Another great listen thanks to @netgalley and a new author to me. I really enjoyed this book. It was so gripping and great to listen to. The narrator was so good.

How Can I Trust You? Questions how well we truly know someone even when you're married, have a business together and share all your intimate secrets with each other. But what happens when your husbands best friend has been murdered and he is found covered in blood beside her body with a hammer in his hand? Everything Ash thought she knew is suddenly thrown into question? Is he guilty or are there explanations?

The story is told from Ash's point of view as she goes through all these emotions and each chapter reveals more and more secrets. The story builds and builds and I couldn't get enough. I devoured this one and listened at every opportunity. It really was great.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

Ashley and her family go to Lucy's child's birthday party when she is killed. Lucy and Ashley's husband Danny have been close friends their whole lives. Danny is found covered in blood next to Lucy's body. Ashley searches for answers to the murder.

I don't understand the cover as it says "My best friend is dead." They weren't best friends, the victim was close with Danny, not Ashley.

I enjoyed the narration.

When Ashely & her family attend a friend's child's birthday party, the last thing she expects is to find her husband covered in blood and standing over his childhood friend's body.

I absolutely loved this one! The narrator was awesome and the story moves incredibly fast. I loved the way this character walking into to the gruesome scene is just the tip of the iceberg. You can feel the stress as Ashely learns more and more about her husband as she tries desperately to untangle the truth. There were a number of characters involved in this story that it took me sometime to keep straight but not to the point where I'd say it was confusing. Overall a really quick read with good twists and an ending that really surprised me. Highly recommended!!

How Can I Trust You? is a captivating thriller that’ll keep you guessing until the end. I loved the complexities of the main character’s life that interfere with her ability to fully function while trying to figure out who to fear and who to trust.

Her son was a great depiction of a child with special needs, and how she structured her responses and processed things with him in mind was so relatable. As a parent with two children with learning and developmental delays who have unique needs, I’ve wondered how things would go if we ever needed to escape a bad situation (as the minds of all thriller readers do from time to time). The author explores this situation in such a realistic way, and it was relatable and terrifying, keeping me holding on to the edge of my seat as things unraveled.

I definitely recommend this one to those who love thrillers, and domestic/psychological suspense.

I listened to the audiobook, which was well done. I listened at 1.75x speed, with 1.75-2x speed being my typical audiobook listening speed.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for this advanced audio copy.

This audiobook was made available to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is expertly narrated by Eilidh Beaton. Her tone is perfect for a thriller novel, and her voice perfectly embodied Ashley. I'll be sure to seek out additional books narrated by her.

This novel opens with Roberta enjoying a picturesque country morning, listening to Bruno Mars, and driving too fast on a country road before a sudden catastrophic accident. The novel then jumps a few weeks to the main character, Ashley, who is getting ready to attend a ninth birthday party for her best friend Lucy's daughter, Grace. Attending the party with Ashley is her husband Danny, her sister Suzy, and her son Elliott.

Ashley & Danny own and run a marketing company called Blue Banana Studio and live in a small exclusive village/suburb outside of London. Danny grew up in the village and pushed to move there after Elliot was born. Ashley is more of a London person and is somewhat struggling to adjust to small town life.

Lucy and her husband, Lee, are very wealthy, and this birthday party is fancy & pretentious. Ashley is socializing at the party when there's a murder and her husband is found near a dead Lucy's body, bloody and holding the murder weapon. Lucy's husband, Lee, insists that Danny murdered Lucy. Ashley is shocked, navigating grief, disbelief, and the desire to protect her family. This spirals into Ashley fearlessly seeking answers about the murder. Including if she knows her husband as well as she thinks she does. If Danny didn't murder Lucy, who did and why? Was Lucy having an affair? Was Danny having an affair? Was Lee, Lucy's husband, jealous? Was this related to Lucy & Lee's business interests? Small towns are famously full of old secrets, and this is no exception.

I found Ashley a bit more curious than I think I'd be in a similar situation, but her behavior only slightly pushed incredulity. So the story works really well. I could not pause until I found out who did it and why they did it.
The reveals make sense and work without being too shocking. Sometimes domestic thrillers can be a bit reveal heavy. I love a few shocking reveals, but hate reveals that don't move the story forward. This has reveals, but they feel organic and unforced. I'll definitely be looking for other thrillers from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook novel. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.

