I got through 60% of this one and was liking it a lot through about 40%. The narrator was hit or miss for me. Some chapters, I liked them. Other chapters, they took me out of it. One star for a great initial premise! Another star for keeping me guessing! But this one got icky for me with some cheating vibes and I couldn’t hang.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of this audiobook. I have to be super honest. I’m really picky when it comes to narrators. I listened to the sample of the book and I thought I could handle the narrator’s mild accent. Well, the accent wasn’t the problem. It was the long uncomfortable pauses in between sentences. I had to speed up the book and it still didn’t help with how many pauses there were. As much as I wanted to finish this book. I just couldn’t get through it.

Had me totally addicted , and I just sat for hours turning the pages, as there was no way I could put it down until the very end… thrilling read, this book is an absolute must-read , it’s just too good to miss

The Title "Such A Loving Couple" was defiantly me judging a book by its title. I love nothing more than rich people killing each other AND domestic thrillers. I promise I am a normal individual...
So when I requested this book I was not sure what I was going to get, and just when I thought I knew what was going on, I arrived to Part 3. This was different from other domestic thrillers in that we get 3 POVs, and it was not the same old same old author pulling to switch-a-roo and retelling the same story just from the different points of view (Ahem...see my last review We All Keep Secrets).
Yes this has the "lost memory" troupe which turns some off, but Smith did a nice job of making it believable because Becca actually begins to regain her memory and is able to start piecing some of the puzzle together. As the reader from the outside looking in, I also had enough of a veil over my eyes because of what the author reveals, to keep me guessing literally till the end.
Hayley Smith is a new author to me, and I hope to read many more of her books in the future.
I also thought this book was well written in the fact that none of the characters were that likely, however I fell in love with the story and wanted to know what was behind all the mystery and intrigue. Just when you thought you could trust a character, you would suddenly remember somehthing from their past that made you pause. I love be wrong about things/characters/situations (because in real life I never am...haha just kidding)
If you are in need of a quick addictive page turner then for sure go get yourself a copy of this book when it publishes on November 8, 2023.
Thank you Hayley Smith and Netgalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy read. I was not influenced or paid for this honest review.

Grips like a vice and twists like a rollercoaster. Impossibly clever. Impossible to put down!
Narrated really well.

Thank you to NetGalley for an audio arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book had me in a choke hold from the very first chapter. Becka is in the hospital after a serious car wreck where her vehicle gets swept into a river during some flash flooding. But, she has no recollection of anything--not even her name. She tries to put the pieces together, but ultimately nothing comes back until her husband comes in and starts filling in some of the pieces for her. The more she learns, the more questions she has, though. Is this really her husband at all?

Told between three different points of view, you're constantly changing your mind on what you think happened as more and more information comes to light. There are few books that genuinely kept me guessing until the very last line and do that well, but this book is one of them. The audiobook has separate narrators for all three characters, which helped me to keep straight who was who. I also loved that these people all had accents, because it helped me picture the setting more clearly and understand moments where Americans might have worded things differently or used different slang.

A fast paced domestic thriller centred around a woman who wakes from an accident unable to remember anything about her life, not even the man sitting in her hospital room claiming to be her husband. Once home the 'loving couple' set about re-building their life together but everything is not as it seems.
Told from multiple viewpoints and expertly narrated this book grips you from the start. Plenty of twists and turns along the way hold the reader's attention and a dramatic ending provides a satisfying conclusion to this enjoyable book.
I am grateful to the publishers and NetGalley for an advanced listener copy of this book and am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

Much better than Hayley's last book-that just didn't make sense. So I listened to this book at 3x speed and was able to follow along well. I went back and forth between this is her husband and this is some random guy getting revenge on her. There were some good twists, but some of it was predictable. The ending was good.

When Becka wakes up in a hospital bed after an incident, she is unable to remember even her own name, because she has amnesia. There is a man at her bedside who claims he has been her husband for 17 years. Becka does not know who he is, but he makes her believe they have the perfect marriage. Once she goes home, she gets little bits of her memory back and things do not add up. Is her marriage really as great as she has been made to believe? Is her husband really who he says he is?

This was a fast paced thriller that had me from the start. It is my first by Hayley Smilth, but
I look forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for my advanced copy of Such A Loving Couple which releases on November 8th.

Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture Audio, and Hayley Smith for the early release copy of Such a Loving Couple in exchange for my review. This book was a quick read and grabbed my attention right away! It’s so good! What starts as a relaxing weekend away ends with assumed tragedy and intense situations. Very satisfying ending and thankful everything ended the way it did. Grudges are scary things. “It can’t be good keeping that much bitterness inside of you”.

Having read the debut book by Hayley Smith, I was overly excited to see a new one was up for grabs! I opted for the audiobook and absolutely enjoyed it. This thriller provided a continuously building plot, twisty twists and a decent end...even if it felt a smidge rushed. Kudos to the narrator for bringing this solid read to life. Would definitely recommend and look forward to reading Smith's future books.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the gifted ARC (audiobook)…as all opinions are my own.

After reading a raving review for this book, I was excited to request it for myself. The author was new to me, so I was hoping the book would be indeed be as good as I anticipated. It didn’t hurt that the plot centered around amnesia, as I honestly can’t get enough of the trope. Not remembering is a perfect way to keep the suspense going.

