My Perfect Friend by Sarah Clarke
Earc: NetGalley
Publisher: HQ Digital
Publication Date:23 November 2022
Genre:General Fiction, Mystery and Thriller

The past can always catch up right. Beth.
Kat sees an article online and sees someone through her past. Wanting to change past wrongs but is she telling the right person.
Saski is Beth's best mate but has some jelous issues. Saski is a bit over barring and does not follow boundaries.
Mark is a homeless drunk who is threatening her.

I enjoy how the story flips from the past to present and it flows well.

There's plenty of twist and turns within this book.

#NetGalley #bookstagram #bookreview #goodreads @HQDigital #myperfectfriend #mysteryandthriller #generalfiction

Enjoyable, well written book. Told from different characters viewpoints. Highly recommended. I couldn’t put it down

Beth has the perfect life. She has constricted it carefully over the last eighteen years. But one night she makes a choice that risks everything. When Kat sees an article about that night online, buried memories begin to surface. She and Beth were friends once. Things ended badly then, but now she has a chance to make things right.

This story is told from multiple points of view. Beth has a past that she keeps hidden, even from her best friend and neighbour, Sasaki, knows nothing about. Kat is a local dog groomer. The three women's life's cross after one of them discovers a man's body outside an empty shop. The story also flips between the past and the present day. This story has been cleverly crafted. Nothing is what it first seemed. Eventually everything gels together and makes you get a better perspective of what's been going on. It can be a bit unrealistic, but I still oved the book anyhow.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #HQ and the author #SarahClarke for my ARC of #MyPerfectFriend in exchange for an honest review.

My Perfect Friend is everything you want in a twisty psychological thriller.
Beth has everything in her life that she ever wanted mainly because she planned it that way.
But Beth has a past that she has kept hidden from everyone including her neighbour and friend Sasaki.
Whilst walking home after a night out Beth comes across a homeless man and she immediately knows something isn't right.
Having called for an ambulance Beth starts to give CPR but to no avail.
After that faithful night Beth now has herself a stalker and Sasaki is concerned for her friends safety.
With a chance meeting with Kat a local dog groomer Sasaki soon becomes suspicious of this new woman in Beth's life and doesn't trust her one bit.
Is Kat who she says she is or is she holding a deep dark past?

A thoroughly enjoyable read. With an end I didn't see coming.

Beth has the perfect life – the perfect house, family and friends. But one day, she makes a choice to help a homeless man in trouble – and the attention that follows begins to tear down the illusions…

Meanwhile, we meet Kat – a dog groomer working close to Beth’s home. When she sees the stories about Beth’s heroic actions, she immediately recognises her as someone from her past. And there is unfinished business – leading Kat to infiltrate Beth’s life as a stranger. But neither of them is who they seem to be.

The slow build up of tension was excellent – as we flit between a couple of months in the past and the story of Kat and Beth’s original meeting 18 years ago, the picture constantly changes and the reader’s allegiance with the characters in the story changes throughout. Each character – Beth, Kat, Saskia and Mark in particular – has many sides to them and all is certainly not what it initially seems to be.

The clever way that the story pans out was really excellent – I never would have guessed, and it was an excellent story. However, I did have to go back and re-read some of the early pages as something I thought I remembered would happen made me think I was going mad. On re-reading, I think the Derren Brown-type subconscious suggestions in those early pages was a bit lacking – we were really told some actual lies there rather than just some ‘open for interpretation’ suggestions! I won’t say any more as I don’t want to spoil, but I really think that style of misdirection should actually work when you read it back knowing the truth, and this didn’t!

But, although I finished the book going “HUH?” and “HMMMurrrr”, overall, this was a gripping thriller with some great twists – and I particularly enjoyed the characters and how my feelings kept changing towards them as we learnt more.

3.5 stars

The book centers on three main characters whose lives intersect after one of them discovers a body.

Beth Packard, a suburban housewife is on her way home from a night out with her girlfriend when she finds a homeless man lying unconscious outside the front door of an empty shop, with a needle in his arm.

She quickly calls for an ambulance. The paramedics arrive and the man is pronounced dead possibly from heroine overdose.

Beth’s best friend Saskia Tomes who lives directly opposite Beth used to be a journalist, now a blogger; she usually posts stuff on a website called MyNeighbour.

Mark, the dead homeless guy’s mate who was brought in for questioning and then released the next day. He’s had it for Beth for trying to get both of them of her street since they moved into the shop.

Kat works as a dog groomer in Groom & Bloom. Following the incident the previous night Saskia posts a blog about a woman who tried to save a guy. She puts up Beth’s picture on the blog.

At work Kat’s boss shows her the blog and Kat immediately recognizes Beth from her past. Kat lived with her father in the Outback until he passed before she moved back to the UK.

Overall a good read. Would recommend

Thank you to Sarah Clarke, NetGalley and HQ Digital for the arc of this book.

2.5 stars rounded up!

My Perfect Friend wasn't a perfect read. For one, it had way too many POVs (five, to be exact) and most of them weren't even working well. Suspense-wise, I really hope it stays to two main leads and maybe a mysterious POV in between.

After having read several digital ARC in similar genres, I could say that despite everything that made me dislike the book, this one gave me a proper closure for the ending. The synopsis and title also fit the book well.

Slow burning story of obsession centred around 3 women, after one of them discovers the body of a homeless man. At times the storyline felt a little unrealistic to me, but the pace picked up the pace in the last quarter and ended well. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I read another book by this author and was not a fan. Was hesitant about reading another. Am happy to say that this experience was better. This was a fast, twisty, bending read. I completed the book in a couple of sittings. Some of the situations were a little unrealistic, but the way the story was tied together, I was okay with it. The author is now one and one and I'm curious to see what she will do with her next read.

