Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this arc. This was an interesting story but the plot was hard to follow at times. The narrator was great but the back and forth of the plot was hard to follow in audio form.

Absolutely could not put this book down! I enjoyed the ride with Aaron and Paige’s broken marriage and the new professor Cara that caught Aaron’s eye. What twists will their families present and turns of a missing person? Such a well written, easy to read book with a very unpredictable ending.

This was a real brain scrambler, especially in the last 20%. There were so many reveals and twists I had difficulty keeping it all straight.

My other problem was I wish there had been two narrators or the narrator did a different voice for the husband chapters. I was often confused and forgot who was talking. It could have been a much better audio book.

I enjoyed this. I thought the narrator did a great job. I liked the characters and the storyline. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Many thanks to NetGalley and #DreamscapeSelect, #StormPublishing for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review. This is narrated by Rachel Handshaw who does an absolutely fantastic job reading! If you like audiobooks, this one is really well done!!

I absolutely loved this story! It had me from the first few minutes! I was looking for any spare moment to listen to this and was completely sucked in! This is my first #AngelaHenry story and definitely not my last!

Aaron has just made dept chair at the University in his small town and falls into an affair with Cara, another professor. Paige and Aaron have not been getting along when the affair begins. But Paige is a smart woman and figures out that her husband, Aaron, is cheating on her just as the bunny boiler and Aaron go off the rails! Now Cara is missing and Aaron is the prime suspect.

This is such a fast-paced and twisty read right until the end. I absolutely loved this one! Highly recommend!!!

The title of the novel "The Perfect Affair" itself gives away the central theme of the plot, which revolves around a marital affair and its aftermath. I thoroughly enjoyed the plot and found all the characters to be engaging. However, towards the end, the story becomes unnecessarily complicated with too many secrets. The multiple plot twists made the novel messy and difficult to follow. I would have preferred if there were only one or two plot twists at the end to maintain clarity and coherence of the story. Nevertheless, the last chapter, where Paige confesses her part of the story, is the standout moment of the book. I strongly believe that the story would have been much better if it had been simplified from the beginning.

The novel was an excellent read with a quick pace and a cast of well-defined characters. I confidently express my gratitude to NetGalley for providing me with a free advanced copy.

The narrator of this book was great! I always enjoy listening to her books. She has a wide range of voices and always has emotion.

As for the story, that wasn’t as great. There were too many characters and it got confusing. There was also too much switching back and forth between different people and their timelines which just added to the confusion. It was hard to remember who was who and what their story was.

The only saving grace was the ending, the “epilogue” and the twist in it. The narrator and the twist awarded this book as a 2.5 star listen, rounded up to three in an otherwise 1.5 star book.

Loved the book. It kept me guessing until the end. It is well written and the story was great.

If I had to do it again I would read instead of listen to it. I didn’t care for the narrator. There are multiple points of view and think it would have benefited from different narrators.

Not sure what I was expecting with this one, but THIS was definitely not it!
This will keep you guessing, and entertained, throughout!

Paige and Aaron Nichols have been married for ten years. She’s a nurse. He’s a professor. They have 8 year old twins.

Things start to change when Aaron’s job changes. And then, so does Paige’s. And then Paige stumbles upon the invite for the faculty mixer, and shows up there, and surprises everyone, but most of all, her own husband.

Things take a downward turn from here, but the two try to set things right again…

Cara Morton, another professor, has a whole other agenda…and this one progresses slowly, and then kind of implodes!!

As you read you’ll realize that there’s a lot of history between these characters… but I can tell you first hand…. I never expected it to turn out the way it did!
It will keep you guessing until it’s over!

3 1/2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 for me, rounded up to 4.

#ThePerfectAffair by #AngelaHenry and nicely narrated by #RachelHandshaw.

Thanks to #NetGalley, #DreamscapeMedia and #StormPublishing for an ARC of the audiobook which will be released on 1/15/24. (One week from today).

Keep up with ALL my reviews and PRE-views in my new FB Bookclub #BookReviewsWithElaine or on my IG page @ #BookReviews_with_emsr

And, as always, Happy Reading!! 📚📖

When Paige discovers her husband, Aaron, is having an affair, she is shocked. But it gets even worse when Cara, the woman he has been messing around with goes missing. Is Aaron involved? Can Paige trust what he's telling her? This was a twisted story but one that kept me listening purely because I had to know what was going to happen. I do think the audiobook would have benefitted with multiple narrators as it was a bit weird listening to a female voicing the male point of view.

Thank you Netgalley and Storm Publishing for the eARC of The Perfect Affair by Angela Henry, narrated by Rachel Handshaw.

This story grabbed my interest and attention from the first chapter! Many plot twists and turns kept my interest in this page turner from start to the end. I enjoyed the narrator and how she differentiated the voices of each character.

This is my first book by Angela Henry and definitely not my last!

Thank you, Dreamscape Select, Storm Publishing for this advance copy in exchange for my review.

I really enjoyed the the idea of the story but there was just something about the book itself that left me wanting more (or less).

I felt as though the characters were hard to keep straight in my head with the timelines.
Normally that is something I enjoy, and I’m very used to it but I struggled with this one unfortunately. When I felt like maybe there were too many characters, we got another new character at the end of part one.
I did like the subplots and the twists along the way and I thought the red herrings were done nicely.

While this wasn’t my favourite read I will say regardless I will check out what Angela writes in the future, because the premise of the story was very good.

🎧📖 note: Rachel Handshaw did a fantastic job navigating the cast. She was delightful.

After discovering her husband is having an affair, a woman makes the difficult choice to stay with her husband after he promises to break things off with his lover. But then his lover disappears, shortly after making an accusation about him that Reveals a shocking secret. This was a tense, enjoyable and twisted thriller.

