Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam
for the eARC.
Looking forward to this book, I was a bit disappointed with it. I found the main character irritating because she was over the top worrying about her best friends and the fact one of them seemed to be cheating. She gets obsessive about finding out what the reality is and it got tiresome. I skipped many pages, but the ending was a surprise, which almost made up for the disappointment.

Lucy and Adam and Cora and Scott are best friends. They do everything together and their children are like siblings to each other.
Life is good.
Until it is not.
Lucy is looking at a teaching colleague's honeymoon pictures and comes to picture that stops her dead in her tracks. Scott, who was supposed to be away on a business trip in Japan, is pictured on the beach in Maldives, where her colleague
honeymooned, with a beautiful woman: who happens not to be his wife, Cora. Her colleague informs her they were at the resort and met this wonderfully friendly, happy couple and spent time with them. Lucy is frozen and in that instant, her happy carefree life is changed forever.
The intrigue begins as Lucy tries to unravel the story behind "the couple in the photo", and starts finding out that her husband, along with Scott and Cora, have a past that is not exactly what it always appeared to be. When the woman in the photo turns up dead, mystery surrounds her everywhere she looks for answers. Great suspense, and the developments come fast and furiously. All of a sudden, not a single thing in Lucy's life seems real.
Terrific, deep character development and great, interesting balance of " yesterday" and today.
Super good read. But knowing how I enjoyed others by Cooper, I did not expect anything kess.

Honestly, I didn't vibe with this book. I didn't particularly care for the plot, storytelling, or the characters. The mystery/suspense was fine. This book was very meh for me.

EXCELLENT THRILLER - I could not get in front of this story to solve the mystery.

Lucy has a perfect life with her two children and loving husband who brought a great couple to the marriage - his best friends from college who then became her best friends as well. The couples eat together at least once a week and their children play together on weekends at their holiday home. All is perfect until Lucy sees a recent holiday snap of one of her colleagues, she recognizes Adam's best friend at a romantic dinner in the Maldives...Lucy quickly goes into overdrive to try and solve the puzzle and keep their tight friendship alive. Everyone keeps telling her she is imagining things..is she? Perfectly paced and a great concept. If you love thrillers, twisty stories and a great heroine, The Couple In The Photo is for you!
#penguin #penguinbooks #TheCoupleInThePhoto #HelenCooper

The Couple in the Photo by Helen Cooper had potential to be an engaging suspense novel, but ultimately fell flat for me. The characters were unlikable and the plot was predictable. Lucy, the protagonist, was frustratingly nosy and meddling, and her obsession with protecting her friend from her husband’s potential infidelity bordered on obsessive. The story lacked the tension and intrigue that a good suspense novel should have, and the pacing was slow, with too much time spent on mundane details. The resolution felt rushed and unsatisfying, with loose ends left untied. Overall, I was disappointed with this book and would not recommend it to others.

The Couple in the Photo
By Helen Cooper
Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
Putnam
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
This book was great! It kept my interest throughout!
4 stars

The synopsis and book cover compelled me to read this, but I wanted to like it more than I did. I found it somewhat slow-paced and skimmed through it quickly, eager to get to the ending. I would recommend for mystery and suspense readers who don't mind a slow build up. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This did not disappoint! Such a great read. Such a nice twist and the development of this plot was wonderful. I wish it had been a longer read is my only downside.

A fast paced storyline, I was compelled to continue reading to learn the twists and how it all came together in the end. Fans of Freida McFadden will enjoy this story. The main storyline was enjoyable and I appreciated a new twist on a story with a marriage at the center.

A second narrator entered the picture but I did not feel the additional narrative added context beyond the main storyline. Due to the formatting, it was not clear to me when the second narrator began and the main storyline ended. Perhaps if the second narrator revealed information that could not be gleaned from the main storyline, it would add more to the story.

The description sounds like it could be a great book, however there are way too many strange punctuation errors. (Such as numerous hyphenated words that shouldn't be hyphenated) Also, changing character dialog right in the middle of one of the thought process of another character, causing the reader to be very confused.

Based on the first 5%, this definitely is something that would go over well with our usual readers. The first chapter was gripping and created an interesting a set up for the rest.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC.