Two huge shocking twists at the end I did not see coming! Kirsty is a midwife and runs into an ex boyfriend one night on shift. He denies knowing her. As things start to happen to her and neighbors, she knows it’s all connected but no one believes her. While the connections were very predictable, the ending was not! The one issue I have is the dialect was super annoying. Just looked like someone that didn’t know how to spell

First off, kudos to the author for successfully making me despise Hugh—his webs of lies unfold in such a way that each revelation feels more shocking than the last (though perhaps some of them come off as flat, ultimately). The contrast between him and our main character Kirsty, who is portrayed as the epitome of innocence, creates a compelling dynamic, with Hugh serving as her binary opposite, her antithesis. However, I found myself wanting more from our protagonist. While her innocence is clear, I would have loved to see her explored in a more complex, multi-dimensional way. She felt somewhat stagnant, lacking the depth needed to fully balance out Hugh’s character. The differing perspectives between the two made for an interesting read, and the tension built throughout. Altogether, it’s a sensible novel that delivers on intrigue, but could have benefitted from deeper character exploration and a more satisfying conclusion.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I'm always very happy about an ARC and being able to give it a review! <3

Wow, the book starts right away!

You dive right into the story and immediately want to know what's going on. I was so glued to my kindle and wanted to help Kirty so much!!

The writing was smooth and easy to read. No unnecessary long lines or fillers. The POV switch between Kirsty and Hughie was perfectly done. Not too many characters to get confused with

An absolutely wild journey!

* I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This book is a definite page turner. Things get chaotic and wild! I really liked the way that this story was written as excerpts from a documentary, I thought that was very original. I loved Kirsty and related to her wanting to see the good in people. Hughie... Ugh, narcissistic and manipulative like every good antagonist. The only thing that I had an issue with was the Scottish dialect and phrases. I would get sucked into the story and then someone would say something that I had never heard before. But that is a teeny tiny minor thing that took nothing away from the overall of the book. This was my first book from this author and it definitely will not be my last.
Thank you NetGalley, Bookouture and S.E Lynes!!
Expected publishing date January 6th 2025.

I’m a big fan of Lynes and her books. She has time and time again impressed me with solid and emotional psychological thrillers, so I was very happy when I saw another one that could be requested by NetGalley.

In this we follow two main characters, and what becomes a tense discovery of the past and what happened there. The writing was as always top notch, one of the reasons I always veer toward Lynse’s books. It just flows effortlessly and there were many beautiful sentences and psychological insights that spoke to me. The action truly ramped up in the last chapters, and it was very intense. Every mystery was tied up nicely, so it didn’t leave any unanswered questions. The only thing I was a bit baffled by was one of the twists that I couldn’t quite figure out why we needed. It had little to do with the rest of the story, so even if I was surprised I just didn’t get why it was important to add it (maybe I missed something)

Overall a solid read and it only cements my devotion towards the author. Well done, yet again!

Just WOW! The amazing SE Lynes knocks another one out of the park! This was totally enjoyable and left me gobsmacked. This writing is so easy to sink into. Fantastic characters that kept the story clipping along way past my bedtime. Like a roller coaster ride that left me no idea who to trust. Don’t let this one pass you by. Highly recommend.
Thank you NetGalley, SE Lynes and Bookouture for the opportunity to read and review this cracker of a book.

S.E Lynes has done it again with another fantastic gripping psychological thriller. Once I started I could not put it down it was such a fast paced thriller with such a great storyline. I loved how the characters were written and the writing style. I enjoyed the many twists and turns and wow what an ending of a twist it was really didn’t see it coming. So another excellent thriller by this author which I can’t wait to recommend to everyone. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this great thriller.

