Many thanks to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Samantha Hayes for the opportunity to read and review her latest domestic thriller - 4 stars for a good read.

Jo and Will are the seemingly perfect happy couple. Will is a drama teacher and aspiring actor while Jo is a partner in a seamstress business and they are trying for a baby. But one day, he left for work and didn't come home. A year later, Jo still can't get over him and move on with her life. When her best friend, Louise, encourages her to take a holiday, she starts looking at listings for house sitters. In one listing, she sees pictures of Will on a mantle. Jo gets accepted to house sit and sets out to find answers - but will she like the answers she gets?

While somewhat predictable and unrealistic, still a good, enjoyable escape read.

As an avid reader of Samantha Hayes, this book surprised me in ways I was not expecting! There were moments that made my spine tingle, and moments that I cried, it was truly a roller coaster! Fans of Sandie Jones, Gilly MacMillan, and J.T. Ellison will not want to miss this true psychological THRILLER.

Quite a slow moving suspenseful read initially about a missing husband and a wife determined in her search for him. Author Samantha Hayes dealt with a tough subject of grief and betrayal along with mystery and tingles of paranormal.

Will Carter had been missing for more than a year, and wife Jo needed closure. A nudge from best friend Louise to take a break got her checking out the house-sitting site where certain photos of a house got her interested.

Having read many books by this author, I was quite amazed at how nearly half of the book had been written using a single character. The author got me quite wrapped up in the ruminations of the main character that all I wanted to do was to unlock the puzzles in her brain and know what happened.

The second half had the red and blue herrings (pun intended) like the flashes of the light, when suddenly my brain took over and analyzed all the clues laid down in the prose by the author. Certain twists got me reeling; whoa, I never expected that. The book was quite a twister where I too was taken in by the scenes of apparition and reality.

The author was wicked enough to keep me confused in most of the book until the end which revealed the final truth. Talk about escape from a locked brain. Whew.

I had quite a fun time in solving this puzzle which was the life of Jo who was one half of THE HAPPY COUPLE.

This is a crazy convoluted story that garbed my attention!

We meet Jo who is madly in love with her husband Will...all is good right? No, Will suddenly disappears without a trace, and Jo's world comes upside down.

She is barely able to function thanks to the help of her best friend.
Then she decides to look for a home-based job. But she wasn't prepared for what was on store for her, when she spots a picture of her husband in one of the houses she has been checking.

From there it's a crazy ride to discover who Will is and what really happened. Highly recommended!

Thanks #Netgalley, #Bookouture, and the author for an ARC is exchange for an honest review.

Jo’s world was turned upside down a year ago when her husband Will disappeared without a trace. She continues to hold out hope he will return while her life is basically on hold. Her best friend convinces her she needs to get away and suggests she sign up on house sitting website. Jo reluctantly searches for houses and before you know it she see a picture of Will in one of the homes. Searching for answers, she arrives at the house of Suzanne to do a little house sitting investigation.

The story unfolds between ‘now’ and ‘then’ putting pieces together, but not really giving the reader a clear picture of the outcome. This book kept me guessing until the end.

The Happy Couple is packed with intriguing mysteries that had me reading as fast as I could to see what on earth was going on! What exactly did happen to Jo’s husband, Will, when he disappeared out of her life? And why did some arbitrary woman living miles away have photographs of Will on her mantelpiece?
Jo was desperately in love with her charismatic husband and devastated when he simply vanished. She gets wonderful support from her best friend, Louise, but nothing fills the huge gap Will has left.
Author Samantha Hayes keeps the suspense going throughout, gradually drip-feeding the back story. She also throws in interesting situations, such as what it’s like to move into the home of a complete stranger.
This is a real page-turner; a fast-paced thriller crammed with mystery and suspense.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 4.5
This is one crazy, convoluted story. I just finished it and I think I need some time to process it.
.
The betrayal in the story is mind-blowing 🤯
.
It centers around Jo, who is madly in love with her husband Will, who one day just disappears. For an entire year, there is no sign of him. She is barely able to function- her best friend, Louise is the only thing keeping her going.
.
While looking online for house sitting jobs, she thinks she spots a framed photo of her missing husband on the mantle of one of the houses.
She takes the job on a quest to try to find answers about her husband. .

