DNF. Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy! I decided to not keep reading this one, it was not for me. Thanks!

Thank you Netgalley for an copy of The Last Wife by Karen Hamilton in exchange for a honest review.
The Last Wife by Karen Hamilton is a really good book. At times I really liked Marie and at first she was really unlikable. But I kept reading to try an figure her out. I will definitely want to read more from this author.

I truly dislike leaving less than positive reviews because it's hard to write a book but I really can't say many good things about this book. First off it just dragged!! Everytime I would glance at my progress only to find that I'd only made it 5% further. Not a single character was likeable and I felt that the purpose of the story kept changing. There was no big reveal or twist. All in all it was just a confusing let down. Unfortunately I cannot recommend this one.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Review
The author does an excellent job of ramping up the suspense early on in the story. At first glance, the mystery of the promises Marie made to Nina seems harmless, but they are anything but. The edgy nature of the thriller lends itself well to the cast of characters and their hidden natures.

The author’s focus on character development really shines through in this thriller. The mark of a good mystery shows in this narrative, as the characters all show evidence of both good and nefarious intentions, marking them as well-rounded and complex characters that are both relatable and engaging to readers.

The Verdict
An edge-of-your-seat thriller, author Karen Hamilton’s “The Last Wife” is a must-read summer mystery that is reminiscent of the shocking and electrifying mystery surrounding Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl”. The characters steal the show as by the book’s end those you thought you could trust suddenly are not, and readers are left shocked as the book comes to a close. Be sure to grab your copy today!

I read this only two months ago and already can't remember anything that happened. Totally formulaic and forgettable.

The life you live is the only one you have. Or is it? When her best friend extracts a promise from her friend, one cemented on her death bed, what can a girl's best friend do but move in and grab with both hands. That premise has been written many times, but Karen Hamilton gives it a novel twist when secrets meant to be buried forever suddenly become known. This book could easily have been subtitled "don't judge a book by it's cover" or "the grass is always greener on the other side". When everyone's secrets finally collide, the explosions are pretty staggering.

While I loved Karen Hamilton's The Perfect Girlfriend, The Last Wife was a bit underwhelming. The pace is slow and methodical, and I didn't much like the main character Marie. Her willingness to make her life a reflection of the life of her deceased best friend, Nina, was unsettling. This quickly became tiring as she literally slips into Nina's bed. The 10ish plus years backstory with the three friends, Maria, Nina, and Camilla, adds a bit of suspense and provides the impetus for Marie's obsession with Nina's life. But I just found myself not caring enough and it took me awhile to get through this read.

I wanted to love this book, but just like the author's first book I could not get into the story line. I did not like the characters from the beginning and I could not become invested in their story. After a lot of trying, I had to give up on reading this one.

The premise of this book grabbed me right away! And of course after reading Karen Hamilton’s previous book The Perfect Girlfriend I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one!

Unfortunately this did not measure up to the author’s previous Book...at all! I struggled to connect from the beginning and resorted to skimming to reach the underwhelming end. Thus I won’t be Posting my review to additional sites.

Since I know this author’s has previously released a thriller I loved I will likely pick up her next release.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to read and review.

This twisty thriller will have you on the edge of your seat. Highly recommended.

When Nina becomes terminally ill, she asks her best friend Marie to carry on with her bucket list. What she doesn't know is that Marie would love to live Nina's life....until she figures out that Nina had secrets too and everything was not exactly as it seemed on the surface.

I really liked this author’s last book and I liked this one even more. This was definitely a story that kept me guessing. Marie promises her best friend, her dying wish, that she will take care of her family once Nina dies. Nina leaves behind her husband and two small children. Marie wastes no time in helping out with the family once Nina is gone and maybe she gets a little too close. Complicating things for Marie is the return of her old friend Camilla. Marie has secrets and so does Camilla. Who has the most to lose and is Nina’s husband also carrying around secrets? Also Marie soon learns she didn’t know Nina as well as she thought. There are a lot of twists and turns here and I was kept guessing. I enjoyed the pacing of this one and was definitely curious to see how everything wrapped up.
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I am really not sure what to say about this book. It was interesting but very confusing at least for me. I don’t mean confusing in the sense that you’re trying to figure out what happened but confusing in the way it read. But again that could be just me. I just didn’t care for the style it was written in, but others may like it.

#TheLastWife #NetGalley

Marie has always been jealous of her best friend Nina. After Nina dies of cancer, Marie finally has a chance to take over Nina’s life. Marie moves in with Nina’s husband, Stuart, and helps him look after their children. While living with Stuart, Marie discovers secrets about Nina’s past.