Thanks to Bookouture Audio, NetGalley, A J Campbell and narrator Eilidh Beaton for the opportunity to review this audiobook. What would you do if your spouse was accused of killing your best friend? Our heroine is faced with this dilemma and at first she insists there is no way her husband would have done such a horrific crime soon she begins to find she may not know him as well as she thought. The deeper she digs the more she finds that her husband has hid a very dark life from her. This is definitely a great read if you like Shari Lapena or Freida McFadden books. Once you start you won’t want to stop reading until the exciting end.

How can I trust you?
Ashley and her husband Danny, appear to have the perfect marriage. They’ve recently moved back to his childhood village into a lovely home, they run a successful business together and their son is settled in the local school.
Ashley had doubts about the move, but seems to have settled and is making friends, especially Lucy, Danny’s childhood friend.
Lucy and her husband Lee, have 3 children and live in a huge house in the village.

It’s their daughter’s birthday and they’ve pulled out all the stops to host a party for the whole village. Everyone is there and enjoying themselves when suddenly Ashley hears a scream. Heading to the garages she discovers Lee outside covered in blood, heading in she finds Lucy dead on the floor, her husband Danny standing over her.
What follows is a nightmare for Ashley, did her husband kill his best friend? As they’re taken for questioning she feels her life unravel.

I enjoyed listening to this story, At times I felt annoyed with Ashley for the way she was behaving but then I asked myself what would I do in the same situation. It’s a hard one to answer.
I had my theory as to what had happened and in some ways wasn’t surprised but despite that it was still an enjoyable read.


Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook

In the audio book How Can I Trust You by AJ Campbell and narrated by Eilidh Beaton we meet Ashley and Daniel they seemingly have a perfect marriage with their nine-year-old son Elliot they recently moved to Daniel‘s hometown much to his insistence so when Ashley finds him above his best friend with a hammer in his hand she doesn’t know what to think. Years of trusting Daniel makes her want to believe everything he tells her, but when more than once things come up that she didn’t know about or totally discredit something Daniel previously told her she starts digging in to Daniels personal computer and reading his emails. This only confuses things more. Because now it starts looking like it was over an extra marital affair between the two in finding a lawyers card with an appointment time for Daniel doesn’t make things look better. Things start to get scary when someone breaks into Ashley‘s home and with the mini great suspects besides her husband she doesn’t know who to trust. The more she digs up the more suspects she finds soon she will learn she has more to lose than just her marriage and her son. I love this authors books and lately with the exception of one or two books I have been really reading some not so great thrillers so when seeing this one I was hoping with fingers crossed it would be what got me out of my bad reading streak and OMG did it! Of course every thriller is plagued with the protagonist is Uber ridiculous inner thoughts but I’ve come to take those for granted and still rate this book 5 stars it was a twisty nerve-racking edge of your seat read and I am not just saying that. With great narration and a killer plot if you’re looking for a great thriller look no further. I want to thank Bookoucher audio, Author AJ Campbell and NetGalley please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Eilidh Beaton did a wonderful job narrating this book. She was able to give each character a different voice which she was able to keep consistent and distinguishable from the others. She had great emotion that held my attention and had me engrossed throughout the entire story. The flow was smooth and consistent, and moved the story forward with a quickening pace as the plot intensified.
The Morgan’s story begins when Danny and Ashley are accompanying their son Elliot to his best friend’s birthday party. As the party gets into full swing, screaming is heard coming from the garage. Danny’s best friend from childhood, and the mother of the birthday girl has been murdered. The story takes you through twists and turns, lies and deceit, and questionable characters, ending in a shocking twist that I did not see coming!
The narration of Eilidh Beaton, combined with the creative imagination and storyline of AJ Campbell went perfectly together, creating a terrifying cocktail of shock and awe that ended in an emotional twist I could never have prepared for.