You just have to pick up the story from there. I can’t give too much away. It is one crazy ride. 👀
.
✨Due out May 6, 2020✨

The Happy Couple is the mystery of what happened to a Will, who disappeared one afternoon without a trace, leaving his cellphone and wallet on his desk. Haunted by his mysterious disappearance, his wife, Jo, struggles to move on with her life. Encouraged by her closest friends to take a vacation, Jo signs up for a house-sitting service and applies for a position after seeing pictures of Will on the mantle in the advertisement. What happens then is a roller-coaster of twists and turns, ultimately ending in probably the biggest and most unexpected twist of all.

Samantha Hayes does a masterful job of taking the reader into the story, making them desperate for answers of why Will disappeared, but even the most astute reader probably won’t anticipate the final twist. To me, that’s the sign of a truly great mystery/suspense/thriller, when the author is able to completely stump her readers. I would definitely recommend The Happy Couple to fans of domestic suspense. They won’t be disappointed!

“What the heck” was my mantra throughout this book, and I mean that in the best possible way. At any given time, I was unsure how reliable of a narrator Jo actually was as she seemed lucid and unstable, often nearly simultaneously. There are a lot of secrets to be uncovered and a few really good twists. I liked how Jo had to do a little bit of soul-searching to figure out her next steps, and her reactions were very realistic. The pace is a little slow at first (to build the story) but stick with it because it turns into one heckuva ride. For more thoughts, please visit my blog at Fireflies and Free Kicks Fiction Reviews. Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for a digital ARC of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this in exchange for a review.
Jo and Will appear to be the perfect couple. Their friends Lou and Archie are somewhat more financially sound but the quartet are firm friends. Both couples seem happy. Will then disappears without trace and Jo is left confused and bereft, starting to hallucinate she is seeing Will. Lou tries to convince Jo to see other people and then convinces Jo to try a house sit to get away. Jo reluctantly agrees and finds a lovely place, with photos of husband Will on the mantle piece.
The story takes you on a series of shocking twists and turns and we meet characters who continue to weave the tale to a shocking conclusion.
I found the book a good and fast paced read but felt unable to award it that last star as there were some parts of the story I felt a little unbelievable; notably the end. However this being said I would recommend this to others and would purchase books by this author in the future.

Jo, a seamstress with a business of her own, was happily married to Will, a teacher and actor. Then Will disappeared and despite looking everywhere for him, she was having no luck finding him and the police had not either. Her best friend Louise recommends she take a holiday. She offered to pay for the trip too, but Jo simply could not accept that kind of gift, even though she agreed that she needed a get away. Then Louise comes up with another plan. Why doesn't Jo house sit somewhere nice, and have a free trip away? Jo considers this, and then decided to take a look at what is out there. She is shocked when she see's a house, in an area she and Will had discussed visiting, with pictures of Will on the mantel. Going on this holiday might answer questions Jo has had for almost a year.... or will it just create new questions for her? Only one way to find out....

Samantha Hayes spins a tale that was certainly interesting, but a bit slower going that I would have preferred. I wanted to like the character of Jo, but at times I found her to be a bit annoying as she saw visions of her husband all over and talked to those visions. It was hard not to wonder if the story would spin a completely different tale of a woman who thought the had been married but who made it all up in her mind. (Just for the record, this was not the case.) The character of her best friend, Louise was more likable, for most of the book, as she tried to help her friend out. Hayes leaves a lot of details to the readers imagination, at times making the story seem a bit disjointed until she reveals the truth later in the novel.

Not high on my recommendation list, but would have given in 2.5 stars if I could have!

Despite finding the first part of the book a little slow, I really enjoyed this book. It's well-written and I found the twists and turns to be clever and surprising. It's another excellent well written psychological thriller from Samantha Hayes and I look forward to the next one.

I really wanted to enjoy this book but unfortunately I just didn't.

It was set "Now" and "Then" but even in the "Now" part Jo was talking about "Then" which just made it quite confusing.

I had to force myself to finish it as I just wasn't gripped at all.

😱Tension and a gripping plot, but the lead characters -- eh, not my cup of ☕tea

3.5-4🌟stars
Yes, this Samantha Hayes novel had a gripping plot and I HAD to finish it to fully understand how these characters created such an unmitigated mess between them. I liked the author's use of alternating timelines to go from the present to significant moments in Jo's past. This kept the tension escalating as secrets were slowly revealed. The climax was action-packed and a real thrill ride😲.