📚: My Perfect Friend by Sarah Clarke (@sarahclarkewriter)
⭐️: 3.75/5 (rounding up on #goodreads)

Appearances can certainly be deceiving in this thriller.

Respected in her community, Beth is the perfect mom and wife, who finds herself thrust into the suburban internet spotlight after a night out with friends.

Kat, a dog groomer with a history, just *knows* who Beth is as soon as she sees the article online. Determined to weave her way into Beth’s life, she introduces herself as a stranger, obsessed with making the past right.

This was another in-two-sittings read for me. I found it to be a bit of a slow burn that really picked up its pace in the last quarter. I couldn’t put the last few chapters down, with a twist I didn’t see the ending coming AT ALL.

Available in bookstores on 11/23. A big thanks to @hqstories via @netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. #gifted

An interesting story where the roles of hero, villain, victim and predator are not who the reader might assume. Set in the yummy mummy circles of comfortable Wandsworth in London, we observe stay-at-home mothers, Beth and Saskia living the middle-class dream, yet there are reminders of the harsher realities of homelessness and addiction just around the corner. When these two worlds collide and frustrated journalist Saskia writes a story about it, Beth loses her comfortable anonymity and becomes the focus of two stalkers - a homeless witness to her apparent good deed and a friend from her hidden past who is curious - and maybe resentful - about her change of circumstances. A very compelling read, which leaves the reader guessing until the very end.

This was actually an entertaining read.

Beth is rich and glamorous, seemingly leading a perfect life. Kat is a local dog groomer. So when Beth is unexpectedly thrust herself into limelight after she catches a homeless man overdosed with drug, Kat recognizes Beth, though we have no idea why Kat recognizes Beth. Saskia is Beth's neighbor and unexpectedly enters into the story.

The story is mainly told from Beth and Kat's perspectives with a past that seemingly may have a connection to the present. The story started to reach climax towards the end and the author did a good job of drawing the reader into the story. There were some twists and turns, with a little bit of drama along the way and overall, it was a good psychological thriller book--worth four stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.

An interesting story about the search for perfection and beauty. Beth a young mother returning to her expensive London home from a girls night out finds a middle aged drug user unconscious in the doorway of a disused shop. From that moment on her life changes as secrets from her past, secrets kept from her family, start to emerge.The story is told from the point of view of all the main characters, a form which seems to be popular with modern authors and in this case works very well. Events start to overtake Beth at alarming speed as she starts to lose control over her life and fears for her family. A modern day morality tale.
A well plotted book which held my interest from start to finish.

Wow! This is an absolutely brilliant book. The characters and plot are just brilliant. A good level of suspense. Highly recommended.

This is another great read by Sarah Clarke. There were plenty of twists, the plot was fairly unique and the ending was unexpected.
I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes this genre or author.

A gripping psychological thriller, showing how appearances can be deceiving and putting trust in people we don’t really know.
I read this book very quickly. The chapters were short and. kept me wanting to know more. However, there were a lot of characters to follow from their pov which felt like too much and took your focus from the main story of Beth and Kat. I feel the story could have been told without the need to add the points of view of too many characters. Beth and Kat would have been enough, Beth’s friend saskia’s pov did help the reader get more depth to Beth as a character but I don’t think Mark and the detective were needed really.
That being said I did enjoy this book and wasn’t expecting the ending!

A twist-filled psychological thriller by author, Sarah Clarke. This is my second book by this author, the first being Every Little Secret. I enjoyed this one a lot and found it to be a quick read which I was able to easily immerse myself in. The alternating POV and timelines contributed to an in depth understanding of each character’s motivations, behaviours and thoughts. I loved the twists and the ending which I didn’t see coming. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.

I was very much looking forward to reading this book. It sounded right up my street. I read the prologue and thought- fantastic-I'm on to a winner and then, well things went seriously downhill. All the characters are unbelievably shallow., superficial and deeply unpleasant.. Multiple unreliable narratives are used to tell the story which makes it somewhat disjointed. It also goes back and forth in time. It's a bit like, try anything in your inventory, something's got to work. It's like the author had a checklist formula to be ticked off. The pace was extremely slow such that you found your mind wandering. The latter part of the book was so far fetched
Much deriding of drug abuse but what about the alcohol consumption? And is someone who is a dress size 12 really "fat", a "hulk" , impossibly ugly? Is it only to be read by size 8's only? The amount of derogatory comments about Kat was astonishing and very off putting. Talking of derogatory, a nurse called Grace Faithful? I mean really? Pandering to the "nurses are all saints, angels and heroes" philosophy rather than highly skilled professional people. The coroner also changes sex from one page to another. Formulaic, cliched and "thriller by numbers" which was not well executed. Shame as it could have been very good

I enjoyed this book. It’s got a great plot which flows well and gives you breadcrumbs of clues to what is happening. I don’t want to spoil it by saying too much, but it’s got some twists that’s for sure! I definitely recommend this book. Thank you #netgalley.

Beth strives for perfection, perfect Mother, perfect wife, perfect home, perfect life. Saskia is Beth's best friend, not quite so perfect, she basks in the spotlight of being in Beth's company...everyone wants to be like them, until a chance encounter with a homeless man connects Beth with Kat, a socially awkward, working class Woman, and Beth's life begins to spiral out of control!....A really great page turner of a book, a tale of twists and turns and misdirections. A good Autumnal read.