Thank you NetGalley, author Daniel Hurst, and Inkubator Books publishing for giving me a free arc copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
3 stars
Who might want to erase a person's past relationships?
Adele is a 36 year old woman, who is madly in love with her fiancé Tom. She has a supportive best friend and feels lucky to have found her soul mate after a string of boyfriends she has had since the tender age of 16. It all seems to be going well until Adele realizes that her exes are being killed in the order that she dated them. No one truly believes her, not even Tom, who she believes will be killed last.
This book had a very interesting premise. I found this book to be a quick and interesting story. The characters really not all that likeable nor fully developed. I did not really feel the chemistry between Adele and Tom. I was not sure why they were in a relationship in the first place, but especially getting married. I found myself questioning and suspecting many of the characters throughout the book as well as what motive they might have for the killing spree. The ending was a little bit of a let down. Overall, this book had a lot of potential, but fell short of delivering a great book. I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future.

The theme of the writing in this book is repetition.

Repetition, repetition, repetition.

Did you know that Adele suffers from migraines due to a hit on the head when she was just 16? You'll be told. Repeatedly.

That she is now 36 and she should know better than to drink too much? Again, it'll be drilled into you.

That Tom, her fiance, does not like her mentioning any of her old boyfriends, even if it's in the context of them having just died? Yup, you got it. It'll be mentioned ad nauseam.

Speaking of Tom and Adele, how in the world are these two together?? She keeps going out with her best friend for drinks and either forgets to tell Tom or lies to him about it. She lies to him constantly, or omits some things, either to protect herself or to avoid making him upset.

He keeps getting upset with her for drinking, spending time with Nicola, her best friend, or for worrying about old boyfriends being in danger.

Never once did I believe these two are in love. Never.

The story in itself is interesting, although not particularly gripping. I was interested enough to finish reading. It was a quick read. Nothing to write home about.

This was my first by this author and the cover was apt. The blurb however appealed to me and the title seemed right.

What did I like? My issue with this book was that there was zero chemistry between Tom and Adele. She was too different from Tom to seem to care he was home waiting up for her while she was out drinking. When the third boyfriend dies, and she gets the text, Tom fails to care. How do people in love act like this?

Would I recommend or buy? I would try another by this author since I was interested in the story. I just failed to feel anything for the characters. This is for lovers of drama mixed with mystery. Three stars!

I received a complimentary copy to read and voluntarily left a review!

Adele and Tom are in the middle of planning their wedding but a spanner is thrown in the works when slowly but surely each of Adele's exes turn up dead.

This started off really well for me. I felt that Daniel had created great suspense and I was intrigued to read more. However, the suspense then plateaued and never took off again. The middle became lacklustre as the same thing kept happening over and over without any real drama or escalation.

The plot reveal was average but that is not what led to this story's decline for me.

There were also some things that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. For example, it is emphasised quite heavily that Adele is a bit of a heavy drinker and it does start to affect her relationship with Tom however, this plot point is never taken any further and makes me wonder why mention it at all if it's not going to affect the story in any way.

Also it's mentioned that Tom knew about all of the exes yet he knew nothing about her highschool sweetheart as Adele mentions that they were together before social media and Tom had to deduce they were something more from the photos people posted after his funeral.

So quite the average thriller and nothing to write home about unfortunately.

This was creepy and suspenseful AF! Wow! Adele is 38 and engaged to Tom who is not too happy when she goes out drinking in excess with her bff Nicola. Someone is watching Adele though and is obsessed about her past. Her ex-boyfriends, in the order she has dated them, end up dead at what looks like natural causes or an accident. But then Tom is targeted! Who is behind this and is Adele next?

The twists and turns did not let up in this book. Finally a suspense/thriller that is not predictable and one that I would recommend. Had me on edge from start to finish and I would read more from this author in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley, Daniel Hurst and Inkubator Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 6/30/21

Adele has found her one and only. His name is Tom, he is her 6th boyfriend and soon to be husband. 
While planning their wedding Adele gets the message that her first boyfriend has hanged himself. Not soon after, there is a story about. her second boyfriend who died in a car crash. When she gets news about her third boyfriend's death, Adele suspects something is amiss. With a confirmation from a text of a killer she confides in her fiance and the police but neither believes her. 
It's then up to Adele to warn her exes, keep Tom alive and figure out who is responsible for the deaths of her past lovers.

