Thank you #netgalley for the ARC audiobook. This was a good story. I hadn’t guessed what was happening so that’s a huge plus for me. The narrator wasn’t my favourite. I felt some of the characters she did felt rude and rushed and I’m not sure if I read the book that’s how I would have imagined them. Specifically for one of the detectives. Also her pronunciation of “ambulance” was odd to me. I’m not American so maybe that is how it is pronounced where she is from, but every time I heard it I just didn’t like it. Over all I did enjoy the story. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Book Title: The Perfect Affair
Author: Angela Henry
Narrator: Rachel Handshaw
Publisher: Dreamscape Select-Storm Publications
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Audiobook Pub Date: January 15, 2024
My Rating: 2.4 Stars
Pages: 344

As a High School Guidance Counselor one of my responsibilities was keeping up with college admissions – I visited and attended hundreds of counselor college visits- I love the college atmosphere so this story got my attention. Additionally I am a big fan of thrillers!

Story starts when Prof Aaron Nichols is asked to be the Head of the English Department.
This possession means teaching assignments will be cut back as this is a big responsibility.
Neither he nor his students are excited about this however he adjusts to this quicker than they do.
He meets a new colleague Cara Morton who immediately catches his attention as she is very attractive; doesn’t take long before they are having an affair.
When his wife Paige meets Cara her husband’s new colleague at a faculty event, she knows he is having a relationship with her.
. But when Cara goes missing, Aaron finds himself the prime suspect.

However, I soon found myself struggling with this audiobook.
I found I really did not like the characters, or their nasty language. Also wasn’t pleased with the narrator.
Story is told from the POV of several characters in several timelines. The narrator really did not’ change her performance - much for each character; therefore; at times it wasn’t clear who was speaking.
I was fearful this was a waste of my time; since I am not a quitter I hung in there!

Unfortunately the story never reaches the point of being enjoyable.
As an educator I wanted to ‘fix’ this story. Perhaps:
~ Since there were many characters, several narrators it would have made a big difference in recognizing the
different characters.
~ Another title might be better as this title was misleading
~ A two part series with a cliff hanger with a new character at the end of Book One!

I do want to thank NetGalley and Dreamscape Select-Storm Publications for granting me this early
Audiobook Publishing Date scheduled for January 15 2024.

Oh. My. Goodness. This was a twisty rollercoaster of a book and I loved every moment of it. From the first chapter to the epilogue, I was completely hooked! This thriller has so many things I love: multiple POV, time shifts, unpredictable twists, and no character or plot point goes to waste! Highly recommend, especially the audiobook version, as the narrator did a fantastic job.

Thank you NetGalley, Storm Publishing, and Angela Henry for a free audiobook ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an audiobook ARC!

I absolutely loved this story and ended up finishing it in one sitting! The plot is intense with many wonderfully interconnected layers. There were so many incredible twists and the story kept me guessing until the very end.

Angela Henry is such a talented writer; I'm officially going to go and read her backlist books now!

This book started off really strong for me and I was instantly interested. After about the 50-60% mark I thought it started to get a bit convoluted. Too many people to follow and too much going on at the same time all to confuse the reader for almost no reason. I really didn't care for Aaron, Paige or Cara. There are also a few scenarios that were just too coincidental to be believable (nursing home for one).

Anyway, it was a good read, but not extraordinary. Entertaining and a bit chaotic but many readers will love this one. For me it was just ok.

Thank you NetGalley, Dreamscape Select, Storm Publishing and Angela Henry for the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC version of this book. I enjoyed the story and the credulous Aha moment at the very end.
However, I don’t think the title fits the story, it did keep me on my toes.

I enjoy stories with characters that I just want to yell at. I found myself constantly yelling at the husband like “stay away from her stupid!” Or, “ of course you need to tell the cops!” There were parts of the story that I felt contradict itself but overall was fun with the back and forth investigation and me trying to piece together clues as I read.

Thank you Netgalley and Dreamscape Select for the ALC.

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

The Perfect Affair is a twisty domestic thriller about a man who begins an affair with a colleague that ends badly when she goes missing. Then his wife begins to doubt who she married.

This was an entertaining, quick read. I do think the first half was a bit more engaging than the second. The narration was great and made for a fun audiobook to listen to during my chores.

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

Gripping mystery with unexpected twist. Very well written & great narration.
This is my first book by Angela, but definitely not the last.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

4 stars

The cover and the title were giving me some solid bunny boiler vibes, and while that's not all the way off base, this book is a lot more complex than just the basic affair gone (to the surprise of NO ONE) wrong.