Reader, never underestimate the power of Susie Lynes to take you, dangle you from a precipice, pull you back up just to drop you again and again and again! With The Perfect Boyfriend, Susie has both amazed me and broken me into a thousand tiny pieces! How on earth can I wait a year for the next book, I am bereft!
I love that Susie has come back up North for her latest novel. Set in Aberdeen, it’s a city I know well, having spent some of my student years there and she has captured the bleakness of the Granite City to perfection. That prologue set against the backdrop of the cruel North Sea invoked terror. The imagery was sublime and terrifying all at once. What a start, what a hook and this was swiftly followed up by a breath holding opening chapter that had me on tenterhooks!
The Perfect Boyfriend follows midwife, Kirsty Shaw, who bumps into a face from the past following a harrowing experience at work. Told from first person point of view, this created a very real sense of immediacy and provided me with that connection with Kirsty. Reading this (and all of Susie Lynes books), I really do experience the novel, it feels as though I am morphing into the vibrant characters she creates, she really knows how to make sure her characters crawl under your skin.
And talking about crawling under your skin, the introduction to Kirsty’s ex, Hughie Reynolds, is simply chilling and as I read about Kirsty’s teenage experiences and anguish with Hughie, I wanted to reach into the pages and wring his scrawny little neck. Hughie also comes to us in the first person and believe me, his is a head that you really do not want to occupy. He is evil personified!
Susie Lynes creates characters I hate to leave, closing the pages gives me anxiety; when I leave them to go to work I spend all day thinking about getting back to them. And when I close the last page over, I’m already grieving for my loss!
As soon as Hughie appears on the scene, a series of very strange and dark coincidences start to occur; Kirsty becomes increasingly preoccupied with the man who maintains he is not who she thinks he is. Dougie, Kirsty’s partner, attributes Kirsty’s anxieties to her pregnancy and her fascination with true crime. And the more others tried to reassure Kirsty the more I was getting ready to roll up my sleeves, jump in and gie her hauners!
There is so much I want to tell you about this story but that would risk dropping some massive spoilers and I’m not going to do that. It is fair to say that Susie Lynes is the absolute Queen of thrillers, of creating relatable characters in ordinary situations that you can imagine yourself in. Reading about Kirsty’s memories about Hughie, triggered so many teenage memories for me, about the feelings you believed to be love and that whole teen anguish and anxiety. And the little Ballerina in the jewellery box, I used to try and see her lying down when the lid closed too!
When you get to the end of this book, so many things you have read start to fall into place, that wonderful feeling of hindsight and this is exactly what Kirsty experiences too as we follow her on her journey.
There’s also a little Easter egg in The Perfect Boyfriend for fans of Susie’s work. I eeked a little when I spotted it and it gave me a wee warm Ready Brek Glow inside. If you know, you’ll know!
Tension simmers like a pot ready to boil over all the way through this book. Crafted to perfection from the creation of relatable characters, to the authenticity of the setting and the sense of experiencing the book and not just reading it, it’s simply sublime. Her prose is almost poetic yet never saccharine and every time she blows my mind!
Filled to the brim with lies, betrayal and secrets, The Perfect Boyfriend, kept me on edge right until the very end, to the point I couldn’t breathe at some points! The rug was well and truly pulled from under my feet more than once with jaw clattering twists and teasing tension. Folks, this is more than “it’s a belter”, it’s right off the belter scale!
Don’t miss it!

This was a strong psychological thriller and had that feel that I wanted from the first book. The concept was strong and enjoyed the overall suspenseful atmosphere that I was looking for. S.E. Lynes has a strong writing style and left me wanting to read more from S.E. Lynes.

Literally couldn’t put this book down! Fast paced , full of twists an turns I loved it! Thank you net galley for the early read

Another very enjoyable thriller by this author.

Kirsty is a midwife and is pregnant herself due to give birth in a few weeks. After finishing her shift one day she is sure she has just seen a face from the past that she never thought she would see again. Hughie was an ex-boyfriend but when she attempts to speaks to him, he denies knowing her. The years have not been kind to Hughie, but Kirsty knows it is him, now she wants to find out why he is trying to hide his identity.

The story is told by these two POV’s that provide us insight into the past and shows us these two characters back stories and how an unexpected encounter will all play out.

Full of suspense, this is a fast-paced book that I am sure many will enjoy, well thought out story.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an advanced copy of the book, all opinions expressed are my own.

I've said in the past that no one writes characters like S E Lynes, and I stand by it, the characterisation in this book was second to none and it was easy to get invested in Kirsty and Hughie's story. I thought the concept was interesting and there were some good twists to the tale.

My only quibble would be that the plot did feel a little repetitive at times, and there were a few occasions where I was a little bored and wished the story would progress a bit.

Overall I thought this was a really good book and I would recommend it.

WOW! Just WOW! Definitely one of the best thrillers I have read in a long time! The prologue had me hooked at the first page, this book was read in a day! The descriptions were amazing. I managed to create the characters in my head. If you aren't Scottish like I am, the slang is easy to understand. Excellent characters and excellent plot twists. I could not put it down. I was devastated when it finished. Will definitely be reading more of this authors books.

Wooohhhhh... Hughes had me surprised first off. And tge back abs goth with wondering what was going to happen with the ex. So much backstory and it was great it was told. Not surprising another great book from S.E. Lynes.

Thanks to the author , the publisher and Netgalley for an early release of this book.

Book Title: The Perfect Boyfriend
Author: S.E. Lynes
Publisher: Bookouture
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Pub Date: January 6, 2025
My Rating: 4.3 Stars
Pages: 358

Story is told from the POV of Kristy Shaw and Hughie Reynolds.

Story starts with Kristy Shaw, a mid-wife in the Labor Delivery room with an emergency delivery. Kristy is very much pregnant herself. Her supervisor is pleased with how she saved the baby’s life but has concerns about Kristy being so far along. She tells Kristy to take a break now- put her coat on and go outside for some fresh air. When she is walking back in to the Maternity ward she sees a female doctor walking with someone Kristy hasn’t seen in ten years.

