Unfaithful started out a little on the slow side for me. The build up and the more I learned about Anna and Luis really had me gripped. The ending shocked me, it’s like all the building up just exploded. There were so many twists to this book. This was hard to put down. Thank you NetGalley and Natalie Barelli for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. This was my first read of Natalies and won’t be my last

What lengths would you go to keep your picture-perfect life intact?
Anna is happily married to her husband, Luis, an up and coming artist. After long days at work being an associate math professor, Anna comes home and happily cares for her children, cooks dinner, and tends to the house. After a long, overwhelming day at work, Anna goes to her husband’s art studio with a nostalgic box of wine to bond over and cry her troubles away. When she turns up at his studio, he’s nowhere to be found…but two wine glasses she doesn’t recognize drying by the sink are. With her best student turning up dead and now a potentially cheating husband, Anna’s world feels like it is crumbling beneath her. What will she do moving forward? Will she confront Luis about what she found, pretend like everything is okay, or handle it in her own way that she deems fit?
Oh..my..goodness! This book has my head spinning! There are so many different components happening in this story and at first I felt like it was a bit much. Then, after reading further, it feels like it all falls into place and it isn’t unrealistic as people can through a lot of unfortunate situations all at once. They do say when it rains, it pours and unfortunately for Anna, she has found herself in the storm of the century. I read most of this book in one sitting, finished the entire read in under twenty-four hours. The further I got, the more I wanted to know. I swore I had it all figured out and then WOAH! I did not see that coming. I will definitely be recommending this read to fellow psychological thriller fans and can’t wait to read more work written by Natalie Barelli.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

This is a great read.
Anna thinks she has everything she needs in life - a husband who she loves and who is a talented artist, two beautiful children, and a job she enjoys as a math professor.
With her best student being found dead, Anna is left reeling. She then sees a confusing exchange between her husband and his assistant, and her life doesn't seem to be as picture perfect as she believes it to be.
Anna then starts to drink too much and she's not sure who she can trust, or even if she can trust herself.
There’s lots of secrets and lies in this book and it was hard to know who to trust.
I can’t say anything else as it will spoil it for you and you need to watch it unravel yourself.
This is a great psychological thriller that I really enjoyed.
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I enjoyed reading this book and Bookouture are becoming the name to go to for great crime and psychological thriller fiction.
This psychological thriller has all the things that you would expect in a great book with character progression, tension, twists and turns and is a book I am sure you will enjoy reading.
In my opinion some of the sections of the book did go on a bit too long but still worth a read.
Many thanks to Natalie Barelli, Bookouture and NetGalley for providing me with an advance review copy of this book for the Kindle in return for a review of the book.

ALL of my Goodreads friends were reading and raving about this one and I caught the FOMO virus!
FEAR OF MISSING OUT!

Anna Sanchez is a Mathematics Professor at a Prestigious College.

She is happy, when other people are happy..born for the role of wife, homemaker and mother.
She rallies at work. No task is too small. She is a team player.
That is what she says...if you can believe her.

So why do bad things keep happening to the people around her?

The book description says MORE than it needs to.
And, yet there is SO MUCH MORE going on than what is said.

Entertaining from page one, and unputdownable!
I am so glad I did NOT miss out!
4.5 ⭐️

And, available on Nov. 27, 2020!

I received a gifted copy from Bookouture!
It was my pleasure to provide a candid review!!

This was one crazy read!

When Anna, a math professor, arrives unannounced at her husband’s studio in need of a shoulder to cry on after hearing that her best PhD student, Alex, has died, she sees a pair of wineglasses drying by the sink and her deepest fear is confirmed that her husband is having an affair.

Instead of confronting her husband and throwing him out of the house, Anna goes about her life without any complaint. She needs her marriage to work to protect a terrible secret, something that would destroy everything she has already sacrificed so much for.

But then threatening text messages start appearing on her phone, she realises that someone close has been watching her very carefully.