Regrettably, the story's potential was hindered by the writing style. The narrative felt overly casual and somewhat amateurish, which detracted from the suspense and depth of the storyline. The use of first-person perspective intensified the sensation of reading a soap opera script, with its repetitious narrative style and emphasis on dialogue exchanges.

The book attempts to navigate a complex web of relationships, secrets, and potential danger, but the writing style creates a barrier to fully immersing oneself in the plot. The constant play-by-play style of narration diluted the suspense and emotional investment needed for a compelling thriller.

2.75 Stars
Great idea, but I had issues with the execution.

Once a respected professor, Aaron's life took a scandalous turn when he embarked on a forbidden romance with his colleague, Cara. When his wife, Paige, caught wind of their affair, she demanded that he end it. Aaron and Paige thought they could sweep it all under the rug and move on. That is, until Cara disappeared without a trace, and Aaron was suddenly the prime suspect. The police began digging deeper into his relationship with Cara, revealing a tangled web of secrets, and dragging Paige into the fray. Now, the question remains: can Paige trust her husband?

While the premise of the story was intriguing, the execution fell short. The flow of the story was choppy and disjointed, with frequent shifts in timelines that left me feeling disoriented. The number of characters and points of view was excessive, making it difficult to keep track of who was who and what their motivations were. The author seemed to be trying to do too much with the story, with numerous subplots and twists that made it feel cluttered and convoluted. Overall, while there were certainly some strong elements to the story, the weaknesses in its execution left me feeling underwhelmed.

***Thank you to NetGalley, Angela Henry, and Dreamscape Media for graciously sending me the audiobook to review. As always, all thoughts are my own.***

A fun, twisty thriller that I genuinely enjoyed right from the outset.

Aaron and Paige have been married for some time, and things seem to be getting a little stale. Paige feels like Aaron spends too much time and effort on his work and not enough on her or their twins, and Aaron thinks Paige has become moody and boring over time. This set of emotional upsets presents the perfect recipe for one spouse to have an affair with a new, younger, more fun version of the person they once loved.

This book really had me all-in from the beginning. I chose sides in the affair very quickly. I think this came from the author’s casually amazing characterization. Aaron, Paige, Cara, and even many of the side characters felt like real, fully-developed people. None of the characters were fully good or bad, and I appreciated just how much (unobtrusive!) backstory each character got. Many of the flashbacks and old resentments really informed the characters and why they decided to make one decision or another over the course of the book. New clues to the case were presented in a similarly natural way, which I appreciate in a book. The main character isn’t thrown a fuzzy keychain on the street by a mysterious stranger that vanishes behind a bus – things are discovered organically.

If I had to offer one small criticism, it would be that a few of the chapters towards the end of the book felt unnecessary. There were a few instances of chapters being rewritten from a different perspective (the Fling, for example, being written from Aaron instead of Paige) that didn’t really add any more information – they were just there to be there. Potentially a case of someone having trouble killing their darlings once the scene is written (which I think pretty much anyone that has ever written anything can totally relate to) or additions made to add to the page count. This is only a small critique, and the extra chapters in no way detract from the book – they just don’t really add anything, either.

Specifically concerning the audiobook narrator, I thought that Rachel Handshaw did a great job of bringing the characters to life and emoting appropriately with the dialogue. I appreciated the different tones used for each character and the way she was able to shift quickly during lines of dialogue. I love audiobooks and was extremely pleased by this listening experience.

I would absolutely recommend this book to fans of Shari Lapena, Alice Feeney, and other domestic thriller writers. This was a fun mystery that kept you guessing up until the very last twist.

Thanks very much to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for a DRC in exchange for a fair review.

There was so much going on in this book! I couldn’t put it down. Paige and Aaron are married with twins. Paige is no longer working and Aaron got a promotion at work. The stress of everything gets to him and he starts spending more time with a co-worker named Cara. But when his wife finds out and he breaks it off with Cara, Cara is not happy and decides to get back at them in different ways, like canceling the reservation for the twins birthday party under a fake email she created for Paige. After Paige speaks with her mom, she decides to get back at Cara but she must do some digging first. She finds out that Cara tried ruining another relationship as well. Cara wasn’t happy with Aaron breaking things off so she makes an accusation about him. Is it true? Or is she just playing some game? But now Cara is missing and of course everyone believes Aaron had something to do with it. Is he innocent or has someone else decided to cause trouble and make it seem like Aaron is responsible? Paige has secrets but she knew that Aaron had secrets as well. There were so many twists in this book. I had a hard time putting it down. I would have loved to have finished it one sitting. I would definitely recommend this book! I also got the chance to listen to the audiobook. The narrator did an excellent job! Looking forward to reading more books by Angela.

Thank you NetGalley, Dream Select, Storm Publishing and Angela for the ARC and the audiobook ARC! #ThePerfectAffair

Thank you to the author, narrator, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-audio version of this title in exchange for my review.

My 2024 resolution is to give myself permission to quit a book I'm not enjoying, so that I can move on and find others that I will enjoy reading or listening to. I gave this one up to 30% and found myself disliking the story line and characters so much, I actually felt ill. So I did not finish this one. Yet another book about an unhappy marriage and cheating, and it's really not for me. I'm sure there's an audience out there for this sort of book, but I'm not part of it.

1 star for 'did not like it'

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of this audiobook. This was a thriller for sure!! Twists and turns and more twists. This author went above and beyond on the unexpected. Soo much unexpected twists that it was hard to keep track of all the characters and their names and where they came from. The narrator tried their best but it was hard to follow when there was character changes.

I was super invested in this book and trying to play along and figure out what happened to cara. I kept having ideas but oh were they all so wrong. I think everyone being sooo interconnected was almost off putting to me but I guess it all made sense. I loved the last chapter from Paige too!