I’m giving this 3.5 rounded up. It’s a good start then slows down but don’t give up on it as it does get better. I wasn’t expecting the ending at all! Look forward to reading more by this author.

3 Stars

The book has a very promising premise. Jo's husband, Will vanished without a trace, a year ago. She decides to do a house sit to try and have a vacation, while looking through the website, she sees a house that has photos of her husband on the mantel.

I was buckled up and ready for this adventure, unfortunately I found it to be a bit slow and predictable. There were some nice twists and turns, but you can see them coming.

I will definitely check out more of Samantha Hayes based on all of the positive reviews I've read, but this one just didn't wow me.

A special thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Samantha Hayes for providing me with an ARC.

My thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for a copy of “ The Happy Couple” for an honest review .
I’ve been a fan of Samantha Hayes’ previous books but unfortunately ,for,me, this wasn’t one of her best.
I was intrigued by the storyline ,and really enjoyed the book up to the last third , but then things became a little far fetched and contrived I I rushed to the end , without much caring how things would turn out . I will definitely read more books by Hayes and hopefully this one is just a blip.

Amazing book and author. Samantha Hayes never disappoints. Totally loved this one. Well done.!! looking forward to the next one.

Another suspensfull thriller writyen by Samantha Hayes. An exiting rollercoaster that let’s you guess untill the end. The characters come alive on the page. Hayes created a new puzzel full of excitment and drama. A Must Read.

This book captures you from the beginning and you don't want to stop reading. I read the whole book in two days (would have been one if I didn't need sleep hahaha) I enjoyed the twists that Samantha Hayes includes in her books. I did find these easy to guess compared to some other thrillers I have read recently. I do feel like the end was a little rushed, I wanted more details and answers.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Happy Couple by Samantha Hayes. Hayes has a flair for suspense and surprise.
A young woman, Jo, comes home one day and her husband is gone. She is left to try to figure out what went wrong or what happened.
After a year, Jo's friends encourage her to start a job search - maybe housesitting? While looking for jobs, Jo notices something, a picture of a man, and that man looks familiar to her.....
This book starts slow, but this helps to understand the characters and backgrounds. It picks up and the ending wraps the plot up with some surprises.
3 stars.

Wow, wow, wow! This book had me hooked from beginning to end. Every time I thought I had something figured out, I was wrong! This book had many twists and turns that kept me guessing. The characters and the story were believable, and the author did a great job of bringing them to life. Can't wait to read more from Ms. Hayes!

Totally enjoyed this mystery! I was kept in the dark until the end. For a fast-paced mystery, this was perfection!

I very much enjoyed this book. It has a good story and excellent main characters. I would definately recommend this book.

Samantha Hayes’s previous books have been very enjoyable and so is this one. You are kept guessing right the way through as Jo tries to find out the truth about her missing husband Will. A very satisfying read.

Jo’s husband Will disappeared a year earlier leaving her understandably distraught. Deciding to home sit she discovers something shocking. What a barnstormer of a book! It hooked me from the start, even though I disliked most of the characters, apart from the dog, especially Jo with her endless clumsiness and habit of speaking her thoughts out loud. So many twists and turns - it will make your head spin! Beware - this book will pass the hours very quickly!

It's been nearly a year since Jo saw her husband Will. But where is he? He went to work one day and never came home, leaving Jo on her own with a million questions as to why?

At her best friends suggestion to take a break, Jo starts exploring ads for a housesitting gig. After searching for housesits in an area she had always intended to visit with her husband, she finds one which looks perfect! Only to realise that on the mantle in the background of one of the photos are pictures of her missing husband...

This book was slow to start, picked up the pace somewhere in the middle, but still somehow left me wanting more. The premise of the story sounded great, and I wanted to love it, but unfortunately I just didn't.

3 stars ⭐⭐⭐

Special thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really wanted to like this book. I tried to. I really did. I didn't even give up on it like I do with most books that don't hold my interest past 20%...but it was just so slow from the outset. Too slow. And Jo...well, she just annoyed me. The fact that there were so many questions I wanted answers to that made me keep reading...and I guess I was rewarded to some extent, as it DID get better.

Jo's husband Will has been missing for a year. One day he just went to work...and didn't come home. And Jo has spent the past year searching for him. Trolling through missing person websites in the hope she will see Will's familiar face on there. But now it's been a year and there is still no sign of him. Her best friend Louise has tried setting her up with various friends but Jo isn't interested. She just wants Will.

Jo adored Will. She thought they were the perfect couple with the perfect marriage. They were happy...blissfully happy...but there was something Jo wanted more. A baby. And try as they might, they had failed to fall pregnant. Then three months after Will disappeared, Louise announces she's pregnant...and Jo is speechless. I mean, she is happy for her friend but she is also devastated that she and husband Archie had managed something she and Will never could.

Now it's approaching a year since Will's disappearance and Jo is no closer to finding him. After being roped into another matchmaking dinner at Louise and Archie's, Jo takes her friend's advice and decides to take a "house-sitting" holiday. But as she searches the "House Angels" house-sitting website Louise initially signed her up for, she comes across a house that has photos of her missing husband on display. Not one, but THREE photos of Will displayed along the mantle-piece. Three photos she recognised. Two which she had taken and the third that had included her but she had been cut out of to display just Will.

