just abandon his family?

The book starts off slow and steady, dropping little hints that all is not as it seems. Then it takes a veer to the left and the book becomes something much more than it was. I confess that I knew almost immediately certain element of the book, but it was still interesting to see how the author played it out. A reader must always suspend belief when you read a book, but some of the plot lines and actions of the characters were so laughable and so out there that I found myself rolling my eyes and scoffing out loud. But, it still generated a reaction from me, so the author did his job.

This is a quick, entertaining read that will get the readers' attention. Even though parts of the book are predictable, it's never boring.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Nina’s world, along with the lives of her two children, Conner and Maggie, are changed forever when her husband, Glen disappears under questionable circumstances one Saturday morning while he’s out fishing. Simon, a teacher at Maggie’s middle school, walks into their lives to pick up the pieces perfectly. Maggie doesn’t trust him and tries to convince her mother and brother of the same, but isn’t successful. Until one day, her mom notices something amiss. Can they find out the truth before everything they love is gone?

The New Husband started out as a great thriller, with twists and heavy suspense. I enjoyed the first 75% of the book, but when I realized that the only major twist was revealed about half way into the book, I was disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, overall, this was an excellent domestic thriller. It was well written and enjoyable. The characters are well developed and the backstory that makes them who they are now was interesting and realistic. I was just hoping for one more twist at the end to WOW me.

Going in to this, I didn't realize how addictive The New Husband would become. I will say, it started out a little slow, but once it picked up, I couldn't put it down!

Nina, a single mother, has found love again after her husband mysteriously disappeared without a trace a year and a half ago. She began dating Simon Fitch, a teacher at her daughter's middle school. Nina’s friends and Maggie have qualms about Simon, but she decides to embrace love and move in with him. But sometimes things are too good to be true.

I wasn't sure if I was going to finish this. .The first half was slow, but I'm so glad that I pushed through, and the second half more than made up for the beginning!

The New Husband was definitely worth the read!

I loved this book! Thanks to Net galley and St Martins Press for the book to read and review. I had to keep reading to see what kind of craziness Simon would do next. Nina's husband is missing and she meets the dashing Simon and quickly moves in with him with her family. What ensues is crazy and twisty. I really felt for Nina's teenage daughter Maggie, who sees thru all of Simon's facade but the only one who believes her is her school buddy Ben. This is a must read for any thriller fan!!

If you are looking for a psychological thriller that will haunt your dreams, this is for you. At least it haunted my dreams, the night I finished it I had some doozies! Not my favorite thriller because I was able to predict certain aspects of the plot and I didn’t like how quickly and tidily the ending wrapped up, but still compulsively readable.

This was a scary read! I loved it and didn't want to stop until it ended. The scariest part is that it was so realistic. The fact that it could actually happen freaked me out. Anyone that ever had a date with a man that seemed too perfect will relate to this book! The almost teenager voicing her fears is so relatable in our world. Would you believe your daughter right away or would you choose to explain it away as jealousy and turn a blind eye? I will read everything this author writes! He has a way of making the suspense last!

This book was absolutely amazing! I couldn’t stop reading. I loved the plot and the intensity as I wondered how things would turn. The writing keeps your attention until the end. I’m grateful to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! It's been a while since I read thru a book so fast... very well written, held my attention & still surprised me along the way. I'll be looking forward to reading other books by this writer.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I finished this book in 2 days. It was not because the book was amazing, but because I needed to know where the story was going and how things were going to end for the characters. I did not love the large number of very short chapters; much of the book read less like a cohesive story and more like a series of scenes, many of which started and ended abruptly. (I appreciate the fact that this is literally what books are but it was jarring in this case.) There was also unnecessary descriptive information in nearly every chapter. To be honest, I did not read every word because much of it was repetitive or unimportant.

The story kept me on the edge of my seat. As I said, I really needed to know what was going to happen and when things were going to hit the fan. I don't want to spoil anything, but at a certain point in the book you start seeing things from almost all of the main character's perspectives. I am a big sucker for a "big reveal" type scenario when I read mystery/suspense books, but that never really happened here because we were inside the heads of almost every character. I didn't necessarily like this in the overall story, but it was interesting to see the characters' perceptions of each others' actions when you also knew what the opposite characters' motives and thoughts were.

By far the best character was Maggie. I kept forgetting she was as young as she was because she doesn't really read as a 13 year old girl to me. But she did remind me a lot of myself when I was younger. My mother ended up in somewhat similar relationships to the one in which Nina finds herself with Simon, and so I could relate to Maggie on an almost uncomfortable level. Regardless, Maggie was incredibly intuitive and 100% the smartest character in the book.

I would recommend this book if you are interested in the mystery/suspense genre. It is possible that some of the things I took issue with were changed between the ARC and the published version.

Wow, this was so amazing in a sleeping with the enemy kind of way, sort of. Imagine meeting a man who practically worships the ground you walk on and cannot do enough for you. This after losing your husband. Finally, no more lonely nights and your heart can begin to heal. Then, you realize things aren’t actually as they seem.

I would’ve been scared out of my mind, but probably angry enough to stand up to him. I hope this is made into a movie because it’s too good not to be. I’m reading whatever this author writes .

Better than average writing but some holes when transitioning to revelations. The characters are well developed--a mom and her two kids and dog ends up moving in with the local middle school social studies teacher after the husband disappears under suspicious circumstances. I especially liked the characters of Maggie and Ben and their tweenage antics and sleuthing. The plot isn't wholly original but the suspense is there and the depiction of an abuser is spot on. Merits a read.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

Reviews were all over the place for The New Husband, of course I had to see what side I landed on. So, it was an okay read for me. Honestly the first 40% was incredibly slow and I was a bit bored. It did pick up from there so there's that. Unfortunately all the characters except for the teenage daughter Maggie and her friend Ben were a bit flat for me. I had quite a few issues with the mother Nina who wasn't really there for her daughter. Anyhow, shame on me. I should've known better reading a book where reviews were either love it or leave it. I just can't help myself.

This book is INSANE. The twists! The turns! The tortuous tension! The "how in the WORLD did that happen"!

DJ Palmer introduces you to Nina, dropping you into an empty boat with a lone dog and a lot of blood and jumps ahead seventeen months to the would-be widow of the guy who was supposed to be on that boat, moving into a new home with her new boyfriend and her two kids. Be prepared to hop back and forth on the timeline, dear reader, because Palmer does not tell a linear tale.

There is the mystery of what happened to Glen Garrity: did he die? Did he run away? There is the mistress: Glen had a sidepiece? There is the new man on the scene: is Simon a good guy, or is Nina's daughter Maggie correct in her bad feelings about the guy?

And then there is the marriage. As Palmer shows, Nina and Glen's union was not without friction, not without secrets and obfuscations. Should we trust her?

Prepare thyself for a plot twist or two. But this book is more than shocking plot developments. Palmer shows you a couple at-risk, people who made themselves vulnerable, which makes you read this book not just with your breath held, worrying for what happens next, but also through a slightly different prism of wondering if evil would have broached a stronger union.

Please hit up the comments and let me know what you think of this book. It's one that needs lots of discussion.