Net Galley!

A huge thank you to Net Galley for my Advanced Reader Copy of “The Couple in the Photo!”

I started this book at a super busy time and when I had to step away, and focus on other things, it stayed on my mind until I could get back to it! 45% of the way through the book, I had to google this awesome author, fingers crossed this wasn't her only book! She's amazing! Lucky for me! She has more books! I have added them to my "to read" and I will be anxiously awaiting her next release!

The characters! You love some and loathe the others.

The setting! I want a cottage to renovate! Yes please!

This story had so many twists and turns but somehow they all worked so well! The friendships that really weren't. The love triangle that really wasn't. The innocence of Lucy. The lies from the people you trusted most! The seemingly perfect life until you pulled the covers back and realized the dysfunction. This is a five star read no doubt about it! What a wild ride!

Check out all of Helen's books!
- The Downstairs Neighbor (February 2021)
- The Last Guest (July 2022)
- The Couple in the Photo (December 2023)

Check out my Review on Goodreads!

Oh, the tales we weave! We all have best couples that we hang with as adults especially when we have kids. Kids will bond as well as moms and dads. Life is perfect! Or so we think.... In this book we have 2 couples with kids and 3 of these have been friends since college. The secrets start to unfold throughout the book and the author did a fantastic job of keeping us readers on the edge of our seats. This was an excellent book! I am taking 1 star off for the nicknames of the main characters (Luce, Cor and Ad) I think this was unnecessary to the story. Overall a fantastic book! I am honored to have received a copy of this book through Netgalley and can't wait to read more from this author.
#thecoupleinthephoto
#Netgalley
#helencooper

Huge thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book -- this was a fun one.

Lucy finds herself in a web of lines created by her husband and two closest friends after she recognizes her best friend's husband in a coworker's picture from their honeymoon.

Soon, Lucy realizes that everything she's known might be built on lies and the lies may be even bigger than she originally thought.

This book had me hooked from the very first chapter as we are taken along for a ride with Lucy and she digs to uncover what is actually happening within her close circle (her husband and their best friends Cora and Scott, who are also married).

This book gave me anxiety in the absolute best way possible because at one point it had me guessing my own sanity and dying to know what was happening and exactly who was behind everything. While I thought I had some things figured out, there continued being twists and turns right up until the very end.

Such a fun and wild ride -- definitely recommend.

***Thank you to Helen Cooper, PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons and Netgalley for the ARC copy ***
Release date: 12.05.2023

Summary: Lucy loves photographs, seeing those moments that can last forever. One day at work, a coworker is showing her photos from her honeymoon in Maldives and she sees a couple in the photo - the man looks an awful lot like her husbands best friend, Scott. As Lucy begins to question what she saw in the photo, the female in the pictures body is found in the Maldives. Lucy begins doing her own sleuthing and confiding in her husband, Adam. As Lucy thinks shes getting closer to what happened to the woman, the more she realizes the things in her life are not as they seem.

Review: It's always the damn husband.
This book took me on a journey and I finished it in one sitting (well as close to one sitting while being at work one can be). I started this thinking wow, Scott sucks, poor Cora, this is all going to end badly. Then it became pity Scott, Cora sucks but Adam reaaaallly sucks and Lucy is just stuck in all of it. I thought the writers take on a love affair with a murder was interesting. So often we see guilty cheater, jilted lovers who commit the crime but this ... there were more turns than I could see coming. It kept me on the edge of my seat without requiring a xanax so that's a plus.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author and it was PHENOMENAL!!! It grabs you from page one and doesn’t shake you loose until the very end!! You will read this book in day,! Thanks for the advanced copy!!

On a normal day at work, Lucy's colleague, Ruth is beaming from her recent honeymoon and sharing photos from her amazing trip to the Maldives. Lucy loves photos and all the happy times they convey, so she is more than happy to look at the pictures.

While flipping through, Lucy sees a snapshot of Ruth, her new husband and a couple at the resort and is floored to see the man is the husband of her best friend. When Lucy asks about it, Ruth says they are a great couple they met while there. Lucy feels sick. The man is Scott, her best friend Cora's husband, but the woman is NOT Cora. Furthermore, Scott is supposed to be in Tokyo on a business trip. He couldn't be in the Maldives, right?

What follows is a journey and discovery of secrets in a group of a very tight and close friends involving Lucy, her husband Adam and Scott and Cora. They couldn't be closer and their four kids are like siblings. Adam, Scott and Cora were all best friends at university before Lucy entered the picture. Lucy is torn about digging into the issue knowing it could implode all their lives as they know it.

Now, my two cents. I really enjoyed reading this book. I thought it moved at a breakneck pace. The only thing is I was 49 percent finished and I had it figured out. I was right about the big part, but there was some small surprise at the end, so overall, it was a great read! Releases in December 2023 but you can preorder now! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher! No review was required.

This book was right up my alley! I loved the mystery and the characters. I flew through it in one day. I had to know what happened next!

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review

This book... had good potential? The first half of the book seemed to be setting it up to be so good, but it just fell apart a bit at the end.