So why were there photos of her missing husband at this random house? Near Hastings, of all places? Where she and Will had planned to spend a weekend break before he disappeared? Is this where he has been living for the past year? Shacked up with another woman?

The house is Hawthorn Lodge. The owner is Suzanne. She has one cat and one dog who require looking after in her absence, and her application is accepted.

Arriving at the house late on a Friday night, Jo is welcomed by the neighbour Simon who lets her in. All at once she is eager to see the photos on the mantle but as soon as she enters the living room, she sees that they have gone! Had she just imagined those photos of Will? Surely not. She screenshot the image that displayed those three photos prominently and she kept checking to see that they were still there. And they were. But now they are not.

And then there is the locked spare room for which she has no key. What is behind that locked door that the owner doesn't want her to see? Then when Jo discovers spare keys to Hawthorn Lodge between the cushions at Simon's place when he nips to the bathroom, she quickly pockets them after clocking there are an extra two keys to the set than she had been given. But when she unlocks the door to the room one night, nothing will prepare her for what lay behind the door.

Even more so, she is even less prepared for the early return of Suzanne who goes as white as a ghost and faints as soon as she sees Jo.

So who is Suzanne? Why does she have photos of Will? And why does Jo's presence send Suzanne into an almost catatonic state? And what has any of this got to do with Will's disappearance? Does Suzanne know something she's not saying?

A slow burner that was a little too slow, THE HAPPY COUPLE is anything but. Jo thought they were happy and she was obviously devastated by his disappearance but as the story progresses it left me scratching my head as to why she held on to such an image. They clearly were anything but happy. In the flashback snippets we saw of Will, I didn't like him at all. He appeared to use coercion to maintain an element of control - of situations and of Jo. How she could not see that is beyond me. And then there was Jo herself. I did not like her at all. Her constant whining and excessive dialogue with the apparition of her missing husband were somewhat irritating. As was she.

Told solely from Jo's perspective, THE HAPPY COUPLE sees the present day woven with flashbacks of the past from before Will disappeared as the bigger picture begins to slowly unfold and secrets start to unravel. There were several eye rolling moments and I quickly tired of Jo's whining and constantly seeing her missing husband everywhere she went to conversing with him! There were some twists which had me ruminating over as I puzzled out where everyone fit into this not entirely discombobulated story. The big reveals, when they came, were no great shock as I had managed to figure them out myself...but even so, I wasn't wowed by it at all.

The ending was a little disappointing as well when I know the author is capable of so much better. However, although I didn't love this one I didn't hate it either. It just took longer to get interesting and the main character was excessively irritating. And though I didn't love it, I look forward to her next book.

I would like to thank #SamanthaHayes, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheHappyCouple in exchange for an honest review.

I just love this authors books and when a new one was coming out I had to stop what I was doing and make time for me and my kindle! The Happy Couple by Samantha Hayes was just an excellent page turner with lots of twists and turns throughout. Jo Carter has a good job as a seamstress which she enjoys and is married to Will, an actor and a school teacher. One day, One day, Will just disappears. Jo has no contact from him, but strangely she has
visual and auditory hallucinations of him all the time. Is she going mad? A year goes by and still no sign of her Husband, her best friend louise suggests that she takes a house sitting job up that has just come up. A change of scenery will be good for Jo. Louise sets up an account for Jo so she can look at the homes in a new area that are available. While Jo is spending time looking at them online, she comes a cross a shocking discovery. She spots a photo of her husband on a mantle of one of the himes she likes the look of! Jo automatically is interested and applies to sit this house. To her amazement Jo has been accepted.

WoW!!!! This book was so hard to put it down once I got into it. Is this photo on the mantle Jo's husband Will?

Well, you will need to read this brilliant book for yourself!

I highly recommend this book! 5 stars from me!

Big thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture and Samantha Hayes for the advanced copy to read and review

Very good twisted exciting interesting story. You won’t see the ending coming. This author is very talented

The story of a wife who has been deserted after her husband disappears, very far fetched, slightly (a lot) silly but an easy read

I love a good domestic thriller and this one was just that. Do you truly know the person you love and married? Do we truly know anyone?

This book has lots of surprising twists and turns as the story unravels and we find out what truly happened on the night he disappeared. You will find yourself guessing and second guessing what happened, and you wlll have your own theories and ideas of what is going on.

Overall a good read.

Unfortunately I was unable to get in to this story and had to put it down. I'm sure for all larger Thriller fans than myself, however, it was a highly loved book and appreciated by the right readers.

Jo & Will have been married for several years. He is a part time actor & a full time school teacher. Jo is a seamstress in business with a friend. Jo & Will have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get pregnant & the struggle is beginning to strain their marriage. When Will disappears one day, mysteriously & with no warning, Jo is beside herself with fear & loneliness. Police are unable to locate Will or even determine what may have happened to him. After an entire year without Will, or any information regarding his disappearance, Jo decides to take on a house sitting job in another part of the country. Things go down & up & down again from here for Jo.

This was an exceptionally riveting read. I do not recall the last time I read a book that had me so gripped by fear, sadness & suspicion, not to mention downright curiosity - where the heck is Will anyway? The characters & the general atmosphere of the story were scarily well done. The ending is completely shocking & I don't think anyone reading this will see it coming.

Read this book - I very strongly recommend it.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author Samantha Hayes, and the publisher Bookouture for granting my request to read this excellent thrill ride of a book. This is my honest opinion.