Paige's husband, Aaron, is a cheating scumbag, but he gets what he deserves when the woman he's cheating with - Cara - jumps all the way out of pocket in more ways than one. Everyone has secrets and while some aren't too hard to spot, others are actually pretty surprising.

I was really engaged in this listen. My one struggle was with some of the depictions of higher educational life. I am an English professor, so it was a little hokey to encounter some of the extreme politics and sneaky behavior in this department. The one thing I will confirm is the way faculty meetings are described early on (that no one agrees on anything except for when the next meeting will be scheduled. LOL, Angela Henry). Some of the other parts were a little 'higher ed by the most recent season of _You_', but I suspect readers who aren't living that life directly won't be bothered and those who are will be similarly amused by this particular cringe.

My overall assessment of this one is that I was pleasantly surprised. This was my first book by this author, but I'm already excited to read more.

This book started out strong and drew me in instantly. But then, it became quite the cluster and difficult to follow. There was entirely too much going on and too many characters to follow. Maybe it's the fact that I wasn't really vested in any of the characters, but I felt like it dragged on and on when I was more than ready for it to end. Unfortunately, the narrator didn't do much to help with my listening/reading experience. This novel would have definitely benefitted by having multiple narrators, or at least one male and one female narrator. Overall, this one just didn't really work for me. Thank you to NetGalley, Dreamscape Select and the author for an ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Perfect Affair
by Angela Henry
Narrated by Rachel Handshaw

Rating 3.5/5.0 stars

The first, well, more than half of this novel was amazing and fantastic, and I was invested. The twists and turns kept me listening and guessing as to what was really going on...then everything kind of ended up jumbled in the last quarter or so of the book. It's like you're on a path moving one way, and then you branch off into a million different directions. Instead of picking a few directions to move into, this story went in ALL the directions, leaving the listener generally overwhelmed and mildly confused. I mean, I got it all, but it just went off in too many directions. I understand that Ms. Henry wanted to avoid giving away the surprises until further into the story, but I just felt that waiting until the end to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the reader was a bit too much.

That being said, I would definitely listen to more stories by her, as the first part of the book was very well written and really captured my attention. I'd love to give her another try. The narration wasn't bad to listen to, but there weren't many tonal changes for the characters, and with there being quite a few characters, this would have been helpful to the listener, especially near the end when you have so many of the characters involved and speaking.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Dreamscape Select, and the author for the chance to listen to and review this ARC!

I received a complimentary copy of this book "The Perfect Affair" and all opinions expressed are my own. I downloaded the book, started reading and then I was approved for the audiobook. I definitely think the audiobook held my attention more. I did not like the narrator though. I felt that there was so much going on in the story and quite a lot of characters, which made it complicated. Not sure that I agree the title fits the story. So I was glad it was an audiobook since some parts dragged a bit and overall hard to keep up with everything going on. Overall okay but not recommended.

The Perfect Affair by Angela Henry starts off so strong and had me invested almost instantly before falling apart into an atrocious hot mess. I thought I was going to read about an affair gone wrong, which I was SO excited for. However, it's about drama, secrets, and lies that have very little to do with the affair couple but rather how the additional 10+ characters are entwined with everyone else. Also, the cover is misleading as not a single person even hinted at wanting "her" dead, let alone that they missed the opportunity.

This book is riddled with cringe-worthy passages, including describing every single character (even a dog!) by their body size, using positive and negative words based on what is deemed normal/okay by society, calling female characters a b*tch more than what was necessary (I admit, sometimes there isn't a better word, but after a while it shows a lack of creativity), blaming #MeToo for ruining men's lives, and using toxic masculinity throughout with unnecessary threats / thoughts of violence. Lastly, race. I didn't understand how we are to believe that Dr. Peters is racist as we are never shown anything that he's done that is racist. We are only given Aaron's assumptions based on no actual facts. This is annoying. Also, Angela does what a lot of white authors do: only describes the ethnic characters' skin color/hair texture to show (black, because black and white are the only races in Ohio) representation, whereas it's a tad worse given that she is a woman of color. This gets under my skin like no other because pointing ethnic characters out still normalizes that everyone else is, of course, white.

Overall, I am very disappointed in the way The Perfect Affair had me so invested in the dynamics of their marriage just to veer into a bunch of other genres. By the end, I didn't care who was guilty nor what really happened, if anything, to Cara. I rate this 2 stars. The bump is because I appreciate the twist off of the twist in the end.

Rachel Handshaw is an okay narrator. She has a pretty good range, allowing most characters to sound distinct, which I usually appreciate. I just really didn't like the book.

Thank you to Dreamscape Select and Storm Publishing for providing me with an ALC.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Angela Henry for an advanced audiobook copy of The Perfect Affair!!

