This book is an insightful look into what could happen when a partner trusts too much. Which is a sad state of affairs, because aren't relationships built on trust?

Robin is the typical comedian wannabe; he's charming to those around him, he copes with things by joking, and is happy to have his wife be the one sustaining their finances. It's not until his secrets start to unravel that we see what his wife Esther missed - that he has a past and some current goings on that should have made her run in the other direction.

Except now she has Riley. The baby she couldn't have, but who belongs to her husband. All because he needed an outlet one night. And she could lose it all.

Then Esther receives a one word text - "sorry" - and then the author takes us on a crazy ride in alternating fast forwards to the present and snippets of the past that beg the question - can you ever really know someone?

This was suspenseful in the way that waiting for the other shoe to drop is....and drop it did!

Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books for an advance reader's copy for review.

I am a huge fan of this authors work. She writes psychological thrillers with such flare that when you are reading them you can't help feel that nothing is ever as it seems.
You can almost feel the undercurrent throughout her stories.
We meet Robin and Esther in this one.
As a couple, they have decided that Robin will stay at home to look after their little girl while Esther goes out to work.
An arrangement that seems to suit them both..
One day Esther arrives home from work to discover that Robin and their little girl have gone, completely disappeared.
This story is told between two timelines, the now and the past telling how they met and the run up to the present day...
I quite enjoyed the way the author told us her story.
She gives such a great insight into the relationship between Robin & Esther and what it is built on.
I couldn't help feeling that one was always carrying the other in the relationship..
I didn't take to either character if I'm honest but that just increased the suspense for me trying to figure out what was happening and why.
Who could or should be trusted.
It made me question is there really such a thing as a perfect family...
A tense and quite a dramatic read for sure.
I found I couldn't quite leave it down at any point until I had it finished.
So very well worth your time.
Charlotte Duckworth is an author to watch out for...

OMG one of the better reads I’ve read in a long time. I couldn’t put it down finished it in 2 days. The author was very good in capturing the mind of a tortured evil soul

This is the first book by Charlotte Duckworth that I’ve read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have seen some mixed reviews, but mine is definitely a positive. Multiple character perspectives - tick. Timeline changes - tick. Twists and suspense - absolutely. Superb characterisation; I didn’t actually like Esther much and Robin, well... he intrigued me (anyone who knows me will know what type of character he must have been) but regardless, both were compelling characters, which demonstrates Charlotte’s skill as an author. I was hooked from the first chapter and the pace was just right. With a young toddler myself, I found aspects quite relatable and I found the end rather evocative. I will happily add Charlotte to my list of Psychological Thriller authors. Highly recommend.

I was lucky enough to receive this book as an ARC, I chose the book ftom the blurb but had not heard of author before. What can I say..... Wow fantastically written, well thought out characters. Easily relatable. I normally guess where books are going but not this one, knew something wasn't right with 1 central character but did not imagine would be to the degree it was. Strong story, believable and very well written. Will definately recommend and look forward to reading more from z Charlotte Duckworth

A psychological thriller that leaves you questioning everything and everyone.
She wants a baby so badly. Now that she's pregnant she can hardly move. The vomiting is continuously sending her to bed. Ten weeks later she miscarries. She is devastated. What's worse is her husband sleeping with someone else while she is miscarrying their child. Then her husband comes up with a solution. The woman doesn't want his child. She is going to abort it. But, she will carry it to term if he pays her. Then she will turn the child over to him. When he shares this with his wife she is equally devastated and willing to take the baby on as both hers and her husband's. She is the sole breadwinner so her husband says he will be the stay at home dad. Things aren't as they seem to be when she approaches the birth mother. Then she discovers what is really going on. Now her child's life may be in danger.
A story full of twists and turns and a great climactic ending.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for my copy.

This got many good reviews, but unfortunately for me this book was just all over the place. Told between Robin and his wife Esther, it jumped back and forth from past to present and I had a hard time keeping the story line together. I would pick the book back up and have to reread what I read before to follow what was going on. It went from present, to the past, to another past and back to present past... very confusing.

Sorry, this was a pass for me.

After a difficult pregnancy, Esther is grateful that her forward-thinking husband Robin offers to put his career on hold so that she can return to the job she loves.
My main problem with The Perfect Father is that I disliked both main characters. They were selfish, egotistical, and to a point not quite believable. It's hard to love a book when you can't connect with any of the characters.

A bit of a complicated book, by the end I kind of understood it. It's a family drama a bit hard to follow. Esther receives a text from her husband saying "Sorry" and when she gets home the door is open and they are missing. She receives a phone call that Robin was in an accident and is on life support but there's no sign of Riley. Where is her daughter???

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the advance ecopy.

This was was sent to me as an ARC NetGalley - however, all opinions are of my own.
"Sorry” was the opening sentence. Sorry.. for what?! Straight away this book grips you and you’re holding onto that one word. Ester, the wife, had no idea what her husband meant when he sent that message. She had to go into detective mode and eventually started to unconverted things about his past that didn’t add up. Throughout, Ester is constantly trying to find answers with at each turn she ends up finding out something else. She’s more worried because her husband has their child and she really wants her back safe.
Eventually, the husband clocks on that Ester has found out things about him that he had hidden and then it became a race against time - cat and mouse. The only thing I didn’t like about the book was how selfish both of the main characters were - there personality seeped out into the book and at some stages you really wanted to throw them a punch.. or two!

