I have to admit I nearly stopped reading this book several times. Hannah meets Alex on a dating app, he is too good to be true. After their first date, Hannah and Alex are talking marriage with 3 kids, a golden labrador and holidays in Devon. However there are so many warning signs that Alex is a lying sociopath which Hannah seems to ignore after some good sex or a great meal that I was exasperated! I just found that he was too blatant with his creepy controlling behaviour that an intelligent woman like Hannah would have walked away.
However, I am glad that I kept reading as the book did not turn out as expected. There are quite a few twists near the end which brightened up the story but I felt they were all just too unbelievable. Hannah had quite a power over men! The main characters all seemed a little superficial, they were displaying bizarre behaviour which you were expected to accept without any real background information as to their motivations.

This author's previous book was really good but this one was just cliched. The main lead was pretty dumb. She cannot take decisions of her own.

Is this book a thriller - yes. Is it a mystery - no. I could figure every part of the plot. Like i was saying this is just heaps of cliched characters and twists.

Looking forward for this author's next book.

While I mostly enjoyed this book, I was perplexed by the character Hannah. She was this independent, strong, intelligent woman but I saw none of that in her relationship with Alex. She was rather quite annoying. Nevertheless the story line was good and mostly believable. I didn't see the ending coming and that made the entire book for me. I'd totally recommend this to my friends.
Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for the arc!

This was a struggle taking a really long time to get anywhere with some really irritating characters however the last three chapters were five star edge of your seat brilliance.

Wow this book is not to be missed! One of the best of it's genre this year and a must for any psychological fiction fan. I read his book in just two sittings. Another author I shall look out for in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for my copy. 3.5*

Hannah is desperate to find the love of her life and appears to have found him in the guise of Alex. On their first date they find they have so much in common, the dog, the future family, their favourite holiday destination, the list goes on.

Hannah is smitten but should have run for the hills when she sees him pocket her used napkin. Any other woman would have thought ugh creepy but not Hannah. There were so many red flags about his controlling behaviour but she overlooks them amidst the cocoon of love bombing.

Hannah's best friend and boss is also an odd character and is quite controlling and seemingly unstable. A lot of the behaviour of the characters is put down to childhood neglect and abuse which is understandable to a point.

The end for me was the best bit of the book and something I never saw coming. This is a solid thriller but Hannah definitely left me frustrated with her behaviour.

I really don't know where to begin with the review for this book - really gripping storyline but with a cast of frustrating characters.

Hannah, is looking for love, she goes on a first date with Alex, from the moment she saw his pocket the napkin she'd been using from their meal, she should've been out of there, Hannah is happy to accept the 'plausible' excuses Alex gives for his increasing bizarre and controlling behaviour - if rearranging her kitchen cupboards doesn't scream 'Sleeping with the Enemy', I don't know what will!

The we have Hannah's best friend, Jas, who is a bit of a know it all and hard to warm to, Hannah just wants her BFF to be happy for her, Alex thinks Jas is just jealous as he works at breaking their friendship up.

There is a supporting cast of Hannah's workmates and also one of Hannah's cases in her role as a Social Worker.

I really wanted to shake Hannah, she ignored all the red flags with Alex, especially given the role she does, but maybe that was the author's intention, she's clearly intelligent and can deal with emotional issues but can still be blinded by love.

The surprise twist at the end did give this book the extra edge.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book - this is my honest opinion.

It’s pretty good. The characters are pretty decent, descriptive wise, there is a kind of believable friendship group. What I find hard to believe is the ending, the relationship and how it all unfurls and just about most of the story. It felt a bit too naive and a bit tip toeing around swear words, sorry to say but that work place did not sound at all believable. The male vs female bit I found annoying as all hell.... this felt too cliched and nothing new. I didn’t really feel for any character certainly not for the main, it was just a bit dull sorry to say I think this book will be good for other people and might find it’s way in the charts, for me it’s just a bit bland and lifeless

This was an enjoyable read for me in spite of the lead character being so annoying , I really wanted to give her a good shake and tell her to get a grip !!! I agree with another reviewer that it is very similar to " You "
Hannah meets Alex on a dating app and she cannot believe her luck , he seems to want everything that she does right down to the golden Labrador .Of course when someone seems to good to be true they usually are , he starts taking over her life , trying to turn her against her friends and literally will not take no for an answer ...
I did find Hannah too ready to believe everything he was saying and in this day and age that just didn't ring quite true . That being said it was a good read and an unexpected twist at the end that I had wondered about , but wasn't completely right

I am a fan of Sue Watson’s books but this one was a bit of a let down for me.
First Date is the story of Hannah. Let down by boyfriends in the past she goes on a date with Alex who she meets through a dating app. He likes the same holidays, food, drink and wants the same for the future - he’s too good to be true.
Unfortunately and most frustratingly for me Hannah ignores the HUGE red flags. Every time Alex does something that would have me running for the hills Hannah seems to believe his rubbish and he wins her over with a cooked meal or a seriously questionable story.
She is supposed to be a social worker and able to spot red flags with the kids she manages but misses the coercive control of Alex every single time.
I can’t say too much about the ending as I will never post spoilers but as much as I didn’t see the ending coming because the rest of the book was a let down the ending didn’t wow me either.
This won’t stop me from reading other Sue Watson books as all of her others I have really enjoyed but, for me, this one is not one of her best.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had heard good things about this author, but this was a disappointing read for me. I found myself rolling my eyes at the ridiculous main character, Hannah. As my friend Jayme said in her review “She had to be one of the dumbest women that I have ever met in literature!”

