I truly enjoyed this novel. It's a gripping thriller that's hard to put down. The main character, Becka, suffers from amnesia after an accident, leaving her with no memory of her identity, relationships, or near-drowning experience. Her devoted husband, Freddie, has been by her side, deeply in love with her. After a brief hospital stay, she returns home, where things appear normal yet subtly off-kilter. As Becka begins piecing together fragments of her past through memories, photographs, dreams, and the wisdom of an elderly neighbor, unsettling truths emerge.

The story kept me on edge with its mysteries and revelations, as I unraveled the deceptions and hidden secrets, leading to a climactic conclusion.

While I found the ending somewhat lacking and wished for more depth in character development, I would still recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thrillers or is looking to discover a new author.

Such a smooth reading experience.
The book started exciting, Becka sounded realistic and her struggles touched me. Clap clap to the author - nicely written!
The twists and turns were too many for a single book, which made it at times hard to follow. This does not mean that the book is bad, it just means that the book may become overwhelming with all the effort to surprise the reader. Once can envisage one or two of the twists, but there are so many that it would be challenging to claim that you may see them all coming. This makes you read carefully at all times and keeps the tension too high for those who read to relax.
Anyway, the book is good and worth the time.

This book was... predictable. From the moment Becka woke up to find her husband by her side, I knew how this book was going to end. All of the "foreshadowing" and "twists" were so boring and expected. And nothing about the ending was satisfying.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I enjoyed this book. Easy to keep up with but kept up the suspense. Will be reading more by this author.

* ARC from Netgalley *

Thank you NetGalley, Bookouture Audio and Hayley Smith for this ARC in exchange for a review.

A great gripping thriller that follows the story of a woman with a forgotten identity. But when her loving husband appears to take her home, not all is as she seems. Just little bits don't add up, keeping you gripped to find out who she really is, and what really happened!

This phycological thriller is filled with dark secrets, obsessions and will grip you right from the start! Another amazing thriller!

Overall I enjoyed this book. It felt like a quick listen and I really liked listening to the narrators voice. Very well done.

Such A Lovely Couple, written by Haley Smith is a mystery thriller starting with Becca. Becca awakens in the hospital, after being in a car accident caused by flooding. She is welcomed by her husband Freddie, but Becca doesn’t remember much. And as the book goes along, some of the things she remembers, and some of the things she is told, doesn’t go along with what Freddie is telling her. This was my first book by this author, and my first finished read for 2024. I definitely recommend this book, it will keep you guessing until the end! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher of this book for an ALC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

I clicked on this ARC request button as soon as my visual cortex processed the author name Hayley Smith on the thumbnail, because I was so unexpectantly blown away by The Perfect Girlfriend, and was hoping for a similarly unconventional domestic thriller. Such a Loving Couple was not terrible, by all means, but still a bit of a letdown.

Because if you think that the man picking up his alleged wife from the hospital after she near-drowned and suffered brain damage with consecutive memory loss is not that woman's husband, I am not going to confirm or deny that [SPOILER!]but, yeah, he is not. The red flags in that household are just too obvious right from the get-go for me to seriously empathize with the protagonist. Medical inaccuracies aside, many plot points simply did not make sense.

For example, [SPOILER!]how does only the elderly neighbour who conveniently suffers from dementia strike up a conversation with this lady? Has no one else noticed the new woman who suddenly moved in next door? Why does Freddie not immediately seize the chance and leave the city with his second-chance victim so as to not got discovered? And why don't her alarm bells start ringing the second she enters his house?

The last straw for me was probably the extensively romanticized motherhood and *magical relationship* between mother and child that were played a little too heavily. I personally would have wished for another way to end this novel that I could think of, but that's simply my own taste in the most fucked up of conceivable scenarios. Somehow, the ending seemed a little too well-rounded and clean, taking a big step away from Smith's debut, which was messy from cover to cover.

Such A Loving Couple by Hayley Smith and narrated by Candida Gubbins was an utterly compelling psychological thriller with breathtaking twists that will have you gripped from the beginning till the end. It was a book that is full of twists and turns that will have you turning pages and wanting more, especially as I did not want it to end.


I blink open my eyes, taking in bright lights and a white room. A man smiles warmly at me from the end of my bed. ‘Honey, I’ve been so worried,’ he says gently. ‘Do you remember me? I’m your husband.’ My blood runs cold. I don’t know where I am, or who I am. All I know is I’ve never seen this man before….........

This book was addictive and I loved it, it had so many twists and turns throughout that made this book a 5 star read. Superb audiobook and the narrator Candida Gubbins was excellent.

Big Thank you to Netgalley, and Bookouture audio for my Arc.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

The second audiobook that I have heard in a row that involves the storyline where a young woman was in an accident and received such a hard blow to the head that she develops dissociative amnesia (very rare in real life, but such a storyline makes for a compelling read).