The plot of this book is what drives a reader. You stay and keep up with the story- the chapters are quick and the story is captivating, but sadly not through the whole book. 
What put me off was the characters. Adele is a self-absorbed  drunkard. Her inner monologue was blended and I couldn't find myself to relate or care about her. 
Her relationship with Tom seems confusing, the connection between them is off and the thought that they are to be married is inconceivable.  
Her best friend Nicole is portrayed as Adele's drinking buddy and that's pretty much all of their relationship.
Since this is a book about killing Adele's past boyfriends, one would think that their relationship would be well described and the reader would get some knowledge about Adele's past life. That didn't happen.


*Thank you NetGalley, Daniel Hurst and Inkubator Books for a free ARC.

The Boyfriend is a compelling psychological thriller about a woman whose ex-boyfriends become the target of a spree killer and where nothing and no one is what they seem. 36-year-old Adele Davies is currently engaged to Tom Barton and is planning their lavish wedding. She's madly in love with him and believes in her heart of hearts that he is the one. In the past she's had 5 serious relationships, Tom is the sixth, that ended for one reason or another usually via mutual agreement or Adele finishing them herself. Enter Adele’s seemingly supportive best friend and fellow drunkard, Nicola, who often seems like a bad influence on her. They drink profusely and attend nightclubs despite being older than the average crowd; maybe they're just young at heart.

Tom doesn’t particularly like Nicola due to this and gets annoyed when Adele goes out and fails to inform him of where she is or when she will be returning home. They meet up frequently and on one of those catch-ups, Nicola receives a message informing her that Shaun Gibson, Adele’s first boyfriend, has been found hanged in the woods in a suspected suicide. Then Calum Jenkins, who she dated after Shaun, dies in a car accident. As her ex-partners keep dying, Adele realises that someone is responsible for killing these guys. Can she get to the bottom of who is carrying out these slayings before they target Tom? This is a compelling and original thriller with plenty of drama, twists, red herrings and a mystery at its heart. I raced through it as it's a quick read with highly unlikeable characters and a captivating plot.

Adele and her fiance are planning for their wedding. One evening Adele went for a night out with her best friend, Nicola, to discuss her wedding and the same evening they discover her first boyfriend, Shuan has committed suicide. The following days later, she saw some posting on social media by some of her ex-schoolmate about the deaths of her second and third ex-boyfriend. Adele thinks these don't look coincidental. She believes something is not as it seems to be and decided to go to the police and report the links of all her exes.

The police officer promises to look into the cases even though he does not seem to believe Adele's theories. Before they found anything suspicious about the death of the 3 exes, she finds her fourth ex-boyfriend dead. Adele is afraid that if there's really a serial killer out there, he or she might get to her fiance soon. The man that she is going to marry soon. She can't let the man she loves be the next victim. She needs to get the serial killer before he or she gets them.

I do enjoy this thriller. There's definitely some little good twist. I'm just having mixed feelings. Definitely, no struggle for me, and I can quickly connect to the story, just maybe around 80% of the book, I was able to kind of predict the ending. So overall, I would give it a 3.75.

Thank you so much to @netgalley and @inkubatorbooks for this advance digital copy.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Inkubator Books for the electronic copy.

I found the description of this book really intriguing and it is a "good enough" read, but I didn't feel there was any particular "depth" to it as a psychological thriller. either within the story or the main characters themselves.

Thirty-six year old Adele is engaged to Tom and planning their wedding. She's finally found "the one" after years of relationships varying in lengths of time; most of which she herself terminated, other times she had been dumped or they parted by mutual agreement. Adele's had six boyfriends, including Tom, although her best friend from school days, Nicola, would swear there were many more.