This entire plot is so well written and the author has done an excellent job of grabbing the reader’s attention. When I started reading this and almost halfway into the book, it was okay and I definitely didn’t expect it to end the way it did.

The main character Anna is so well characterized, there are times that you find her annoying but at the same time you find yourself feeling slightly sympathetic towards her looking at her situation. But the main highlight for me is the entire second half of the book. It is filled with unexpected twists and revelations which are at a completely different level.

Oh, and the title of the book was a perfect fit too!

Overall an excellent read! Highly recommended!

Thank You to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!

I received an ARC copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. I really enjoyed the suspense and twists in this book. Anna finds out her husband is having an affair and she decides not to confront him but to turn herself into the perfect wife so that he will want to stay with her. Crazy, right? That's exactly what I thought but come to find out, she might not be so crazy.

That’s definitely a rollercoaster ride

Imagine having almost you want in life, a husband, a nice job and an easy life. Then one day someone, a younger man, comes along and tries to give you a few moments of attention that you crave so much because you’re getting older and feel invisible to the others.

There are so many secrets and guessing who was the blackmailer and why are they doing this.

I must admit that I didn’t sympathise with the heroine one bit, and I have no triggers regarding cheating or anything but I just found her immature for her age and I couldn’t connect at all with any of her actions.

It’s a great written story, fast-paced action with a few unpredictable twists that many readers will enjoy.

A total nail biting read, I'm so thankful for being able to read this one, I thoroughly enjoyed this one! This is the type of book that you need to go out and just read, stop whatever you are reading and get on to this one!

I'm not going to summarise the plot because if you want that there are plenty of reviews that do that, but not mine, you must just go and read it, trust your instincts! Natalie Barelli has some serious writing skills, I'm definitely behind this one, I devoured this book! The author has some great ways at making the reader think they know what is coming next and then POW it changes direction and leaves you shocked and on edge knowing something is coming but not sure what it will be and where it is coming from. It's like being in a maze trying to find the way out and then bam you're at a dead end and have to go back through the book until you get the delicious ending.

Our main character Anna has her life turned upside down after her PHD maths whiz student suddenly dies and it leave her fractured and fragile, there is everything you could want in this book, secrets, thrilling twists and suspense I have not known for a long time. It was absolutely delicious and so refreshing, I've never read anything by this author before but now I'm obsessed! These kinds of reads are my favourite and definitiely earn 5 stars from me! You must read this book!

Thanks to netgalley and publishers, and of course the author who wrote this and left me hanging on the edge of my seat till the very last page!

Unfaithful by Natalie Barelli is a domestic thriller that will keep you reading because you HAVE to know what will happen next.
Anna thinks she has the best life. A great husband, two children, a job she loves and a top student she is co-authoring a paper with.
Suddenly, she is turned down for a promotion, her husband is having an affair and her student is dead.
The twist and turns keep coming and you are going to finish this in one sitting. I di because I just couldn't put it down!
Thank you NetGalley and Bookoutre for the chance to read this for an honest, fair review.

Unfaithful is an excellent domestic thriller that is filled with suspense and will keep you on the edge of your seat in eager anticipation. I was thoroughly entertained and desperate to know what was going to happen next the entire time I was reading. This is a thriller that will make you question everyone involved, and keep you guessing throughout the entirety of your reading experience.

The twists and turns keep on coming, the secrets lurk in every chapter, and just when you think you have it all figured out, you realize you are wrong.

An excellently woven thriller that is complex and intriguing. Highly recommend to fans of domestic thrillers!

