This was a brilliant read. As soon as I started reading this book I just knew I was going to love it. Highly recommended

Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

This is the first book I’ve read by Hilary but I really enjoyed it. It goes into the relationships of today’s modern families. Lily is in her early 50’s and has two grown up children. On her second marriage after being widowed she thinks her life is perfect, but things are about to come crashing down around her ears. How well do we really know our loved ones. A good modern read.

This was my first book by Hilary Boyd and I was really looking forward to it however I struggled to connect with the main characters.

Lily is married to her second husband Freddy, she thinks everything is fine except Freddy is hiding a secret, he gambles... A lot. I enjoyed the start of the book with Freddy sneaking around, at the casinos however when the truth started coming out I started to lose any kind of care I had to all characters involved. This may just be me as there's some good reviews for this book.

I did like Hilary's writing style and I really did hope for everything to work out. The ending surprised me which was good.

It hasn't put me off reading another book by Hilary, I've been used to reading more fluffy chick lit or psychological thrillers recently so it was a bit of a slower book than I have been used to. I enjoyed the whole topic of gambling, I haven't read anything based with this addiction so it was interesting to read. I have no interest in gambling so maybe this is why I struggled?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy which I reviewed honestly.

Very much enjoyed. It's so refreshing to read about older women in the way that Hilary Boyd tells her stories, rather than in the cliches that so much of the media and society seem to fall into. The Gransnet forums are proof that age changes little in terms of emotion, relationships, desires and it's great to see literature that makes this point as well

Hilary Boyd at her absolute best. A good plot with well described characters. Highly recommended

I'm really sorry but I have had to give up on this one, its too slow for me and I cant see where its going, so taking a break.

Thank you to NetGalley, Quercus and the author Hillary for allowing to me to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

Wow! I loved this book. Such a beautiful story that I just couldn't put down! all through this book I couldn't work out how it was going to end... which I loved!

The best bit for me was that this wasn't your average run of the mill love story, it had real depth and the characters felt very real. Sometimes love does hurt and I think this book captures the raw pain of 'heartache' really well. We have all been there and know how it feels to have our heart broken but the feelings that are written down are so honest, that it was really powerful and gripping!

This book would be perfect for someone looking for a book with a real hook!

When Lily's first husband dies she is left with teenage twins and a massive hole in her life.......until she meets Freddy. Freddy is a flamboyant character, full of charm, owner of a successful recording studio and he sweeps Lily off her feet, life couldn't be better she sells her house and moves into his penthouse flat and gives him the money to invest for her.

Then Freddy starts to get snappy and irritated all the time....the honeymoon period is definitely over........he starts staying out all night claiming business meetings and she starts to think that he is having an affair but it is worse he is addicted to gambling and the house of cards is about to collapse - the flat is rented, he owes money to loan sharks and he has gambled away all of her money

When the collapse finally happens Freddy runs off to Malta leaving Lily on her own to face the consequences and with no money left and no home she has to go and live with her sister in Oxford, the sister that has always resented her and her charmed life, but can she really let go and forget Freddy or is she just waiting for him to come back?

A great story really exploring the problems of addictions - Lily's nephew is a drug addict and so her sister and brother-in-law both suffer with this and their different approaches to dealing with it - and although on the face of it gambling is not in the same league it can still cause as much disruption to the lives of those dealing with it

This didn't totally grab me in the first scenes, but got better as I read. A Perfect Husband is the first book by Hilary Boyd that I've read. Boyd has a great attention to detail and the characters are very real and realistically fleshed out. The title and synopsis had me feeling curious when I requested a copy from NetGalley, as what woman wouldn't be drawn to a book entitled A Perfect Husband? The scene was set well, and I felt I got to "know" the characters pretty quickly. A Perfect husband was a well-paced read and Hilary Boyd succesfully leads us into an intricate story of addiction with well-formed sub- plots surrounding love, friendship, trust and distrust.

At times, I felt for the characters as they went through their own, very personal, experiences of being apart and of finding themselves again. I felt the raw emotions and distress they went through in a way that kept me reading. As the book goes on, the settings are very vivid. Hilary Boyd takes us from London to Oxford to Malta in a journey that is exciting and interesting. As a person who knows Oxford well, I was pleased to find some familiar places mentioned. This made me experience the book in a more personal way than I would have done had I known nothing about Oxford.

I liked Helen, but did not like Freddy at all once his addiction started to really become obvious. Lily and Freddy seemed to have a wonderful relationship until things started to go wrong. Lily seemed an interesting person, if a little annoying and ungrateful at times.


