The Perfect Life is a psychological thriller in which the main character, Vanessa, finds the man of her dreams...or so she thinks.
Vanessa's hobby/quirk is viewing houses she can’t afford. She adopts a different name and persona each time and it appears to be a harmless bit of fun...until one day she views the house of her favourite childhood author, who, following the viewing, is found dead. Vanessa is suspected of the murder.
This book includes the topics of rape, abortion, gaslighting, stalking and psychological abuse. Although that might sound dark, the book only skims the surface of these topics. I felt that this book took a long time to develop to the point where I understood Vanessa's issues and consequently I wasn't rooting for her in a way a reader would expect to.
A good read, but not a great read.

A curiously enjoyable story that at times did lose me in places with the back and forward POV's - I think the published version will not have this problem with the layout.

A plausible tale of a broken young woman who on the surface has a perfect life but underneath the gloss there is a lonely young woman whose mother died when she was 10 years old.

"Perfection. Its an odd thing to crave isnt it? Particularly as by nature humans are messy and complex and impetuous and changeable".

I really enjoyed this book, I found myself laying freezing in a bath because so much time had passed and I was too engrossed to realise!

I liked the dual timeline, I got confused around the middle section but that was definitely intentional.

I read a lot of thriller/mysteries so I like it when a book surprises me or feels like a new idea and this one definitely does.

I like it even more when a book has a great ending and wheeew this one does! A great all rounder.

A must have book. The Perfect Life had me gripped from the beginning. Really intriguing and a perfectly woven story. Kept me guessing right until the very last full stop. Brilliant.

Gripping read with plenty of intrigue woven through, keeping you guessing as to how well you know the narrator. The characterisation occasionally felt a bit clunky, but the emotional manipulation angle in the protagonist's relationship with her boyfriend added a very relevant, modern edge to the tale.

What a fab book. Another good read that gave me an excuse to ignore the housework and curl up with a coffee. Thoroughly enjoyed this and couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next.

Nuala Ellwood has woven a tale that addresses many important issues in society, amongst them being social media addiction and the effects it has on depression and mental health issues. More than anything, I felt that the topic addressed best of all was gas lighting. Gaslighting, to quote Wiki, is: “A form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment. It may evoke changes in them such as cognitive dissonance or low self-esteem, rendering the victim additionally dependent on the gaslighter for emotional support and validation.” This book shows that process extremely well and I can’t say I’ve read it being done so well anywhere else. Many people are not aware that they are experiencing gas lighting, so this book may be an eye-opener for some.

The book also covers the topic of wanting to be someone else when you can't get a handle on your life - and the bliss of becoming blind to your troubles for a few numbered hours, and numbing the pain. This is a reality for many people – we all numb pain in different ways. Ellwood shows how family and friends can help us face our demons.

However, personally for me, there were a few things that did not make sense, particularly after the 90% mark of the book. The book soared and then fell spectacularly.

The following made no logical sense:

- Inconsistency – she met Connor July 2017 and this was said September 2017:

It was typical Lottie, masking her true feelings with humour. Yet, it's true I've been spending more and more time at Connor's place these past couple of months. (And it’s been two months).

- How can a father erase the presence of his son? How is it possible for a famous person to hide away their child from the outside world to the point nobody knows he exists?

- When Geoffrey died, he would have a will. Clearly, Gabriel owned the house at the end of the book. Therefore, he should have been a primary suspect from the start. Yet the police had managed to dredge up the entire history of a woman dating back 6 months, with detailed proof of where she had been and the names of all her personas. Yet they had somehow not managed to figure out that Geoffrey had a son, LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE. Forensics teams must really not be learning anything any more.

- How did Gabriel get both Connor's and Lottie's contact details to be able message them and pass off as Vanessa? Come to think of it, how did he get Vanessa's private number? You can't get that off social media.

- When he sent her parcels, how did Gabriel get his hands on her dress? How did he get his hands on the photo frame of Vanessa and Conner?

The lead up to the ending was great - the ending, however, was not. It was just random. I recognised and clearly remembered the signs, yet I still found it random. I feel like there should have been more of an indication given through-out the book. It is due the ending alone that I dropped 2 stars. Overall, a good read, especially for the gas lighting eye-opener.

I am really torn... this book took me a while to read, it didn’t hook me and I wasn’t enthralled by it.

I couldn’t warm to Vanessa, there was no real solid character building for anyone in this book really.. it flitted between the past & present but not in a structured way. There was so much that wasn’t explored.. why were Jack & Georgie strained, didn’t Damien have any idea about Connors personality traits.., so many unanswered questions!!

Not my favourite book this year, and I’m really struggling to review it if I am honest.

I am as always grateful for the opportunity to read and review new books however this wasn’t for me.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher.

Vanessa is living with her sister when the police come to take her in for questioning after the death of a author.
I found this book to be confusing because of the moving from past to present timelines and Vanessa using different names when pretending to be someone else. The story was unbelievable and failed to hold my interest.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Nuala Elwood is to be commended for another excellent thriller, with twists and turns at every page.

This started slowly and the Then and Now where slightly confusing but as I progressed things became clearer and more fast paced. Great characters, a creepy element to the story with a twist at the end.

I enjoyed this book, it was an easy read, good story and i liked the main character- there were bits that frustrated me though and some unanswered questions.......

