This was a fast and enjoyable read that had a lot of elements that I really liked about it. It was dark and creepy and the main twists were well done. I will be recommending this one to my friends. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this in exchange for my review!

I have a new author to follow! Wow, I really enjoyed this book. Our heroine finds out that her missing husband has been living a double life and when he is presumed dead she moves on with her life. Now, we have all read lots of mysteries and sometimes missing is not dead. Nina moves on with a man who seems perfect. I won't put out any spoilers but I did find some interesting twists that compelled me to keep reading. I am afraid anything else I write will give too much away. All I can say is pick up the book and give it a try.

D. J. Palmer’s “The New Husband” is one crazy, disturbing, roller coaster ride! Yet, from the moment I picked it up, I couldn’t stop or put it down!! Literally, this story pulled me, held me in its grip, and refused to let me go. It’s the epitome of a captivating psychological thriller and everything I had hoped it would be.

What a crazy ride. This book had twists that I never saw coming. This will not be the last book I read from this author. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Super creepy! Going into the book you know that something is just not right about this guy- the "new husband" (although technically he is not yet married to the protagonist). I enjoyed the twisty, turny elements to the story and watching it unfold as the characters catch on to what was really going on.

This was just okay. I think once we get the reveal about what was really going on the book lost any interest to me. I think if Palmer had cut out one of the POVs so that we (readers) could be shocked about what was going on, it could have worked better. I also have to call BS for some of the explanations we get in the end. The big had some small plot holes that I just rolled with. I would be interested in reading Palmer again in the future.

"The New Husband" follows, well not the new husband, but the new boyfriend of Nina Garrity. About 17 months ago, Nina's husband Glen disappeared. It takes a long time to find this out, but it seems that Nina's husband was having an affair, wasn't working for several years, and then poofed into the wind. Nina assumes he left her for the other woman and is now trying to repair her life with her two kids, Connor, and Maggie. Nina is now living with her boyfriend, Simon, who is a high school teacher and the community is side-eyeing Nina a bit for moving on so quickly after Glen disappeared. Nina is trying to get a new job though and get more settled with Simon. Too bad her daughter Maggie hates him and now Nina is getting weird warnings about Simon.

The POVs in this book jump to Nina, her daughter, and another character (no spoilers). I have to say at first I was annoyed with Maggie cause she was acting bratty, but you feel for her when you realize what she is going through at school and how much she misses her dad. I wish that Palmer had included the character of Conner as a POV. I think if we had just stayed with Nina things would have been better honestly. She had a lot to deal with. Having us get Nina in therapy, and then Nina alone was weird. And then we get Maggie's POV's too. I started getting a bit jumbled after a while.

The ending felt a bit rushed to me. We follow up with everyone 3 years later and I maybe just rolled my eyes at the too pat ending. I wish that Palmer had gone darker a bit with this book or had not revealed so much up front which took out some of my enjoyment of this book.

I got a free ARC of this from GLOW (Galley Love of the Week) and Netgalley. This is my honest opinion of the book.

I was really excited to read this, as the cover blurb sounded really intriguing! When Nina's husband Glen disappears after draining their accounts, and his boat is found covered in blood with only their dog Daisy inside, she fears he is dead or has staged his death in order to start a new life. Luckily for her, Simon shows up just in time and appears to be the perfect man. Her teenage daughter disagrees, and sees something lurking below the surface. Will they discover the truth before it's too late? Fun, suspenseful read.

A very interesting thriller, will keep this author on my watch list. Recommending this book for purchase.

Definitely, an intense psychological thriller! It was a nice, non-overwhelming slow start. Learning the story of how Glen disappeared and is presumed dead since they can’t find a body. Nina moves on with Simon even though her daughter Maggie was struggling with the new relationship. The story was moving at a steady pace and then BAM! It was non-stop crawling out of my skin moments! Shocking, jaw-dropping! It was filled with such intensity, suspicion, & manipulation. It was so good, highly recommend! I especially liked the epilogue and the lessons it offers.

Thank you to D.J. Palmer, Martin Press, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this and offer my unbiased opinion.

The premise of this book will lock you and hold you there until the very end. And there was a few times I wanted to stop reading because the writing was too cliché for me, but I continued forth and was glad I did.

Maggie does not like the new person, Simon, her mother is involved with. There is something dark and disturbing about him. Glen, her dad disappeared two years ago. No one knows where he is, dead or alive. He did leave a lot of unanswered questions behind. A secret life no one knew about.
Maggie and her brother Conner are trying to come to terms with the loss of a father. A possibility of Simon as the stepfather doesn't sit well with Maggie. Worse he's a teacher at her school so she sees him constantly. Still it seems strange the way he just landed in their lives. Almost like it was all planned. There cannot be that many coincidences that would place him in their family. Now all Maggie has to do is convince her mother that he is not who he portrays himself to be.
Excellent, titillating, great read!