I was pleased to participate in the Blog Tour for this title, and my blog entry was posted on Wednesday, 12 July 2017. Thanks to Hilary Boyd and her publisher, Quercus Books, for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Freddy is Lily’s second husband, her first, the father of her two children sadly died. Everyone loves Freddy; he is successful, charismatic and kind. He has brought love and laughter back to Lily and her children and is a wonderful step-father. That is until he is bitten by the gambling bug and in massive trouble being unable to repay the loan sharks. He flees the country without telling Lily. He is ashamed of himself and wants to protect her; to sort himself out and get up and running again. She is devastated as Freddy has even stolen all of her savings to fund his addiction. She has nowhere to go, their home is rented and she is flat broke. Nevertheless, she is still passionately in love with Freddy.
When Freddy returns to her six months later his luck has changed. He has reinvented himself with the help of his best friend. He is employed, has a lovely new flat, his debts are paid off and he swears to her that his gambling days are over. Slowly, oh so slowly they reignite their passionate relationship, but is Freddy truly reformed or is he still keeping secrets from her? Unknown to Lily, Freddy is damaged. He is like a ticking clock; a bomb with the fuse waiting to be ignited. Will Lily’s love and support be enough to save Freddy?
Hilary Boyd has a huge talent for this genre. She chooses her themes and surrounds them with a compelling story filled with love and angst. I loved the way she drew parallels with other addictions in a supporting storyline involving a beloved member of her family. She always chooses family as her main theme, and describes the situation from every point of view, meticulously researching her subject and skilfully creating wonderful characters that will fill your hearts and minds with empathy, sympathy and compassion. My favourite character was the heroine of the story Lily, who wanted to stand by her husband and support him as he cleared up the mess of his own making. She was understanding and her motives were fuelled by her love for her husband. Her supporting characters were all so believable and the threads she created to complement her main story were interesting and very poignant.
With the obvious theme of addiction well established, she also wrote about loyalty, fidelity, trust, love, loss and sibling rivalry, and very entertaining and full of substance it was too. I found the first part of the novel slow-paced, but beyond that the story was well paced, exciting and absorbing. I really enjoyed reading this novel and my review reflects this with a 4* rating. I would like to thank NetGalley and publisher Quercus for my copy of “A Perfect Husband”, sent to me in return for an honest review.

My next NetGalley read.

This starts out slow and grows into a very bleak tale of the horror of what life leaves the families of a gambler. The characters are not very likeable but it's an intriguing story. Seems to go on a bit too long before the secret of Freddy's betrayal is out in the open.

A word used a few times is discombobulated. I know what it means but for me destroys the little flow this has.

Not getting a connection with the characters as they feel one dimensional and not very likeable.

Hated the ending also. This one really wasn't for me sadly.

I've been a big fan of Hilary's for quite some time now. I have absolutely loved her previous books. But I just a little disappointed by this book. It just didn't feel like it went anywhere and it wasn't as good as her other books which is a shame really.

This book had me hooked from the first chapter. Hilary Boyd is a wonderful story teller. The characters are well described and believable. This book is about love and addiction and how these things can break up families. I have enjoyed all of Hilary Boyd's books, but this one may be my favourite.

This is the first Hilary Boyd book I have read.. I enjoyed it but was not hooked by it. Lily is married to Freddie who swept her off her feet and led her into an extravagant lifestyle. Unfortunately he turned out to be a gambler who denuded them of all their assets and leaves Lily to fend successfully for herself. Will he kick his addiction? Is Lily addicted to him. Addiction Also raises its head in the form of Lily's nephew Kit who has a serious drug habit. Love is meted out to the addicted characters in all forms including supportive and tough. There is a dark heart to this book that seems initially light.

Lily is married to Freddie, he is the perfect husband, he is rich, smart, good looking and Lily is very much in love with him, but underneath this perfect husband is a deeply flawed man.

Freddie owns his own music studio, but Freddie also likes to gamble, he gambles away everything he owns, all of Lily’s money from the sale of her house with her first husband which he told her he had invested and he has told Lily so many lies he does not know how to tell her he is about to become bankrupt. Lily realises there is something wrong when her son Dillon informs her that Freddie hasn’t paid for the wedding venue for him and his fiance Gabriela.

Lily finds it hard to believe that Freddie has deceived her, she wants to help him find a way out of the situation that he has found himself in. Freddie decides he is going to sort himself out and leaves Lily with nothing and absconds to Malta.

Lily goes to stay with her sister Helen to try to get her life back on track, she finds a job typing for a professor at Oxford University and seems to be settling down until Freddie walks back into her life and wants to resume their relationship.

This was a good book, I liked Lily, although she came across as slightly naive she was good hearted and saw the best in everyone. The rest of the characters all came across as selfish, Freddie who took everything Lily had and then expected her to fall back into his arms, her sister Helen blamed her for everything wrong in her life from Lily getting more attention from their parents because she was an unwell child to Helen’s son being a heroin addict. Dillon wasn’t much better, he blamed Lily for Freddie losing all his money and having to cancel his wedding to Gabriela, what man in his twenties expects his mum to pay for his wedding?

Although this was a good book, it was very disheartening to see how Lily’s family appeared to be completely unsupportive and self-serving. The ending was uplifting and it was good to see how Lily coped with everything happening around her. I did enjoy this book, but I do think it could have moved a bit faster.