What pushes it a bit beyond believability is that there is a charming psychopath waiting in the wings to whisk the unfortunate amnesia victim off, and provide them with the identity that the crazy person wants them to have.

Taking it further, doesn't it makes sense that the psychopath who is so invested in this entire process would have read up on fugue states, and would realize that someone in this very rare situation almost always remember their identity within minutes, hours, or at most within days after the trauma?

Well, all tv shows and fictional books exist to give us a break from reality, and this is an enjoyable one.

Becka wakes up with a muddled memory and has no idea what happened and how she was in the hospital.
After some time a man claiming to be her husband shows up - slowly when her memory starts to come back and she pieces together a lot of events she realizes there's so much happening around her and she should not trust anyone including her so called husband!

Gripping from the beginning, this was an amazingly fast read.
Thanks to Netgally, Bookouture Audio and Hayley Smith for this awesome book!

Thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to review this! This was my first book by Hayley Smith and I really enjoyed it! There are many point of views represented, and many layers to the story, but it was presented in a way that kept the reader engaged, while making sure it wasn't confusing.

Becca wakes up in a hospital bed after sustaining a head injury and she doesn't remember anything, not even her name. A slow build in the beginning, but the plot picks up quickly and keeps you guessing until the last page

This book was so thrilling! The narrator perfectly executed the tone. The pacing was slow enough to let me piece things together, but quick enough that I stayed engaged. The characters were compelling and the story was spooky. The description read a bit clunky, but the book does not at all. The author gives you time to piece it together but also thoroughly explains it, which I appreciate because I like to solve the mysteries but I have reader friends who want it to be spelled out. It was a good balance.

A psychological thriller were one of the main characters is suffering from amnesia in a hospital bed - say no more. Having a cook with unreliable characters is one of the best ways to set suspense for a thriller. Knowing that they convincingly have amnesia is a definite set up for a page turner and that's exactly what <i>Such a Loving Couple</i> is.
The story is set between two rivals points of views. Some of the connections seem outlandish, but this book makes them work. Gaining memories right alongside Becka made for a rollercoaster of emotions and realizations. This had me hooked from the start.

Thank you Netgalley and Bookouture Audio for the ALC.

Story: 🌟🌟🌟
Narration: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Overall: 🌟🌟🌟

Such a Loving Couple is an entertaining popcorn thriller about a woman who wakes up in the hospital to a stranger by her bedside. However, the nurses and doctors claim he is her husband. Who is telling the truth?

This was very fun and very fast-paced. I enjoy a good amnesia thriller, so I was entertained throughout. The narration by Candida Gubbins does a great job capturing the characters.

ALC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I definitely recommend this domestic thriller. So many twists and turns. I appreciated that it was easy to follow, with the name of the character at the beginning of each chapter. This one had me captive to the very end. Make sure that you read the very end part of this book. Spins a whole new light on things. I'm going to look for more work by this author

This was the first book I read by Hayley Smith. I enjoyed it and added her other book to my "to read" shelf.
I enjoyed the narrator.
There were some red flags at the beginning of the book that made the story unbelievable. However, it didn't make me like the book less. There were plenty of twists towards the end to make up for it.
I received this galley from NetGalley.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. Wow, this book was a wild ride. I enjoyed the different sides of being told by each character and still did not see the ending coming. This is a must read.

Waking up to a life where I don't even remember my name is my worst nightmare. I can't even begin to imagine how Becka felt when she woke up in the hospital without any memory. Nevertheless, human intuition is a powerful force to reckon with. Despite her memory loss, Becka could sense some unknown yet familiar feelings. The story Freddie told her about their life did not match her intuition. Following her instincts, she started piecing together the puzzle of her memories, and just as the doctor had promised, it all came back to her.

The novel had a lot of potential, but it failed to live up to the hype. Although I was initially hooked from the first pages, it quickly started to disappoint.

Freddie's character, who seemed charming and loving at first, turned out to be obsessive and menacing. He was stuck in the past and only seemed to move forward when Becka developed amnesia.

Magdalena's life was ruined from the start, and her grudge from a young age negatively impacted her view on life and prevented her from doing anything good with her life. She was eager to seek revenge at the earliest opportunity.

Toby, on the other hand, was a man who couldn't do anything without other women's direction. His actions after the accident caused resentment, but it didn't justify his behavior or treatment of his wife prior to the incident.

Lastly, Becka, who was initially a bully, turned out to be a victim. However, throughout the story, she remains true to herself and doesn't pretend to be someone she isn't, even in her amnesia state.

The actions of those three individuals towards Becka were unequivocally foolish. It baffles me to even ponder what they could have been thinking and how they all planned to get away with it in the future.

I found the book to be mediocre at best, with a severe lack of suspense and a highly predictable plot.

I received an advanced copy of the novel from NetGalley for free in exchange for my honest review.

This was a wild ride and I was totally here for it! This was my 1st book by Haley Smith but will not be my last. I am adding her books to my TBR!

#SuchALovingCouple
#NetGalley