A corker of a book!
At first I was unsure whether this was set in the USA or UK given the mix of English and American references but quickly discovered it is indeed a story based in the USA.
I was fascinated by the characters, associate maths professor at the Locke Weidman university, Anna, and her husband Luis, an artist. Family is clearly very important to Anna and she strives to be the perfect mother to Mateo and Carla even though she works long hours. She wants to be dependable, hinting that her childhood was far from ideal. In fact very early on I was left wondering whether her mother was dead or alive such is the significance absence of her. In this way the author sets the perfect scene, highlighting the importance of family and stability which enables what happens next to be much more shocking.
Anna is keen to be loved by Luis and is entering a phase in her life where she is beginning to have serious doubts about his fidelity. Other things aren't going according to plan either and she is struggling to manage Alex, her genius PhD student, and her own bid to obtain full professorship.
Luis on the other hand is totally immersed in getting ready for an exhibition and spends long periods of time in his studio. Or does he?
This book is one based on fear and self doubt. Anna's worries about Luis having an affair consume her and whilst entangled in her own mission to uncover the truth, she also spends a lot of her time doing everything she can to cover up some truths which don't cast her in a very good light. I found myself torn in two, understanding many of her reactions and then disbelieving of others.
I felt for Anna, in as much as her desperation not to lose her husband is borne of her need to compensate for a troubling relationship with her mother, but there is an overwhelming sense of obsession that makes Anna an unreliable narrator, no matter how much you understand her thoughts and motivations.
Soon, Anna is caught up in making so many careless and morally questionable decisions that you can't help but wonder how soon her personal and professional lives will collide with catastrophic results. She is a great example of good people doing bad things and yet I never really lost my empathy for her, simply wanting her to come to her senses and put everything back on the right track.
I found myself on edge throughout the read, racing through the pages, worried for Anna's sanity and doubting the actions of her friend, all-of-a-sudden-close-relationship with faculty administrator June. There just seems to be a plot against Dr Anna Sanchez and could June be behind it? Or Ryan? Or Isabelle? Or Geoff? Anna is certainly not alone when it comes to acting in a dubious manner though which makes this book extremely readable.
There were some genuinely terrific plot twists with a discovery at the end about the Pentti-Stone conjecture (a maths problem) that left me gawping in shock. Throughout this thriller there is a strong sense of a universal need to be loved and acknowledged, for Anna she craves this from her partner and children but also from colleagues and students alike.
I loved the point at which Anna makes a call to June having realised at long last exactly what is going on, and there is then a nail-biting rush towards the conclusion. Will it be dangerous, hopeful, justifiable?
Buy or download the book to find out what happens, how far you identify with Anna and which character you are most suspicion of.
I haven't read any other books by Barelli but definitely will now!

Unfaithful Natalie Barelli
I really enjoyed this domestic thriller. I liked the pace of this book, first we get to know Anna and see how perfect life is for her, then slowly it all starts to unravel. Anna isn't the most likeable character, she makes big mistakes in life yet I felt that I still rooted for her.
I thought the book was cleverly written, drip feeding you little bits of information as you waited for the whole story to come together, which it did.
I loved the air of suspense as I read this book, and it kept me turning the pages.
This was my first book by Natalie, and I will definitely read more by her.

Anna and Luis are a loving couple who have two wonderful children and have the appearance of the perfect life together until the day Anna finds out she did not get her promotion to a mathematics professor and that same day finds out her special student that she has been mentoring has died. From that point on Anna's life starts spiraling out of control but she doesn't seem to recognize the red flags around all the people she is close to which brings more problems and troubles to Anna. Along the way Anna discovers signs that her husband might be having an affair but she tries to rationalize away those thoughts too until the day she comes face to face with the truth. Anna continues to function on remote control but she finally confides all her problems to a friend at work who seems to be her only friend at the moment. In the meantime someone is stalking Anna and is beginning to sabotage her job as well as her marriage and Anna is slowly crumbling under all this stress and she has also started drinking way too much lately trying to find a way to relax and find a way to make her life whole again back to the perfect life she had always thought she lived and DESERVED!I

This book was definitely a crazy and fun ride which was full of twists and red herrings where I found myself reading well into the night wanting to know what would happen next. This book started building suspense from the first chapter and continues to build throughout the entire story until it reaches an unexpected and explosive climax that I never saw coming. I highly recommend this thrilling book to all readers who enjoy psychological thrillers or suspenseful mysteries that are full of tension. The book was very well-written with strong engaging characters who all play a big part in Anna's unravelling and I was left wondering who the bad guys really were until the conclusion of the story. So, so good!

