An interesting book, is probably the best way to describe it. Three main characters Joanna, Mark and Alice. Despite not having been friends for several years Alice turns to Joanna at a vulnerable point in her life. However, Joanna is missing... The book unfolds with a good amount of drama, intrigue and mistrust. However, in contrast it felt that it 'dragged' a bit at times, and whilst I am all for books occasionally being flexible with 'believability', this book at times did perhaps take this too far - and you were left questioning the decisions made by some of the characters. I also thought that the ending felt a bit rushed and need more context around it to bring the book together.

Loved this one and just bough Wendy Clarke’s other two books on my Kindle to read next! I thought I knew where this story was going, then it took a huge turn. Just when I thought everything was wrapped up, it turned again. Loved the final twist at the ending! I highly recommend this one.

After being left by her fiance, Alice receives a text saying that her estranged best friend, Joanna, is getting married and she wants Alice to meet her future husband.

The book was well written, but it wasn't for me. I found that Alice was far too naive and pliable to be believable.

My thanks to NetGalley, Wendy Clarke, and Bookouture for the opportunity to read and review this advance copy.

In the beginning, there is an emergency, an accident, and the person involved awakes to find she's in hospital, but she has no memory of the events that led her to be there. She can't quite understand or explain, but she feels confident that she isn't safe.

Joanna and Alice were best friends, although not seeing each other for 10 years, Joanna called Alice and told her she was getting married to Mark, whom she had known for a short time but knew he was the one, hearing this made Alice feel slightly uneasy.
Alice gets dumped by her fiance, so decides to go and visit Joanna and meet Mark, at Joanna's invitation.
Joanna and Mark live in an old, abandoned warehouse renovated and converted into flats, with only one other tenant residing in the building. When Alice arrives at the apartment, she is not there.
Alice is surprised to find Mark home alone. Mark tells Alice that he was not aware of her visit, and Joanna is not there, it then comes to light that she has in fact, gone missing.
Alice tries to contact Joanna but to no avail.
Where is Joanna?
Thank you Netgalley, Bookouture and the Author Wendy Clarke for allowing me to review a pre-publication copy of the novel.

two friends Joanna and Alice both from different backgrounds one has it all one has lost everything not spoke or seen each other for 10 years .Joanna gets in touch to say she getting married and wants her to meet Mark but when Alice arrives she not there the building so creepy this story is very twisty so enjoyed recommend

I hate not giving a good review to a book but with this one I just can't. I read straight thru to the end and still can't find anything worthwhile to say.
As far as it being a twisty psychological thriller...no. It wasn't.

The character of Alice is too unbelievable to be the protagonist. In literature there is a saying, "too dumb to live." That about describes Alice in full.

The writing style was a bit off putting as well. Lots and lots of exposition that made me want to flip pages to get to the next part. But I didn't, in order to give the book a fair chance.

And another thing off putting was introducing Joanna's voice when more than half of the book was over. We were in Alice's POV for eons and then all of a sudden, Joanna's.

Thanks to Netgalley for a preview but this one just didn't do it for me.

Thank you NetGalley, Wendy Clarke, and Bookouture for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of "The Bride."

Alice and Joanna were best friends growing up but have not spoken for the last ten years. When Alice gets a message from Joanna that she is engaged to a man she has only known for a month, Alice only feels it is right to go and visit her friend and meet the man she claims is so wonderful. Only, when Alice arrives at Joanna's apartment, Joanna is no where to be found. Her fiancé Mark is there and he is charming, gorgeous and nothing but nice to Alice. He then tells her Joanna has gone missing... the suspenseful story starts to unfold from there. Where is Joanna? And who can Alice trust?.

Once I received a copy of “The Bride” I started it right away. I was hooked from the first chapter and it was definitely a page turner for me. The story starts to unfold right away and as a reader you just want to know what is going to happen next. It was definitely fast paced and kept me guessing the twists all the way through. I really enjoyed this book and found myself not wanting to put it down. Wendy Clarke does a beautiful job in her writing and story telling that I got a feel for all the characters and how they felt throughout the book. I will definitely be checking out her other novels! As a fan of psychological thrillers I would definitely recommend #thebride to any other thriller lovers out there!