I couldn't get over the incessant use of nicknames, only referring to each other as "Ad" and "Luce" and "Cor". The storyline was good, though. It followed an interesting idea that ended on a note I didn't see coming from the beginning of the book.

Definitely not a book that I'd read again, or necessarily recommend to someone, but it wasn't a waste!

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

This was a good domestic suspense/thriller. I was hooked right off the bat.
This book follows two couples: Adam and Lucy, and Cora and Scott. Adam, Cora, and Scott were friends in school and they are bound by some secrets that Lucy is determined to uncover.
I enjoyed the writing in this book. The characters were well developed for this genre. What's keeping my rating at 4 stars is how the plot played out.
At the beginning of this book, we think it's going to be about Lucy trying to find out what happened to Juliet Noor-- a writer who went missing in the Maldives. But it's not about that at all... which I thought was odd considering it was a huge point for a good chunk of this book.
There were so many red herrings in this book, and I loved that. However it was a tad predictable around 60% who the bad guy was.
The ending had a solid resolution and I liked that we got to see the aftermath of the events in an epilogue.
Overall, great story! I look forward to this book's publish date!

While looking at her co-worker's honeymoon pics, Lucy recognizes her husband's best friend with another woman. She and her husband are renovating a house in Cornwall with him and his wife and she is not sure what to do with this information. Her husband tells her she must be mistaken, but then the co-worker disappears and the woman in the photo is found dead. Lucy is worried that she has been lied to and is not sure if she can trust her friends or even her husband now. Many twists and not everyone is who they seem to be.

The Couple in the Photo is a slow burn physiological thriller/mystery. We start with our main character Lucy is looking at her co-workers honeymoon pictures and notices her best friend’s husband coupled with a woman that is not his wife. Then while watching the news, the woman goes missing and is presumed dead. Lucy starts to ask around and starts to realize that her husband, best friend and best friends husband are all much closer than she realizes. Does she even really know the people she was closest to?

The middle of the book gets a little slow but the plot was interesting and kept me engaged. I wanted to know what happened to the mystery woman and the relationships between the husband/friends. The relationships are built out well with good backstory on how these friendships were formed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book! This was a pretty good thriller with a lot of surprises, twists & red herrings. The author created an interesting dynamic between the protagonists, and the story kept me engaged.

Read this if you...
enjoy domestic thrillers
are into deception and lies
believe a picture isn't always what it seems

What I loved:
Talk about a fast-paced, "go-go-go" thriller! I haven't run into a book like this in quite a while, but from the moment I picked it up, I wasn't able to put it down. I finished this book in two days! You'll definitely be on the edge of your seat for the entire read.

This domestic thriller has so many twists and turns. You'll think you have it figured out, but soon learn you're not even close. You will follow Lucy, Adam, Scott, and Cora as lies get unwound and the truth is uncovered. How much can you really trust those closest to you? To what lengths will you go to protect the ones you love?

What wasn't my favorite:
I really enjoyed this book overall, and I wouldn't change much - the characters and plot are very well-developed. I'm a big fan of dual perspective narratives, and while there was some of this, I think adding more in-depth dual perspective dialogue could have made this book that much better!

Credit:
Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Decent thriller. Main character makes some decisions that make me question her judgement, and not sure why she and another character were teachers, as nothing about their career was really realistic or important to the story.

I also think it was way too obvious who was doing the alternative narratives in italics, and who killed Juliet. The why not so much, but even then yes, that was obvious too. The rest was a bit too convoluted to be realistic.

Having said all of that, the narrative was propulsive, and I was compelled to read it to the end.

The Couple in the Photo by Helen Cooper grabbed my attention from the first chapter. It was a fast passed and kept me guessing with teasers and twists throughout to keep you guessing until the end.

This is a twisty mystery involving four friends with a long history. Tangled webs come to mind. I enjoyed the story, although it got a bit boring in parts. I didn’t really identify with any of the characters and wasn’t rooting for anyone to “win” in the end. And really, there were no winners. Overall, a good read.

Lucy, Adam, Cora and Scott are all the best of friends. Adam, Cora and Scott went to University together and Lucy was quickly added to the group when she and Adam met and married. They have meals together frequently, heir kids are best friends, and they are close enough to have purchased a cottage together. So when Lucy is viewing a colleague's honeymoon photos, she's taken aback when she sees a photo of a man and woman together. The man is Scott, she's 100% sure of it.

What follows is a paranoid and fast-paced descent into the truth. This is the story of shared histories, of lost love and of the truth.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Overall a great, easy read! I really got lost in the book. I enjoyed the characters and overall was not surprised about the ending. That is why I am giving this 3 stars as it was a bit predictable.

I enjoyed The Couple In the Photo. I will say, the protagonist was definitely super obsessive. As it turned out, she had ample reason to be!!

Told in dual timelines and in interview style I loved how the book was written. Her descriptions were amazing and only made me want to travel more. The story is evenly paced and easy to get lost in. I really appreciated the friendship this group was able to maintain but did spike the thought of how little you know about your closest friends! While I was surprised by the ending I still liked how it came together and seeing the story lines intersect throughout. Be on the look out for this book! Thank you Putnam books and NetGalley!