Not everyone has the life they want and always want something they can’t have. It was as good story incorporating it all

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
I have just finished reading this, and completed about half of the book at one sitting! This is quite unusual for me, as I usually read at a fairly staid rate - but I found it so compelling that I just kept reading until I had reached the conclusion!
Which really sums up my thoughts about this novel. It was gripping and well plotted - although I did suss out two important things about the plot before they were revealed to the reader, this in no way affected my enjoyment of the book. (I won’t say anything more, for fear of spoiling it for others, although if you do read this - and I highly recommend that you do, if you enjoy a thoroughly gripping mystery - you may well guess what I mean). The characters were, I thought, well-drawn and believable, and the premise unusual and intriguing. I felt all through the book that things were not as they seemed - read the book to find out whether this was so, or not!
I am quite an emotional reader, so this is not terribly unusual for me - but I had tears in my eyes as I completed this, which is testament to its emotional impact. It had been a while since I had read anything in this genre, but I will not hesitate to look out for other books by this author - an enthralling read, indeed!

(Have written a review on Goodreads but don’t know how to add a link; also tried to write one on Amazon, but it came up with this message: “This item is not available to review” - although I was on the book’s page - sorry!)

A Perfect life was a struggle for me to read and I almost gave up a third of the way in as I found it confusing.
Vanessa is 32 and lives with her friend Lottie until she meets Connor, a friend of one of her bosses.
She has an unusual hobby of visiting properties for sale that she can’t afford to buy, under an assumed name - why she uses an assumed name I don’t know as who would check at an initial viewing stage.
She has lost her job and has also visited a house where the owner Geoffrey River, a children’s writer has been found dead. He is one of Vanessa’s favourite writers. She had given an assumed name but her sister’s address where she is now staying.
She seems to shift from real world to make believe as easily as the story moves from present to the past. Both of which I found confusing.
Vanessa’s sister Georgie is a much more likeable character than she is and a lot of the time I struggled to care about ‘Nessa.’
I skimmed through some of the book as I wanted to get past a lot of the details of houses she visited and the children’s books which were repetitive and not that interesting.
3 Stars ⭐️
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair review.

A woman wearing a pink sundress with blood on her hands is seen on CCTV running away from Holly Maze House in Hampstead. She’s just been viewing it and told the estate agent that her name is Iris Lawson but that was a lie. It’s just another false name as she views upmarket houses that she can never afford and steals a souvenir from each one.
Until one day the police knock at the door of her older sister’s house where’s she’s now living and arrest her for the murder of a once famous children’s novelist, Geoffrey Rivers. They soon discover that her real name is Vanessa Adams and her history of viewing upmarket houses. Vanessa’s life is in freefall and she’s ended up living in a bedroom at her older sister’s house in London. Jobless after she trashed a career that once meant so much to her and at the end of a toxic relationship with her partner, Connor. She doesn’t know how she ended up in this situation.
But she remembers the past vividly and her connection to Geoffrey Rivers and his books which she loved as a child. The viewing at Holly Maze House was too good to resist as it gave her an opportunity to look round the house that featured in his books and to meet him in person. Vanessa’s fixation with him is a return to happier times; listening to him on the radio with her mum as a child, reading the books and being a member of the Holly Mazers club.
In the meantime someone’s watching her from the shadows, someone who she met briefly a long time ago and doesn’t remember it. But he’s never forgotten her. And she’ll wish he had as they meet again at Holly Maze House. Who really knows the truth of what happened that day?
This book wasn’t for me as I found its complicated narrative structures with several timelines confusing and each chapter is in a different one. This gave the novel a disjointed feel and at times it was hard to follow as the story switched from one timeline to another. I also found one of the plot elements didn’t work for me and the ending felt rushed as all the plotlines came together. However, I liked Vanessa who was a good, strong character trying to cope with the bad hand she’s been dealt.
When she met Connor her life began to spiral out of control and that was very well described.

My thanks to Penguin and Netgalley for an ARC.

I was drawn to the premise of the book as the idea of wanting more than the cards you have been dealt in life is very relatable. However, the events of the novel and the reactions of many of the characters, for me, weren't convincing enough to carry the premise through to a deeper level. Nonetheless, it's entertaining and well-written, the flashbacks were very effective, and the many twists and turns compelled me to keep reading so I finished it in a day. The denouement was unnecessarily drawn out but overall a good, fast-paced read.

I chose this book based on the publisher's blurb: 'Vanessa has always found it easy to pretend to be somebody different, somebody better. When things get tough in her real life, all she has to do is throw on some nicer clothes, adopt a new accent and she can escape. That's how it started: looking round houses she couldn't possibly afford. Harmless fun really. Until it wasn't. Because a man who lived in one of those houses is dead. And everyone thinks Vanessa killed him...'

However, the reality is that the book is quite different. Vanessa had a tough start when her mother died suddenly, but her sister Georgie stepped in and looked after her. She then made a life for herself - she had a good career, a good friend Lottie and then she met the man of her dreams, Connor. However, Vanessa is quite unstable, and the threads of her life begin to unpick with the dead homeowner just becoming a catalyst.

I didn't enjoy this book, but I couldn't really identify why. Its well written, it does leap around the time frame a little but its still clear where we are. I just didn't like the main character very much and did not find her, or the events that took over her life, to be very believable. Maybe just too much happens to her, so the reader is left wondering what is real and what is in her mind. Which is maybe what the author intended, as she tries to make us think about what it is to be a victim.

For me, it didn't really work, but make up your own mind!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin General UK for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Not a bad read, but great. Quite interesting. I read it all and found it to be a reasonably good read, if rather far-fetched.

I am sorry but I thought this story was extremely contrived and dare I say cheesy? I read it until the very end so it wasn't... awful. I just thought the plot was just extremely far-fetched and there were a lot of loose ends that were left untied by the end. The flatmate? The ex? A lot of drama leading nowhere very exciting...