Nicola and Adele regularly meet up and, just as regularly, end up drinking too much - much to Tom's annoyance, especially when Adele fails to let him know where she is or could be expected home. On one such meeting Nicola receives a text telling her that a boy from their teenage years had hanged himself from a tree. It's all over Facebook and old school friends are talking about it. Shaun was Adele's first boyfriend. Shortly afterwards Calum dies in a car accident - he was Adele's second boyfriend.

The story continues where after each death Adele relates her experiences with each boyfriend. After the third death she is convinced someone is deliberately killing her ex-boyfriends, even though they appear to have died accidentally or by suicide, and eventually goes to the police.

Can she get to the bottom of who's doing this before the killer reaches Tom?

As said - this is a good enough read but it all felt rather shallow.

The premise of this book was appealing but the reality did not quite live up to the promise. I feel split with my views on this book as I did want to know what the outcome was, but I did find myself skipping bits of the writing to get there. Without giving any spoilers away I didn't particularly like the ending as it appeared to come from nowhere. The characters aren't particularly likeable, although of course that is not always important in a book it is strange when this is the case for all the ones in the book. I don't like giving bad reviews as I always feel for the author who has put their heart and soul into the book but this just wasn't for me.

What a book. I found myself reading this at high pace and with adrenaline pumping. I don't know if this was because I wanted to find out the ending or because of the pace of the story. I thought it was the obvious suspect of Tom early on, with everything pointing towards him before Adele had figured it out. The only thing I found annoying and generally do find annoying in stories is the lot of thinking the character does, sometimes I feel they overthink things and run through scenarios over and over, thankfully Adele's overthinking was the making of this book.

The blurb sounded exciting with Adele's ex-boyfriends dying one by one just before her wedding to Tom. The threatening notes added a layer of suspense in the plotline.
The story was entertaining in parts, writing was good, being my first time with this author, but both the main characters fell short. One drank, other was too controlling.

Overall, it was a fast read.

This one hovered at 2.5 stars for me.

The premise was fantastic and I appreciate the work the author did when laying out the story. I just couldn’t connect with Adele and I found her a bit too unlikable personally.

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

Adele is in her mid thirties and engaged to Tom. All of a sudden, she notices her ex-boyfriends are mysteriously dying one by one. Then the threatening text messages start.

The premise and plot of The Boyfriend was very promising. I was very excited to read this book unfortunately I couldn’t connect with the any of the characters, especially Adele. I felt like she was too selfish and didn’t make any efforts to work on her relationship with her fiancé. Tom was very controlling and even in moments of comforting Adele, I never felt love between the two. This is supposed to be a couple in love about to get married. I couldn’t feel any love and that was a downer for me. I feel like character development, in general, was lacking throughout the book.

Overall the story was good but I wish I’d connected with the characters more or at least seen growth from them. I did enjoy “The Boyfriend’s” dialogue chapters as it did provide some insight to the killer.

Thank you Netgalley & Inkubator Books for allowing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Don't you just hate it when the one you love doesn't love you back? What about when they are engaged to someone else and are completely oblivious to your very existence? I know what you're thinking. The answer is yes and the solution is to murder all of her ex boyfriends in the order she dated them. Obviously.

I really loved Daniel Hurst's previous book The Passenger and had high expectations for this one. Sadly, it was nowhere near as good but still a quick, entertaining read that I'll probably forget in five minutes. The prologue was unnecessary and added nothing to the story. It was repetitive in places and I understand why a lot of reviews complained about Adele's out of control drinking. She's drinking in virtually every scene and by the end I wanted to drown her in it. Also, Tom was extremely annoying and I kind of hoped he went first.

That being said, I know Hurst has the goods in him, and though this wasn't his best work it was still a fun quick read. Although, all the way through I kept thinking this would have been better with a gender swap. Call me sexist but I just think it would have been more believable the other way around.