First, I'd like to say definitely check triggers warnings before reading this book. It includes topics of suicide, parental abandonment, elderly abuse, affairs, drug addiction, and child abuse.

At first, the audio threw me off because it was a woman narrating from a man's point of view. Then, continuing on, you find that there are multiple POV. I do believe this audio could have benefitted with multiple narrators or at least a man and woman. Second, this book seemed extremely long and could have been cut down quite a bit.

However, I really enjoyed this story! It was a heck of a ride, and I had my suspicions about who did it, but it didn't feel predictable. The book did a great job of mapping the emotions of being cheated on and being the luster. Along with undertones of generational trauma.

I wanted a mystery with drama, and I got exactly that!! At times, it was a bit hard to follow on audio because of the multiple viewpoints, but overall, this was a solid Murder mystery family drama book!

I was expecting to like this but omg I loved it! It was amazing! Okay so a professor has an affair with a fellow professor and the normal stuff happens, people get fired, some drama happens, and people uncover family secrets. But this is so much deeper. It goes deep! I was so surprised by the ending.
The narration was fantastic too!
I listened to this straight through.

Rounded up to a 4 because it did keep me listening. At my age, with my caffeinated squirrel-like brain, staying with a story is surprisingly difficult. Angela Henry, a new author to me, penned a novel that had so many twists I just couldn't figure it out. But, I did want to know.

The (basic) premise is cheating husband Aaron, younger colleague femme fatale Cara, and very suspicious wife Paige and how they navigate an affair. Then? Then things get crazy. Several plots develop, past and present meet, things we thought were not.....overall The Perfect Affair is a solid domestic thriller.

Best compliment I can give is now that the book is over, I am checking out Henry's catalogue.

Thank you Netgalley and Dreamscape Select for allowing me to listen in advance of the 1/15/24 publication.

I absolutely loved this book. I recently watched the reboot of Fatal Attraction and I think that this story took all the best parts of that story and made it its own. Aaron is having an affair with a woman at work, Cara Morton. His wife Paige finds out about the affair and then Cara goes missing.

The story jumps around in time from different areas in the present timeline and then back to when the characters were younger to fully develop them. You learn a lot about them and you learn that in Cara’s life, there are a lot of suspects when she went missing but the police are only focusing on Aaron.

Aaron gets caught in a web of lies and Paige decides to stand by her husband. There were so many tense moments that will make you think about who is crazy. Paige, Aaron, Cara, all of the above? I could not put this down. I had to know what happened to Cara and what led to it.

I saw the twist at the end coming but it had a little extra to it that I did not see. This is one I definitely recommend.

This wasn’t what I expected, but I enjoyed it a lot!

Premise - Paige catches her husband in an affair with a colleague, but then his mistress disappears and he’s the main suspect. Paige wants to stick by her man, but she also realizes there’s a lot she doesn’t know about him…

This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it was a lot of fun! It’s told from multiple perspectives, of which the husband’s is the most hateable. It’s well paced, there was never a time I felt like putting it down.

Fans of domestic intrigue will enjoy this and while the cheating trope will annoy some (the affair happens on page and you see the husband justify it to himself) he gets his just desserts. Some of the twists were pretty predictable, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment. I’d definitely read more from this author!

Thanks, NetGalley and Storm, for the gifted ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Perfect Affair
by Angela Henry
Narrated by Rachel Handshaw

Publication 15 Jan 2024 by Dreamscape Select, Storm Publishing

Aaron Nichols got promoted to be head of the English department. At a mixer his wife showed up unannounced. That’s when Paige noticed how close he seemed to his new colleague, Cara Morton. Paige confronts Aaron and he admits having an emotional affair. They agree that Aaron will cut ties with Cara and to work on their marriage. But Cara makes accusations against Aaron and all hell breaks loose. On top of that, Cara disappears.

Who is guilty, who is involved? What happened to Cara?

This was my first novel by Angela Henry, I had no idea what to expect. I was very positively surprised.

I loved how twisty this was! You never knew what was going to happen next and into which direction it would go. I a
Was so torn with the characters. One second I liked them, pitied them, then I was annoyed with them. They put you through all kinds of emotions. It’s a close to perfect domestic thriller. I enjoyed it and it was easy enough to follow(once you get the hang of the narrator…) The reason why I don’t rate it five stars is my beef with the narration.

Narration:
Unfortunately this was a letdown for me.
While the book was really good, I was not a fan of the narration. The main reason was that there were different characters, male and female, read by the same narrator. I could not distinguish the characters very well. Also the dual timeline was confusing me while listening. There are times when a narrator can boost a book to the heavens, but this narration did not do the story any favours. I’d have preferred to read this instead of listening.