This was an incredibly intense read. A true psychological thriller. How well do we really know the people we think we know best? How easily can we be deceived and manipulated and lied to? This story grabbed me right from the start and I couldn't put it down. This is a great book to curl up with on a stormy day and read in one sitting.

Nina lost her husband and the world as she knew it in a most tragic way. His boat was found with his dog on it alone, surrounded by a whole lot of blood. But no body. With no way of knowing if her husband is dead or faked his own death and escaped Nina moves on with her life. Her and her two kids move in with a new man, much to the chagrin of many of her closest friends and family. She continues to learn more about her past and her current relationships each day.

If I'm being honest, for a large portion of this book Nina drove me crazy. Her choices and decisions were so frustrating, but I guess that was the point of this story - it's easy to be critical as an outsider. The story flips back and forth from different characters POV's throughout, but it was always at random and never clearly indicated (though it only took about a sentence or two to clue in so not too confusing). Certain parts of this story had my nerves up the way you feel when watching a horror film and you now something bad is coming but you don't know when. It created the perfect level of anxiety you want when reading a psychological thriller. I would be very surprised if this isn't one of 2020's top psychological thrillers.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is one of the best books I have read. It could be made into a movie. I liked the fact that the story was told from different character perspectives. There were twists and turns and it had me on the edge of my seat. It had a solid plot and made me think and ask questions and put pieces of a puzzle together and at one point my heart was racing. I look forward to more books from this author. I highly recommend this book.

After her husband disappears, a women gets involved with a new man who becomes more and more controlling. This was readable but pretty much the same old story with stereotypical characters and a predictable storyline.

If you are a fan of anxiety producing thrillers The New Husband will be the RX for you. I really enjoy a domestic drama but the horror vibe of this one was too stomach churning for me and I found myself having to here and there turn to something more tranquil.

This book started off slow for me, but boy did it pick up. Parts of it terrified me! If you like thrillers, like I do, this book is for you!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I have never read anything by this author but I certainly will be looking up more books!

Unfortunately, I did not care for this book. I know that I’m not in the majority. I felt the first half was terribly slow and the second half I kept rolling my eyes. I could not find the connection to the characters that I really wanted to find.

I enjoyed The New Husband, the tension throughout the book was amazing. The kids, Maggie and Connor, were truly well developed, and I absolutely love the fact that Maggie was not your perfect, child that she was a child being bullied in school.

There were unique twist and turns throughout the book, but there were other things that were a little predictable. Also I think the title was a little off.

I don’t want to say too much, because it would be so easy to drop spoilers, which I don’t want to do. I loved the ending though, very fitting.

2 years after the disappearance of her husband Glen, Nina has moved on and moved in with a new man, taking her two children to live with her boyfriend. But how much does she know about this new man and how much does she really know about her last one?

What I liked best was the characterization of the villain and the daughter Maggie. They both felt realistic, fully fleshed out characters with agency and personality.

What I didn’t like first and foremost was the pacing. I didn’t really feel like much happened for the first third of the book, and 100+ pages of limited development or exposition had this reader reluctant to keep going. At some point, I stopped caring altogether about Nina’s chapters and focused on Maggie’s. Finally around 50%, I felt semi invested but it was very much a rough start.

It was frustrating watching Nina be so dense. As a social worker of all things, you’d expect her to be a bit more intuitive and aware of the people around her. And when Simon turned into a creepy version of the peloton husband, I just wanted to shake (or slap) some sense into her. She had these moments of being a rational human and then they would disappear abruptly. It got to the point where I was questioning the author’s opinion of the entire female gender if he (and I could tell it was a he before even looking up what DJ stood for) honestly believed any woman would be that delusional. The ending/epilogue where it seemed like he was breaking the fourth wall a bit did nothing to improve my opinion because everything Maggie was saying about Allison was inapplicable to Nina who had somewhere else to go and didn’t know the full depth of the relationship problems but knew enough to have left.

In the end, I did still want to know how it would resolve and that kept me from making this an early DNF of the year. Thankfully the last 20% of the book was a big improvement over the frustration of the rest of it. The intention and ultimate messaging was good, but I didn’t think the Nina character was written in a way that conveyed it authentically. I would’ve rather read a book from Allison or Emma’s perspective.