**I received a free ebook via Netgalley and Inkubator Books.

I liked the story and it did keep me reading til the end. Tom, the boyfriend had to put up with alot of the main character, thats for sure. I did not like the main character Adele, very whiny,everything had to be perfect with her and childish. I couldnt relate to her and Tom as they didnt seem to have a connection at all

It was fast paced and a not bad plot but i felt disappointed.
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this story. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is a good time filler, not the gripping page turner I was expecting. The description sounded a perfect who is it thriller. The main character - Adele - is planning to settle down with as it turns out her sixth serious boyfriend – Tom, when she finds out that the first one committed suicide. Then shortly after the funeral, the second one departs this world in a horrible accident. Too strange to be a coincidence? Proof that something more sinister than coincidence is behind the deaths of the two ex’s when the third dies followed by a text message that someone is going to kill each of Adele’s ex-boyfriend’s one by one, so now she is in a race against time to figure out who it is if she is to save her fiancé.

The characters were under developed and all over the place. Adele is a shallow borderline alcoholic, Tom the fiancé had a little sympathy, until you wonder why the heck is he putting up with her antics and binges with her best friend who is probably an alcoholic. Fortunately the book is fairly fast paced with short chapters and I had committed enough time trying to detect the murderer that I was able to get to the – anticlimactic - end. To get into this anymore would risk giving away spoilers suffice to say that I gave an extra star because I did not guess the perpetrator, in hindsight I had at some point suspected potentially everyone but the right person.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review

If you read the blurb it seems like an excellent premise for a book and a little different than your average thriller.

I just didn't enjoy the book for me the plot was too slow and would've worked better as a short story than an actual novel. You didn't really get to know most of the characters and therefore didn't really care what happened to them.
Explaining each relationship she had brought nothing to the story. Also was not a fan of the writing style.

What would be the stupifying incident that could happen when you start planning your wedding?
How about your first boyfriend committing suicide, and then the second dying in a car crash and ohh the third dying in house burn? and a hint that there's more to come..

Adele the main character of the book is all set to wear the white dress and walk the alter with her 6th boyfriend and now fiance. Whilst planning for the wedding, one evening when she meets her best friend Nicole for dinner and drink (heads up Adele is almost a drunkard) she gets the news that her first boyfriend has hanged himself. She goes to the funeral and when Tom her Fiance finds out he gets furious. Soon she receives the news that her 2nd boyfriend also dies, in a car crash. and soon she gets the news of the death of her 3rd boyfriend. In amidst of all this, she has intense headaches which are due to some accident that happened when she was 16 (and she has a short memory loss of that event altogether). After the death of the 3rd boyfriend, she gets a text confirming her doubts regarding her connections to these murders. Neither her Fiance nor the Inspector believes her until the 4th Boyfriend too is murdered. Who has murdered them, is it someone from her past that she has forgotten, or her fiance who might do it out of jealousy, or her best friend, or her ex-best friend.

The story was fast-paced and the plot drawn made me spot the killer time and again which made it a page-turner for me. It is very unusual for a book to have a non-attractive main character also a lousy and toxic relationship with the main character. Not only was Adele a drunkard but also she was nothing amazing for the hype. It was hard to connect with her or her relationship with Tom the fiance or with any of her boyfriends in the past.

I was expecting a very prodigious ending, an indulging story behind the boyfriend killer's motive, however, I was a little disappointed there. Not that the actual end was not great but I just felt it could have been more exciting, relatable, and shocking.

Thank you Netgalley for the DRC <3.

holding the review till the date of release...

The Boyfriend by Daniel Hurst was a novel that centered on a sinister premise - why are Adele's ex-boyfriend's turning up dead? And will her current boyfriend end up on the killer's list?

Adele is engaged to Tom and drinks to much with her bestie Nicola - drinks a lot! Her high school boyfriend committed suicide and she is completely upset and shocked. They hadn't seen each other for years but it still upsets her. When the next man she dated seriously ends up dead too, a pattern starts to emerge.

Adele's current relationship is starting to suffer when her fiance finds out she went to an ex's funeral and is still drinking (a lot!) with Nicola. Her hangovers exacerbate her migraines and she is starting to fall apart. When the third ex dies and she receives and ominous threatening text, will the police, her fiance and her best friend see the connection?

I enjoyed this book. There were some holes in the plot but it was a fun read that kept me interested. I was dying to know who the killer was and if Adele was still sane.