I found The Bride to be a quick and easy read. It was billed as a psychological thriller and whilst I did enjoy it, I couldn’t gel with the main character Alice and just felt the book was lacking something. I would rate this book 3.5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture and the author for the chance to review.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

I love a good psychological thriller as much as the next girl and I get really excited when I find one that keeps me on my toes. Unfortunately, this book didn’t do that for me. I felt like the author was trying to hard and that the twists and turns the book took felt a bit too forced. The main character Alice was also hard to like. I found her to be a bit too whiny and the ending wasn’t very satisfying. The book did have some potential at the beginning but the spark just faded out for me.

4.8 stars rounding it to 5.0 stars

OMG what did I just read! I never even thought it to be like this. This book keeps me pulled in. The first chapter is curious enough to keep you reading. The twist always go higher and higher until it blast! Definitely unexpected.

Alice's life is a mess. From her horrible experience with meeting her father, to her plane experience, up to her and Drew's break up. Everything is a mess and she only need a comfort from one person, Joanna. Luckily, she was invited to go to her place to meet her fiancee. However she is not there. Not to mention the place is out of nowhere.

I love that this book only has Alice and Joanna's point of view. I love it when point of views only focuses on few people to only pull the attention to them. I also love the fact that there are only few characters here. Not complicated to remember.

The twist is definitely commendable, and noteworthy! I never even thought! Though there are things which I made a correct guess but I still didn't expect the happenings. It's a shock! A bomb!

Why not 5.00 stars? It's because of the ending! I wanna cry about the ending. It's a genius idea to make the ending like that but why????? OMG. I really can't get over with the ending. It's such a slap I don't even know how to react. This book is great and yet so sad. Really sad.....

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Bookouture for approving me of this read.

Full review on my website https://inkly.in SOOON....

Thank you Netgalley and Bookoture for an ARC of The Bride. The review and comments are my honest opinion.
Alice has received a text from her former best friend, Joanna, to come for a visit to meet her fiancé. When Alice arrives she finds a distraught fiancée and Joanna is not there.
I felt that as the story continued Alice was naive and easily manipulated to the point that the story became unbelievable.
This book was not as I expected from the description. But as I indicated above, the review is my honest opinion.

This is my first Wendy Clarke book but I was really intrigued by the blurb and I'm glad to have given it a shot. It follows Alice, who gets a text from her estranged best friend Joanne asking her to come to visit and meet her fiancé. When Alice gets to London, she meets the fiancé, but Joanne has gone missing.

I loved the setting of this book. The old tobacco warehouse was so well-described and I liked how eerie it felt. I wasn't sure about the story at first as the main character makes some extremely questionable decisions which I just didn't understand but once I was about 30% in to the book, I was hooked and didn't want to stop reading until the end (unfortunately work sometimes got in the way so I had to!)

There were some fantastic twists and turns in the book and I enjoyed the theme of toxic friendships, but I personally hated the ending. It might work for some people, but I really would have preferred it to end differently.

Overall I would recommend this.

This was a crazy twisted ride! Richly written, al flawed and most unlikeable, drive a thriller that will keep you guessing. I found myself asking, “come on girl, what are you doing”, several times. I can see this as a made for TV movie or, better yet, a Netflix binge able series. Grab this quick read to fill that thriller craving!

This book took me on a wild ride, however it was not the wild ride that I had anticipated.

Alice''s best friend stopped texting her after Alice found out that Joanna is now engaged to a man she has only known for a month. To help her deal with her suspicion that this is not going to be a great relationship, Alice takes the trip to Joanna and Mark's new apartment only to find that Joanna isn't here. Mark confesses to Alice that Johanna has been missing.

This book has very unlikable characters. Alice ignored many signals that she should not trust Mark, yet she continues to try to gain his trust while it should be the other way around. Joanna is engaged to a man she just met. HELLO red flag.

While the book had me sitting at the edge of my seat, I still became obsessed with obvious plot holes that I could not get over.

Thank you Bookouture and Net Galley for an early copy of The Bride. I really don’t like to give bad reviews but this was bad. I stuck with it hoping it would change for the better. Around 75% it did for only 15% then the ending was even worse. I’m sorry it just did not do the job in keeping me interested.

Another great read from Wendy Clarke that brings you in several directions and having no idea who is involved in Joanna going missing, it's a gripping read that I found hard to leave down and what an ending, normally I don't like stories that end on a cliffhanger but for this book it was perfect.

This was like a book in two parts. The first half was very slow, nothing much happened. We Follow Alice as she whines and snivels her way home, through a fight with her fiancé and then on to visit her former best friend, Joanna who, out of the blue, wants Alice to visit her in London and meet her fiancé, Mike. But when she arrives, Jo isn’t there. Mike lets her into the very upmarket but spartan apartment and tells her that Joanna is on a course. He invites Alice to stay until Jo returns.