Hannah want to meet Mr. Right so badly that she’s willing to overlook all the faults in the new man she’s dating. What Hannah sees as taking care of her every want, her friends see as controlling and manipulative. Just when I thought Hannah had kicked him to the curb over some nasty comment or behavior, she lets him apologize and he’s right back in her life.

I didn’t find this one gripping, suspenseful, or unputdownable and only the very end of the book with a good twist caused me to round this one up.

Now that was a nail biter! Seriously, if I still had a bad nail biting habit, then my nails would be chewed ragged after finishing this book due to all the anxiety I felt while I was reading because this book was one intense, suspenseful, can’t stop reading, edge of your seat read!

I finished this book in nearly one sitting, because I was immediately hooked from the very first page. I was captivated by Hannah and the charming, yet there’s definitely something not right here, Alex. Their first date was a whirlwind of romance; he was the man of her dreams, or so she thought, because something sinister was definitely lurking underneath his otherwise charming and seemingly perfect surface.

The red flags were flashing red everywhere. They were so obvious to see. To us, the readers, to Hannah’s friend’s and co-workers, and even to Hannah herself, although she refused to admit it and instead chose to brush the warning signs, strangeness, and sometimes sinister happenings, about him aside, instead only choosing to see him as her Mr. Right.

Sometimes I wanted to reach through the book and shake Hannah and tell her to “Run!” or to “Wake the hell up!” anything to get her away from Alex, and fast. Instead I settled for yelling at my book, quite often in fact.

And that ending! Hello brilliantly woven, unexpected twist that I never saw coming! Just the way I love my thrillers to end. I was very satisfied. Kudos to the author for taking me by complete surprise!

Twisted. Suspenseful. Chilling. Sordid. Unputdownable. This was an excellently crafted thriller that will keep you captivated from start to finish.

Highly recommend!

So first, the good! I had never read anything by Sue Watson before, and I really like her writing style. Very fast-paced, good narration style, and good at building suspense. I will definitely check out some of her other thrillers.

This one though lost me a little bit because the main character, Hannah, as my Goodreads friends Jayme and Dita have also pointed out, was SO aggravating. There were obvious, and I mean OBVIOUS, red flags with another character in the story from about page three, and she decided to just ignore them or rationalize them away in a really unconvincing manner. It was hard to identify with a main character who was that out of touch, and put up with so many things that were so outrageously bonkers from Day 1. I like reading books about strong female main characters. While I understand that in real life women get caught up in toxic relationships, I read these books to live vicariously and hopefully to root for the heroine to eventually make some good choices. Or if she's making terrible choices, they need to be entertaining or funny and I need to still like her. Here, neither of these things happened. Hannah needed more gumption and more self-awareness. I had gotten tired of her before I was halfway through the book.

So in conclusion, I have decided that I like Sue Watson, but I don't like Hannah. I'll try Watson again for another thriller because I can see she has the chops to entertain me. This heroine just really didn't work for me.

Thanks so much to Bookouture, NetGalley and the author for the advance copy to read!

Holy. Twist. Ending.
First of all... You know in the movies when you're yelling at the characters through the screen because they're wandering right into an obvious death?

Yeah, that was me screaming at this main character the whole damn book. My goodness, the sheer denial and ignorance.

But y'all, this one was good. You feel the tension the entire time and you're left just waiting for the shoe to drop. And then the ending swoops in and gut-punches you. #JawDropper

Thank you to Sue Watson, the publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC.
I voluntarily read and reviewed this title.

What a cracker of a book.

Full of drama, nail biting suspense and plenty of edge of the seat moments.

I can guarantee that you will not be able to stop reading once you start.

A brilliant read from start to finish, highly recommended, 5 stars.

Honestly, I struggled with this one.

I generally adore this type of book but Hannah made me crazy. She ignored every red flag and didn't do the things people really do in the situations she found herself in with Alex.

Thank you to Bookouture for giving me a copy of this book. It was my pleasure to write an honest review.

Definitely not as riveting as her other novels. Characters were not believable and plot just dragged along. Only moderately entertaining but I've certainly read better.

Earlier this year I read The Sister-in-Law and LOVED it. So I was super excited for this book! Its different, a bit simpler, and I wanted to grab a hold of Hannah and shake the stupid right out of her. But Sue creates characters that get a reaction - Hannah being frustrating, Alex being infuriating, Chloe being heartbreaking. The ending was a bit abrupt; I would have liked another chapter or two but I think Sue left some things open on purpose. I have several other books on my Kindle from this author and I'm excited to read them all. Anyone who likes a good psychological thriller will enjoy this one!

A really decent thriller that I read in one sitting. This stands out due to the fantastic ending.
The book started off slowly but picked up pace mid way through and brought plenty of twists and turns.
This is not my first by Sue Watson and definitely won’t be the last.

I think this is a decent read for thriller season and can be read in a couple of days, if not sooner. I was fairly engrossed during it all and I wanted to keep knowing where this story would end up however the main character was a bit much for me. She just seemed clueless, which was quite possibly the point, but I felt myself almost getting frustrated at her for not seeing all these red flags. And then I would speed read through a scene because I was angry lol. There were also a few scenes where I thought the app skipped a page or two as it seemed to jump around sometimes.

I think I would give the overall book a 3 however the ending was probably a 4ish, as it caught me off guard a bit and did a little plot twisty thingy. (Literally yelled out PLOT TWIST and scared the dog...)