This was a binge listen. The plot was so compelling. I found it more enjoyable as this deviated from the usual point of view story and was full of descriptive dialogue and scene setting. This was a teal refreshing change.
The plot could have been a hollywood film. You move to the countryside with your loving husband Danny and son Elliott. You become friends with his friends. Then at a party you find Danny covered in blood standing over Lucy's body with a hammer. Then he is arrested and it becomes a whodunit. Full of well developed characters,red herrings and twists and turns. This physiological thriller had me hooked and at times screaming at Lucy surely you'd know that. There were other suspects and clever writing never made me feel i really knew who did it. The final reveal was full of action and i could feel the tension exploding in the chatacters. The narration was perfect.
I cant recommended this enough i was hooked and felt everything was revealed in the right order.. I understand the title will be changed prior to publication which may put more emphasis on to the domestic side of things.. whatever the title this a compelling 5 star listen thank you netgallery and publisher and author and narrator

3⭐
Genre ~ domestic thriller
Setting ~ England
Publication date ~ April 8, 2024
Page Count ~ 326 (p+ 58 chapters +3m later)
Audio length ~ 9 hours 42 minutes
Narrator ~ Eilidh Beaton
POV ~ single 3rd
Featuring ~ murder, secrets, betrayal, lies, infidelity talk

While in a bounce house at Lucy's daughters birthday party Ashley hears screams and finds her husband, Danny, covered in blood holding a hammer over Lucy's lifeless body. Seems pretty clear he's the lead suspect.

I didn't really care for any characters, except Ashley's sister, Susie, wasn't bad. Ashley doesn't make great choices and I was yelling at her at the end with the whole Champ bit. Her son, Elliott, was whiny and annoying at that part, too. Can't you feel the tension, kid?

Overall, this was just fine for me. It took a while to see how the prologue incident would tie in. I do enjoy finding secrets out about someone, but the big secret was kinda meh for me. There were some tense moments, especially at the end, and it was mostly fast paced, so that was great, but I wasn't entirely invested in the story and didn't care much for the ending.

Side note ~ I'm wondering why it says Lucy was her best friend when she was Danny's best friend from childhood.
Side note #2 ~ I had to chuckle when the cops came to confiscate the computers and she tells them that Danny's computer is on the right and please don’t touch hers because she needs to work. Oh yeah, sure ma’am, you can keep your computer in an active investigation 🙄

Narration notes:
She was mostly fine. Sometimes frantic when need be and sometimes monotone sounding.

🎧Audio Book Review🎧

How Can I Trust You?
AJ Campbell

🌟🌟🌟🌟

This was absolutely packed with secrets and lies and kept me on my toes right up to the ending where the shocks were coming thick and fast.

Ashely and Dan have the perfect marriage. Having moved to the country, they have a beautiful home and great working partnership and a lovely environment to bring up their young son.
But when Lucy is killed at her daughter's birthday party and Dan is found standing over her, covered in blood - Ashley has to work out whether she can prove Dan's innocence, or whether she ever really knew him at all!

We follow this story from Ashley's pov and so as she searches and discovers more and more things, they come as a shock to all of us.
I really felt for her because it must be so difficult thinking you know everything about someone, only to find there were things being kept from you.
But did these really mean that he was a murderer?

Well, I have to admit that I flipped from trusting to not trusting Dan so many times in this book!
There was a long period where he was not present, but hearing everything past and present through Ashley's eyes meant that we struggled with the dilemma along with her.

The side characters fitted into the storyline well and this gave us plenty of suspects to explore.
I particularly liked Dan's brother, Lee.

I loved the way the characters developed over the course of the book and even though I think that deep down I knew the end result, I was still shocked as the reveals came.
The end scenes playing out swiftly,waving you no time to take it all in.

This was brilliantly written and the pace was perfect.
A nice slow burn to start with, allowing us to make our own theories, but the tension and pace ramping up as we learn more information.

Another great read by this author and I can't wait for the next one...


💕Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my ARC copy - this is my honest review 💕

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel to read in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a big fan of reading mystery / thrillers and this one scratched that very specific itch I was looking for. Ashley's husband has been accused of murdering his childhood friend and she has to decide if she can trust him as she is set down on a path of uncovering all of his secrets. One of the biggest problems I've had with a lot of mystery / thrillers is pacing and I thought that How Can I Trust You? had great pacing from start to finish. It starts off with a bang and keeps a steady pace all the way through to an intense ending. I really enjoyed this read. It's a perfect for someone looking for a quick, fun read.

I'd recommend this pretty easily to anyone who enjoys the mystery / thriller genre.

I really enjoyed AJ Campbell's new novel, HOW CAN I TRUST YOU? I was sucked into this story right away. I thought that Ashley was really put through the ringer. I didn't know what to believe. Was Danny innocent or did someone else kill Lucy? This is a fast paced story that you can read or listen to in a day. I can highly recommend grabbing a copy. You won't be disappointed!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for my gifted ARC.