But time stretches on and Jo does not return. Of course things are not as they seem. The second half of the book has a bit more happening and enough twists to make your head spin. Who is lying? Who is fooling who? But in the end, as realism fell right off a cliff I thought it was all a bit too much. A quick, light read.

I had high hopes for The Bride by Wendy Clarke, unfortunately I was just not feeling it. The story was slow through most of the book and when it did pick up, it was all very predictable. A weak minded character (Alice), and her narcissistic "Best Friend" Joanna left a lot to be desired. This one is a pass for me.

Thank you to Netgallery for the free digital ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. All opinions are my own.

This book definitely kept me intrigued and curiously waiting to find out what would happen next. It has a very comfortable flow, and the author did a great job leading up to the surprises and twists.

This book is different than others because the the idea of the storyline itself is so unique. It is definitely one of a kind! I think readers would enjoy it because you start off knowing that something serious and sinister has taken place, and then it backtracks to the beginning where you meet the characters for the first time. Once you get to know a little about the characters, it takes you on a twisted journey where you just can’t stop reading out of desperately wanting to find out more!

Plot: At the beginning you are informed of a tragic emergency, “the day it happened.” There was in an accident, and the individual involved slowly wakens to realize she’s in a hospital, but she drifts off again. She is in a foggy state of mind, and has no memories of the events that led to her being there. Once she awakens a little more, she realizes that someone is with her. She is told that she’s safe, but for reasons she can’t quite understand or explain, she feels with absolute certainty that she isn’t safe at all.

Back up in time, and you begin to learn how everything started. Alice visited her father with many questions on her mind. When she returned home to her fiancé, she is devastated to learn that things are not the way she had thought. Feeling lost and alone, she immediately decides to be spontaneous and visit her best friend. Although Alice is bothered by her best friend (Joanna) not answering any of her phone calls, she receives a text message from her inviting her to come and visit because she’s getting married and wants Alice to meet her fiancé. Alice was shocked at the news, and of course, wants to see Joanna and meet the man she’s going to marry! Alice has anxiety problems, but decides to throw caution to the wind and go see her anyways. When she arrives at Joanna’s residence, it is not at all what she had expected. Her quick online research of the location was quite different than she expected upon seeing it. Although she felt uneasy about the circumstances and environment, she decides Joanna will surly have an explanation. She tries calling her again, but it goes to voicemail, just as all of her other calls have. Out of frustration, Alice starts wandering around hoping to find the right address since Joanna didn’t respond to her text message either. When she is greeted at the door of a very large, but strangely nearly empty complex, the man at the door is not at all who she had assumed him to be. Although she didn’t know anything about him, he appeared to be completely different than any of the men Joanna had ever dated in the past. He is the exact opposite of everything she had expected. He introduces himself as Mark, but Alice struggles to calm her uneasiness. Mark is very vague about his relationship with Joanna, and at times, acts oblivious to knowing Joanna or knowing anything about her. Although Alice always thought they were great friends, Mark tells Alice that Joanna never mentioned a friend named Alice, that she certainly hadn’t said anything about Alice coming to visit, and that she wasn’t even listed as a guest who Joanna was planning to invite to her wedding. As a matter of fact, Joanna was supposedly away for the weekend. Alice again brushes off her unease, and makes up excuses in her mind for all the things that don’t seem right. She’s had many challenges that have left her with severe anxiety-things that you won’t fully understand until later-so she assumes she’s just overreacting. Although she isn’t comfortable with Mark, she decides to stay overnight in hopes of seeing Joanna the next day. Although she’s felt extremely uncomfortable since her arrival, the most obvious initial shock comes when Joanna’s parents come to her residence to see her because Mark asks Alice to go along with a lie about why Joanna isn’t there. Mark had previously claimed that he was friends with Joanna’s parents, so Alice was completely thrown off about his insistence that she go along with the lie. Alice is certain now that something isn’t right and allows her fears to take over. The rest is a roller coaster of surprises, and events that will surprise you every time you think you’ve gotten it figured out.

The author did a fantastic job weaving details in about the characters that would become more important the further you get into the book. The twists and turns throughout the story are definitely things you won’t see coming, and the ending is beyond what you could possibly imagine. Thank you Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for allowing me to preview this book for free. My review is voluntary, and is my honest opinion as well.