Marie was the narrator of this story and she was unreliable. She constantly lied to other people and herself, which got confusing at times. She would jump around in the narrative between memories and the present, without much distinction between the two time periods. I found Marie and all of the other characters unlikeable, because they each were hiding horrible secrets.

The story was slow at first, because there was a lot of groundwork that had to be laid before the real tension began. I had a hard time relating to any of the characters because they were so unlikeable. The book took a turn at the end that I wasn’t expecting, so I was pleasantly surprised at that.

This was a twisty thriller.

Thank you HarperCollins for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What I hoped would be a quick paced, thrilling rollercoaster fell a bit flat for me. Dragging in the middle a bit, almost too predictible, and a lot of characters that seemed to be trying too hard to have their own histories or to have some deep dark sinister secrets.

As the main character is dying, her best friend is angling to seemlessly slip into her life. I wasn't a fan of the husband from the beginning - something just didn't sit right with me, and maybe it was supposed to be that way. All told, I wasn't very thrilled and at times was bored. I pushed through and found the end interesting.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this and give my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed The Perfect Girlfriend, so I was very happy to hear that Karen Hamilton had a new book -- and that it was named The Last Wife!

The Last Wife involves two women, Nina and Marie. Nina is diagnosed with at terminal illness, and Marie becomes obsessed with taking over Nina's life once she dies/discovering all of her secrets. While this was not as suspenseful as I had hoped for, there were glimmers of drama. A good beach read for 2020.

The Last Wife has a lot of thriller in it but for me, it fell flat in the middle. I feel like it went so S-L-O-W for a good chunk of the book that I almost gave up but things kept happening throughout that caused me to keep reading. Giving this one 3 stars. Marie was a piece of work! (as the main character who could not be happy till she got what she wanted and she did whatever it took to get that way) Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review.

It's really a dilemma to review a book when you don't like the characters. All of the characters in this book were manipulative and the story seemed to take a long time to get to an interesting level.

You know from the beginning that Marie is setting up herself to take over her best friend's (Nina's) life when she dies. There seems a lot going on with Nina's widower, who we get a sense of being a "good guy" when it's convenient, but turns out to have motives of his own. Then there are Nina's friends, most of them members of her book club, who each harbor a resentment or secret of their own.

I did like the different settings in the book, the description of Nina's/Marie's house and grounds, the vacation jaunt, and the fishing lodge. And then there was the whole secret of what happened in Ibiza (stays in Ibiza?). Points for a book that clearly illustrates the adage "be careful what you wish for"!

Thanks to NetGalley and HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing (U.S. & Canada)/Graydon House for an advanced readers copy for review.

I really wish that domestic dramas weren’t categorized as thrillers or as suspenseful books. I had to drag myself through this entire story and I hate doing that because it nearly makes me hate the book more. But I didn’t dislike the book exactly, I was bored. I read her book last year, The Perfect Girlfriend, and I was never bored. I was held captivated from beginning to end. I kept wishing The Last Wife would get better and kept reading, hoping the same, but it never captured my real interest.

There really could have been some fascinating turns but it could have been high drama with some suspense sprinkled in… it wasn’t though. I didn’t really like the characters. Nina is dead and Marie is so obsessed with herself that she can’t see anything else but slowing fulfilling Nina’s last request that somehow turn into her taking Nina’s place as thoroughly as possible. But someone isn’t down with this role change. The one part that I really enjoyed was the general, implied meaning of the story… the grass isn’t always greener in the other yard, and if it is, you never know what they use to fertilize.

I received an ARC of this book with the hope that I would leave an Unbiased Opinion. I was not required to leave a review, positive or otherwise, and my opinions are just that... my opinions.

For me this was more of a domestic drama with a sprinkle of suspense. I was waiting for huge twists and turns that just didn’t materialize. It certainly didn’t give me any of the jaw dropping moments i was expecting. The characters were all a bit unlikable and unreliable and even though I often enjoy characters like this, I just didn’t connect well with the main heroine or any of the supporting characters. However, the writing style was good and entertaining enough to retain my interest but it just fell a little flat for me.

I’m so sorry but this is a DNF for me. I just can’t get into it at all. The first few chapters were great but then it started dragging for me. I will try at a later date to read it again but I’m feeling like it is just not for me. I’m so sorry.

Thank you #NetGalley, #KarenHamilton, #HARLEQUINTrade Publishing (U.S. & Canada)Graydon House for this ARC.

I’ll give it 3 stars and that is just because I hate to give it less. If I ever get to the point where I can finish it I may change the star rating. I don’t recommend this but if you want to chance reading it by all means do. This is just my feelings and don’t reflect anyone else.