I want to thank the publisher "Bookouture" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC and any thoughts and opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I have given this captivating novel 4 1/2 Killer 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌠 Stars!!

Unfaithful is a fast-paced standalone psychological thriller that really packs a punch. It follows senior lecturer in mathematics based at Locke Weidman University Dr Anna Sanchez, who is happily married to Luis; they have two young children together, Carla and Matti. She works hard on campus to support her husband's art career as he's beginning to gain recognition for his work. Anna is a thesis adviser to PhD student Alex, who is known for being extremely gifted. He had been working on attempting to solve a complex Maths conjecture, which Anna had tried in vain to solve unsuccessfully throughout her career, known as The Pentti-Stone, which has never been solved since it was first proposed in 1905 by mother and daughter mathematicians, Claudia Stone and Noemi Pentti. There is now a $500,000 prize for the person who proves or disproves the theory. On the brink of a huge discovery that could change Alex and Anna's life forever, she goes round to protege Alex’s home when he asks to see her. He tells he wants to remove her name from the co-authored conjecture paper then next thing she knows he throws himself through a window killing himself. Anna is distraught and takes a visit to her husband's art studio, where he said he would be, hoping he can console her, but when she arrives he isn't there, however, there are signs he had earlier had company.

She asks him when he finally arrives home later that night if he has been at the studio the whole evening and he lies telling her he was, but Anna knows different. She soon discovers her husband is having an affair with art gallery owner, Isobel, who he met when she agreed to exhibit his art pieces. From that point on both Anna’s personal and working lives crumble—she loses out on a promotion to a colleague, she pretends her husband isn't cheating and carries on as though nothing has happened, she's accused of murder, she is stalked and sent threatening messages from an unknown person and she is accused of sexual harassment at work. Sanity is slowly slipping away... This is a compelling and compulsive tale with so much going on that you can't help but be gripped and immersed in all of the drama. It was twisty with lots of red herrings and some gasp-worthy reveals. The tension is palpable page after page, and I loved that Anna was the ultimate unreliable narrator; she isn't a likeable central character and it became quite irritating when she kept making idiotic decisions throughout. However, Barelli surprisingly managed to make me feel sympathy for her at times, which is the mark of a talented writer. It's an engrossing and intense thriller with a huge reveal that blindsided me completely. Highly recommended.

Anna is an associate professor - expected to be appointed a professor- didn’t get it. Thought her husband loved her but he’s having an affair.
Was co-writer on a paper -Pentti Stone conjecture with her student Alex but he changes his mind and doesn’t want her named on the publication.
Basically she thought her life was perfect but now it’s a mess and it’s going to get worse.
She drinks too much, blurts things out all the time and had little self control.
She is one of the most irritating women I have ever come across.
I seriously feared for her sanity and the safety of her children.
Had no idea where this book was going to end, felt I was on a runaway train and heading for a crash.
Surprisingly enjoyable but maddening at the same time.
I felt exhausted at the end and had to lie down in a darkened room.
3.5 stars ⭐️
Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair review.

This was an interesting read with many surprises. It centers on Anna, who is a math professor at a university. She thinks her life is well in order and then her top student, Alex, dies, she thinks her husband is having an affair, and she comes close to making a mistake that will put her family at risk.

Anna is not a likable character- she is arrogant and self-centered and seems to see things through her own point of view versus anyone else's She believes that she has created the perfect family and it's her job to keep it all together. She does a lot of things that just are not smart, but rationalizes all of her decisions until she has convinced herself that she has done nothing wrong. Despite my dislike for Anna, I strangely couldn't put the book down, though- I wanted to see what she would do next and how she would weasel her way out of all of her problems.

As we get to the end of the book, there is a huge twist that I didn't even come close to see coming,. which made me look at all of the things that happened previously in a new light. Kudos to the author for doing that, as it's not an easy task.