This review will be shared to my Instagram (@coffee.break.book.reviews) closer to pub date.

Wow! This book is a wild ride! When I started listening to this audiobook it was called How Can I Trust You? and when I came to review it I see it's had a title change to My Perfect Marriage. I feel like the first title is catchier, and more fitting. Either way this was a fantastic book! Ashley & Dad had a perfect marriage, but did they really? They moved to the countryside from London to raise their son and give him the style of life that Danny grew up in. Ashley and Dan are business partners as well. Lucy and Danny are childhood friends and while attending her daughter's birthday party Danny is found holding a bloody hammer over Lucy's body. Did Danny kill his childhood friend? If so, why? While Danny is being questioned by the police she starts digging in Danny's personal files and discovers he's been keeping secrets from her. She starts to question who her husband is and if she ever really knew him at all. She asks him about things she's found and he always has a valid response to her inquiries...but can she trust him?
Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for allowing me to listen to this advanced audiobook. The narration was excellent! This was my first book by A.J. Campbell and it definitely won't be my last!

Sometimes, in a book review, I’ll say that a book started with a bang. Well, this one started with two bangs! The prologue hits us with a car crash and then at the start of the present day story, we have a woman with her head smashed in with a hammer. Two literal bangs - that’s a good start for me!

So the hammer then; well that is taken to Lucy’s head at her daughter’s birthday party and when Ashley hears a scream and runs to see what has happened, she finds Lucy dead, with Ashley’s own husband, Daniel, standing over her body, with a hammer in his hand!

Inevitably Daniel is arrested but Ashley just can’t believe he would have murdered Lucy. As Ashley starts to investigate and find evidence to prove Daniel’s innocence, she discovers endless secrets and lies, and the twists start coming at a breathtaking pace. Buckle up! This is quite a ride!

I listened to the audiobook and it’s the first time I’ve had the pleasure of Eilidh Beaton’s narration. It’s actually hard to believe that this book was narrated by just one voice actor. Eilidh captured each character brilliantly, voice tone, accents, pitch, personality… absolutely spot on!

4 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, A. J. Campbell and Bookouture, for an ARC in return for an honest review.

2.5 stars. The book starts immediately with a murder (not the FMC’s best friend like it says on the title…it’s her husbands friend, so a little misleading), which you would think would have you completely hooked. However, the book takes the “scenic route” on its way to discovering who did it, and that person continues to have super erratic (pretty unbelievable) behavior. I just lost interest during the “scenic route” (MANY READERS WILL NOT FEEL THE SAME, as interesting tidbits were uncovered), and I wasn’t sold on the behavior of the killer.

My Perfect Marriage (previously known as How Can I Trust You) by A.J. Campbell is a gripping psychological thriller that explores the devastating aftermath of a murder accusation within a seemingly perfect relationship. As secrets unravel and suspicions deepen, the main character grapples with the unsettling possibility of betrayal and deception within her marriage. Campbell masterfully crafts a suspenseful book that keeps you on edge until the shocking conclusion, questioning the limits of trust and the true nature of love amidst tragedy. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reading copy.

This book will make you question all of your relationships and how well you can trust anyone. A.J. Campbell has written a gripping novel that will leave you wondering if you ever truly know someone. Ashley's husband has been keeping so many secrets from her she must get to the bottom of it to protect her and her son. A must read!!

Audiobook ARC REVIEW
How Can I Trust You?
A.J. Campbell
Pub. April 8, 2024
"How Can I Trust You?" is a great intro to the thriller genre for someone who loves dramas with some thrills. If you have trouble keeping up with fast-paced thriller plots, this one's for you. I would consider it more of a mystery with some thrills than a true thriller. It opens with the murder of Lucy at a party, and Ashley's husband is accused, but did he do it? He's not the only suspect. The plot builds slowly at first, with a few twists and drama between the main characters. We learn some childhood/historical secrets as the story continues. The height of the drama and thrills come in the last 15% of the book as the plot reaches its pinnacle with plot twists. I admit I wasn't strongly drawn into the plot until this point. The book finishes stronger than it starts. I added an extra star for the audiobook version because the narration was wonderful.
#HowCanITrustYou #NetGalley