But I REALLY disliked the lead characters. Jo was maudlin, selfish, totally absorbed in her own version of her life to the extent that she could bend the rules as long as it furthered her ends. Her run-on, one-way conversations drove me crazy and her visions were so frequent: Bedlam's got an extra space with her name on it! Hubby Will and BFF Louise were also people who I did not like and would be loathe to have in my social circle. I usually really like psychological thrillers but I prefer ones with at least one sympathetic lead character.

I also thought Jo's positive transformation at the end was too quick and seemed virtually painless: unrealistic considering the lengthy period she was unhinged!

Thanks to publishers Bookouture and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest review and opinions expressed are completely my own.

I quite enjoy psychological thrillers. Sometimes they make you want to bang your head against wall in a good way and others not so much. This was definitely the latter. Spoilers ahead so continue at your own risk.

From the start the author keeps referencing some mysterious event that occurred a few weeks before the husband’s disappearance. While this does of course play a major part in the plot down the line, the first half of the book felt like the author was just smacking us across the face with references to this incident. I’m sure intent was to peak our interest, but it had the opposite effect for me. It made the story feel so long and drawn out. In the end, this just didn’t do it for me.

Everything you believed in is a lie. Jo has never given hope of finding her husband Will after he just disappeared. She can't move forward unless she finds the answers that she needs. It is harder as her best friend Louise is pregnant and she wasn't able to give Will the child that he wanted. By accident, she sees a picture of Will on a house sitting site and she knows that she isn't losing her mind. So she to find out why he is there but will she find what she is looking for? Will had many secrets that he kept from Louise and he had no choice but to leave her before she found out the truth. As he knows that she will leave him and he will lose her but why did he do these horrible things if he loved her so much?
Jo can't understand why the woman that owns the house Suzanne would have pictures of Will unless they were lovers but she has it all wrong. And she is about to find out what Will did to Suzanne and why her life will never be the same again. But can she believe everything that Suzanne is telling her as she knows that everything about her life was full of lies?
Will everything fall into place for everyone to get closure or will more shocks keep coming?
A good thrilling read. I was lucky enough to receive a copy via Netgalley & the publishing house in exchange for my honest review.

This book was not a good fit for me. It started promisingly well enough and then lost its way. I struggled to finish it. There were too many repetitions, details, and twists that didn't really work for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The Happy Couple by Samantha Hayes

I loved this book!

From the very first chapter I knew I was going to enjoy reading it and it did not disappoint. I could not put the book down as the story kept me on the edge of my seat. The story is fast paced and exciting.
The drama and suspense are excellent.

I was feeling dizzy and light headed from so many twists in the last quarter of the book.
Samantha Hayes is a wonderful author I found this book very addictive and I couldn’t sleep, eat or work until I have finished her book.

I would like to thank Net Galley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Looking at the outward appearance of couples, we only see the persona that they want to present. We never see the lies, secrets and fears that they have deep inside. The Happy Couple really shows that appearances can be deceiving.

Jo’s husband Will has been missing for a year. She has no clues as to whether he’s dead or alive, he simply vanished. Even though her friends are encouraging her, without answers she just can’t move on. In her grief, Jo “sees” Will everywhere. Looking for a break, Jo visits a house-sitting website even seeing Will in photos in someone’s living room. This time she’s not imagining him. Jo just knows she must get into this home. The answers she is looking for, might be in this house.

This was a quick read, suspenseful enough to keep me reading to find out what happens next. Just when I thought I knew what was going to happen, there was a plot twist to keep me guessing. While this kept my attention, I thought the plot wrapped up a little too quickly in the end. While I saw the irony of the ending, it came across as a little too predictable.

The part I liked most about this story was that all the characters had secrets. Jo refers to something that happened on the drive home one night. Jo catches her best friend in a lie about working at home. The homeowner has pictures of Jo’s missing husband. Even the neighbor is mysterious. The story flows smoothly, even with Jo’s flashbacks into her previous life. Overall, the book was enjoyable and easy to read. Thanks to the Netgalley and Bookouture for the advanced copy!

This thriller was a page turner and I was intrigued to unravel the mystery. While I enjoyed the main character's quest to find out what happened to her missing husband, the conclusion felt piled on and missed the mark for me. Was not a fan of the twist.