The positive feedback on this book was that it was easy to read, kept me engaged and had lots of sub plots. Unfortunately it has some down sides too. The story line was a little off for me... what family has all these secrets in the closets. What was the purpose of half of them and they whole thing was a little bizarre. It was a fun read but I couldn't take it too serious at all.

A little predictable, but overall a fun read that kept me interested. This was my first book by Charlotte Duckworth and I immediately checked out another of her books, Unfollow Me. Will be looking for more from her in the future.

The first sentence of this book is just
"Sorry."
and that's kinda fitting because I'm sorry I have to write this review.
I'd have preferred to DNF it and say "not for me, no rating" but I was kindly given a copy from NetGalley so I felt compelled to finish it.

I found the characters ridiculous. Robin and Esther spend the entire book learning the nasty things about each other - she's snobby and judgemental, he has the mentality of an incel - that they really would have discovered before getting married and making a baby.

Also, how some of the topics were handled rubbed me the wrong way.
2.5⭐

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺.

A dysfunctional family who seemed to convince themselves for far too long they were living the perfect life, but as always, nothing is as it seems! 👀

I do enjoy books in which the story is told to us in multiple characters perspectives, in this case Rob and Esther, and also along different time lines in order to build up the back story.

For the majority of the book I found both of the main characters, Rob and Esther, actually grated on me but towards the end Esther had definitely grown on me. I'm going to say my favourite character was actually Kim (controversial?! 😁) albeit she made some bad decisions earlier on in the book. In fact, I had tears in my eyes by the final chapter - wasn't expecting that!

If you're looking for a fast paced, can't stop reading kind of excitement I'm going to say this one isn't for you, however if you're looking for a nice, easy to read slow burner that's still enjoyable, give it a go!

This is the first book I have read by Charlotte Duckworth and I look forward to reading more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review 📖

Sorry. That's all his text said so Esther flies home to Robin but finds nothing not Robin or their daughter.
A little backstory Robin put his whole career on hold to be 'The Perfect Father" whilst Either returns back to work after she has the baby. Esther and Robin both tell this story from their points of view but in all honestly neither character was relatable much less likable they both seemed to want things to go one way and that's just not how it works. The plot was good, intriguing in some parts but also entirely predictable in others.
Thank to netgalley and the publisher for this arc!

Wow! What a fabulous twist at the end of this book! I was captivated by the idea of a book written around a stay-at-home father, but as usual everything is not what it seems on the surface, and as the story progresses and more things are revealed, just when you think that you know why Robin has taken baby Riley, you’re proved wrong on the next page!! I loved this book and highly recommend it... the ending was brilliant!

This was a very interesting book but also ironic as the same parent/baby scenario also appeared in a series I watched on television a few days ago. Esther and Rob seem to have the perfect marriage, she works at director level for a diabetes charity while husband, Robin, is the stay at home Dad to their adorable little girl, Riley. It’s only as the story develops that we start to see the cracks appearing instigated by a drunk Rob kissing a girl at a New Years Eve party held at the home of Esthers best friend, Vivienne. The plot is both simple and complex with different timelines allowing us to glimpse the past and present culminating in an excellent conclusion.. From the beginning when Rob is seriously injured in a car accident with toddler, Riley, also in the car , we are led through a fascinating spiral of betrayals, lies and heartache.

I found this a very easy read and got through it fast. I did enjoy it while I was reading it although I found the characters frustrating. Now I have finish I feel like not much happened, no real twists or anything. A generous 3 star could have been lower.

This book started right out of the gate and moved at a very fast pace. It was one of those books that was very hard to put down. And the closer I got to the end, the more I wondered how it could possibly end.

After Esther experiences a difficult pregnancy, her husband, Robin, offers to be a stay at home Dad. He can continue working on his career from home while his wife returns to her job.

But a a few years later when Esther gets a text from Robin saying only Sorry, things change quickly. And if you’re like me there will come a time you say, huh? I don’t get it. I even referred to the front of the book to see if I missed anything. Nope. But it didn’t take long to get it. Okay, that was a twist.

And the twisty story kept me quickly flipping through the pages. It is told in two perspectives, Robin’s and Esther’s. And it switches between past and present where the back story offers information leading to the current events.

Things become clearer as the story progresses. As I mentioned earlier, you may, like me, have to back up to clarify something. But it had me on my toes watching for other twists as Esther learns more and more about her missing husband.

However, I think I was expecting a bigger aha moment and twist at the end. It left me with a small amount of disappointment, though I couldn’t think of a better ending.

My Concerns
The ending, though fine, left me wanting more. Also, I wasn’t a fan of the name Robin. Maybe I know too many female Robins.

What I Liked Best
This book was well written and had me engaged from the very beginning. The excitement was there. The mystery and suspense hovered over the pages. And I had a hard time reading fast enough.

This was definitely an enjoyable domestic thriller and I will have Charlotte Duckworth’s new books on my radar.

I received a digital copy of this book from #NetGalley and the publisher and I was free to post my opinion .

This was an okay read, fast paced, with some good twists & turns, thrills, and shocks; but unfortunately, I felt it was a bit too unrealistic. I think it deterred from my enjoyment of the story, as I most enjoy the ones that could happen in real life. I find them to be the most chilling, because the realisticbess really thrills and chills me. Overall, if you don’t mind an unrealistic story, a bit unlikeable characters, then I do think you’ll enjoy this book, I would give it a 3-4 stars, but do recommend for those who like good twists!