I did like the book, but didn’t love it. The pace was a bit too slow in the start of the book, but it picked up after a while. There were several POVs, and especially one of them didn’t make sense for me. Falling head over heels in love with someone the way he did, without contemplating the consequences of his choices or feeling guilt felt a bit off, I just didn’t see him as a real person. Off course there are callous people out there with those characteristics, but I didn’t get a psychopath vibe from him otherwise. My favorite POV was the main character, and it saved the book for me. Her memory struggles was described convincingly and seemed realistic.

Sometimes I felt the author was trying too hard to come up with a shocking plot, to shock the reader. But due to it feeling unrealistic it didn’t work for me.

Overall a decent psychological thriller, but not what I hoped for.

3,5 stars



Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc in exchange for my review

Such a Loving Couple is an exciting domestic thriller. I really can’t get enough of books like this. I enjoyed the twists and despised the awful characters. The plot was not especially unique, but multi-character POV was utilized to keep the reader engaged. I appreciate the extra (tiny) twist at end; it gives the story a bit of fun. I can’t think of anything I’d change. I’m going to keep my eyes open for more Hayley Smith novels. I already read The Perfect Girlfriend and it was fantastic!

Such a loving couple is told through 3 POVs, primarily Becca's after an accident resulted in a head injury and memory loss. A man claims to be her husband, shows the hospital proof, and seems to be perfect - she just can't remember anything. Things start getting sus as she tries to remember her life before the accident.

I'd say this was a fairly standard mystery. It was an easy read, and the audiobook was easy listening at 3x speed. There were some odd pauses, but otherwise no issues. I think the 'twists' were pretty predictable from the off, with a few more thrown in that were predictable with the added context reading generally provides. I do think that the antagonists become cartoonishly villainous but it's not exactly grounded entirely in reality anyway. Overall an enjoyable average mystery.

Another absolute blinder of a plot from Hayley Smith 👏🏻

Becka, Freddie, Magdalena, Charlotte and Toby - such well written and relatable characters. I love Hayley Smith’s skill in weaving a massive web of deceit and obsession between her characters, with twists and ulterior motives in spades.

If you woke up from a coma with amnesia, after an accident, you’d have no choice but to believe what your husband told you, right?

My brain was whirring away, trying to second guess where this would go and I felt super tense. I was absolutely hooked from the first page and didn’t stop listening - speeding up the audio from time to time because I just couldn’t wait!

At the end, I was completely stunned. I kind of just sat in the silence, in awe, thinking about what I’d just read. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so just read the book and thank me later!

5 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Hayley Smith and Bookouture, for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Such A Loving Couple by Hayley Smith
(Narrated by Candida Gubbins)

A mind-blowing and an unforgettable thriller.

Becka woke up at the hospital without any memory after an accident. A man sat there and waited for her to wake up. His name is Freddie, who claimed as her husband. They then went back to their home but still Becka could not remember anything, she even felt unfamiliar with the place.

Memory was coming back bit by bit and now Becka knew she didn’t belong to this house..

A gasping thriller that I could not wait to see what’s going on. Short chapters which made me addicted to it. (While my mind kept tricking me said, one more chapter before I knew it already reached the end). The twist at the end was jaw-dropping!

Last but not least, I love how the narrator presented the characters. She let them all alive, the eagerness of Chatlotte wanted her mother back, the obsession of Freddie, Becka was being lost and even the way she presented Mag. These all made the story even more thrilling!

Many thanks to NetGalley, bookouture and the author for my advanced copy.

Pub date: Nov 8, 2023

A woman lies in a hospital after a car accident with no memory other than the last few seconds before the crash. A man hovers over her and the medical staff tell her that he hasn’t left her side since she was brought in. Why doesn’t she remember him? Why doesn’t she remember the grand estate he brings her “home” to? And who is the little girl she remembers seeing before the accident? A tense psychological thriller

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️+⭐️
Such A Loving Couple by Hayley Smith, an audiobook narrated by Candida Gubbins was an utterly compelling psychological thriller with heart-breathtaking, unexpected twists that made my heart skip a beat!
This was just a wow journey from the start to the beginning. Each part comes in with a new side and new perspective! I was hucked straight away and I knew I must finish this now as I can't wait tomorrow to find out what the hell is going on!?
This going on my "Absolutely loved" shelf!
This is a good example of a page-turning, breath-taking, and gasping-out-loud thriller!
And the narrator did such an amazing job making voices sound different so from time to time I felt there were multiple narrators! Perfect choice!

Beka wakes up in the hospital after a traumatic experience and she can't remember anything! The only person who cares is her husband Freddie who hasn’t left her bedside since the accident. Freddie is ready to do anything to make Beka happy but all Beka wants is to remember her life before.
The only thing she didn't know was that the more she remembered the more complicated her life became!

Thank you, NetGalley and an even bigger thank you to Bookouture Audio for this advance copy as I will return to this book in years to come!

I was interested in this book from the start. The story sucked me straight in and listened to the audiobook quickly. Easy listen, the end was dramatic.

Very late in posting this review. I finished listening on Friday. I generally like to review right away. Apologies, if there’s any confusion within my review

I loved this. Dark, twisty sinister with a brilliant pace, at first I thought the story was going to be a little predictable which to a certain extent it was, but in a good way it kept you waiting for the twists that you knew were up ahead!

The narration by Candida Gubbins was as always excellent. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in return for an honest review.