It is Hughie Reynolds her high-school boyfriend who vanished without a trace. She calls out his name but he walks by. She runs towards him and he apologizes that he didn’t realize she was calling out to him and says. ‘I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else”
It turns out he is Dr. Barry Sefton, Consultant Anesthetist.

Hughie – of course does know Kristy. He left for a reason and is back as he has plans.

I read a lot of psychological thrillers and this was like no other.
Hughie sure had me fooled.

About the Author Sue Lynes formerly was a BBC producer, she earned an MA in Creative Writing. In addition to writing she was a Creative Writing Tutor at Richmond Adult Community College and now combines writing, mentoring and lecturing.

In her “A Letter from S.E. Lynes’, she talks about her inspiration for this story.

A must read if you are curious as it is a story in itself.


Want to thank NetGalley and Bookouture for this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for January 6. 2025.

Another brilliant read from Susie Lynes, Kirsty, a midwife, is taking a short break from her work, heavily pregnant herself she has just helped in a fairly traumatic birthing when she sees a face from the past she never expected to see again. Hughie Reynolds was an ex boyfriend who left school and the area as suddenly as he arrived, leaving only a letter. This letter had such an impact on Kirsty she almost had a breakdown. However Hughie denies its him and insists his name is Barry. What follows messes with Kirsty's head yet again as her partner Dougie and friends trivialise her feeling and insist she's got "pregnancy brain" and its her hormones.
The story is told through transcript from Hughie/Barry and Kirsty's point of view.
The novel is a perfect example of what makes a good psychological thriller, what do we as humans class as normal or abnormal behaviour and also how do we react to what's behind the written word, lots of this plot was un-detectable to me and I was taken aback by some of the plot twists
I'm grateful to Netgalley and Bookouture for this advanced copy, I will leave my review on Goodreads, Bookmory and Storygraph now and on Amazon on publication day

The Perfect Boyfriend is my first book from S. E. Lynes and it's definitely not gonna be my last! This book was an absolute page turner and it was so addictive that I couldn't put it down. I started the book late Saturday evening and finished it in one sitting on early Sunday morning - thanks to the coffee I got to do that hehe! The story telling in the book was so good that it'll get you hooked from the beginning, the many,many twists were really unexpectedly mind-blowing and this made the reading journey so interesting and fun. All in all, I highly recommend you to read this book when it comes out in Jan 2025.

Thank you S E Lynes, Bookouture and Netgalley for the ARC! 🫶🏻📖✨

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing this book, with my honest review below.

The Perfect Boyfriend was certainly a story you won’t be able to guess the ending to (amongst other twists it throws at you), but ultimately it didn’t work for me. I love S.E. Lynes and she is a phenomenal writer, as witnessed by her writing and imagination in this book, so understand it just didn’t work to my tastes.

Kristy and Hughie and the other characters were well written (though Hughie is the worst) and I enjoyed the ramp up as you read in trying to figure out if Kristy is just really stressed in the late stages of her pregnancy as those around her believe, especially her trusted partner Dougie, or if she is beautiful minding some connections. I say beautiful minding it because what I didn’t enjoy about this book is that the connections were truly tenuously pulled together and it takes massive leaps of the imagination to believe they could be connected. The ending of the book was also incredibly inventive but it took too much suspension of disbelief for me to engage with, and so while this was undeniably unguessable, I prefer a mystery that surprises you because you just weren’t able to put together pieces teasingly revealed or hidden well but somewhat believable, versus a leap and a jump. That said where this was well done in the story is a part at the end I won’t reveal that involved Kristy and Dougie and I think was a perfect ‘stop assuming based on traditional expectations’ part.

If you enjoy mysteries for staying mysteries throughout and leaving you shocked by the plot twists, but not necessarily ones you could go back and savor as ‘I should have seen it’, then this will fill your mystery and thriller cup just fine and you should absolutely read it.

Another mind blowing read by S E Lynes!! Kirsty is a midwife and is also expecting a baby with her partner Dougie. Whilst on a quick break on one her last few shifts, she sees someone she thought she'd never see again. An ex boyfriend called Hughie who ended things really badly with her when she was 18. However, this man who she's convinced is him and working at her hospital, denies all knowledge of knowing and has a different name.
What then follows is a crazy story which I won't go into detail here, but was very interested too by how we treat women that are in their late stages of pregnancy. So often dismissed because they're tired, hormonal etc and nobody believes her and thinks she's just being paranoid due to her condition
This author just keeps getting better and better and have loved all of her previous books too!

This author never disappoints and this new novel really threw me through a hoop. I was reading it all one way and then I got totally turned on my head and the ending of this book did not disappoint. I won’t spoil it but this is the type of thriller that keeps you guessing to the last page which is perfect!