When all was said and done, this was a really exciting read and all the loose ends were tied up. I thought it ended up just a little TOO clean for my liking, but I appreciated the sentiment behind it.

I'd recommend this book for those who like mysteries and psychological thrillers and urge you to not give up if you can't connect with Anna- it's all worth it in the end! Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Zig zagged with ( look away if get offended 😁 ) twists, turns and clever red herrings
I think the one word, Unfaithful, probably conjures up what the reader will expect from this book but it offers a lot more than just an errant partner
Anna, the main character, narrates the book and leads us through what is happening in her ‘getting worse by the day’ life, she is a Uni Maths lecturer and with a student is on course to solve one of the worlds hardest mathematical problems, this is stressful enough but then she gets hit left, right and centre by an ever growing set of serious life problems that would make anyone question their sanity, the book then follows these as they get more and more dangerous for her
The first part of the book is slower as we have a build up to the events but once ‘it’s all systems go’ it really is tense and full on and I did think a few times ‘how is she coping with this?’, which I guess shows how believable the whole sorry sad tale was
Enjoyable, fraught, well written and with a 2tiered ending, both of which I was happy with!

9/10
5 Stars

Anna Sanchez was senior lecturer of Mathematics at Locke Weidman University, who’d worked hard on campus to support her husband Luis as his career took hold. Luis was an artist – a good one – and Anna didn’t regret the hours and days where she missed the children growing up while she supported the family. One of Anna’s top students, Alex, was working on a paper which she was co-authoring, and they weren’t far from publication when Alex suddenly died. Her shock saw her start to fall to pieces. Heading to Luis’ studio after work, hoping to receive comfort and commiserations, Anna was shattered to see evidence that Luis was being unfaithful…

Anna’s life turned upside down; her work was chaotic – but June was there for her. The drinking was out of control and she constantly lied. Her two children, Carla and Matti, were adorable; she loved them dearly – but what was going to happen in this roller coaster ride that was her marriage?

Unfaithful by Aussie author Natalie Barelli is a twisty psychological thriller with an ending I didn’t see coming! Anna wasn’t a nice person. In fact, June was the only person who touched me; the rest, including Anna as a very unreliable and wobbly narrator, didn’t do anything for me. Unfaithful was slow to get started; probably the pace didn’t begin to pick up until at least halfway through the novel. I found myself turning the pages faster as I got nearer the ending. Recommended to fans of the genre.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

This was a suspenseful, quick read, where you're not sure who you can trust, and the narrator doesn't even seem reliable.

Anna Sanchez is living what she would describe as her dream life -- she has a husband who she loves madly and is an incredibly successful artist, two beautiful children, and a fulfilling career as an associate math professor. She loves cooking and cleaning, advising her students -- especially Alex, the newest genius PhD student of the mathematics department -- and she's eagerly anticipating a promotion. But, after she witnesses an accident, suicide, murder (??) and witnesses a confusing exchange between her husband and his young and beautiful art curator, her life doesn't seem to be as picture perfect as she believes it to be. As she spirals into out-of-control drinking and other self-destructive behavior, she's not sure who she can trust, or even if she can trust herself.

If you're looking for a book that you can read in one sitting and will keep you in suspense all the way through, then this is a good sitting. Personally, I stayed up until one in the morning to get this one done (which I paid for when my 4-year-old woke me up before seven that morning.) I thought the author did a good job of building the suspense and intrigue quickly, and it was hard for the reader to know who to trust.

Even so, though, some of this wasn't as believable. Anna is a mathematics professor, so presumably isn't unintelligent, and yet she doesn't act very smart through most of the book. She doesn't understand when people are taking advantage of her or when she's being manipulated and used. The situation with her mother doesn't really make a whole lot of sense if you think about it for too long. For someone as smart as she is supposed to be, she really makes a lot of dumb choices, which was less believable.

But, if you can suspend your disbelief from some of the more out there plot points, this was a fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.