An interesting and unusual premise and the story was quite interesting but the writing style was a tad superficial which detracted from the characterisation and meant that this fell short of where it might have been. Disappointing.

Overall this book was good however I found the start a bit slow. The story once it gets going is interesting but I found it hard to like most of the characters. Sam the leading lady is a little namby pamby for me and despite her reservations marries a recently released death row inmate. I found it hard to empathise with her. Dennis the inmate is cold and calculating and I felt uneasy when reading about him, so in this respect the book is good as it evoked an edge of your seat response from me. I found the ending a bit rushed and again I wanted to shake Sam inot reality. The reading of this book was easy, however disliking most of the characters distracted me from enjoying it completely.

I was intrigued by this book. I've recently watched the Making a Murderer series on Netflix and there seems to be a lot of similarities to Dennis Danson in The Innocent Wife. Man is imprisoned for something it appears impossible that he has done. The public rally to get him released, and ask for new evidence. However, I wasn't convinced by Samantha's character. I appreciated that Sam was meant to have some flawed characteristics, but they just made her seem whiny and annoying to me. I find it difficult to root for a character I don't like. I also hate reading about characters falling in love when they barely know each other, and that seems to be exactly what happened in the beginning of the book. It appeared that they were falling in love over quite a long time, but the reader wasn't shown that, and so it felt a little awkward. Even though I didn't like Samantha, I thought that Amy Lloyd has done a really good job with the pacing in this book. I was on the edge of my seat for a lot of it and really did feel nervous in some of the more dramatic scenes! I also thought that the ending was very satisfying, and exactly how it should have ended. I would definitely recommend other people picking up this book - I just don't think it was for me.

If you were a fan of "Making a Murderer" then you will love this!
My only quibble is that the ending came in a bit of a rush and boom! It was over!
Between a 4 and 5 star I think!

I thought when I starting reading this book it would be usual grip lit. I was surprisingly wrong.
The book centred around a Death Row Prisoner and his relationships with those around him. With the question being How well does anyone know him?
The main character was explored well, however other lead characters and even important peripheral characters were skimmed over and not enough depth given. I did feel that Sam, the girlfriend/wife could have been explored a lot more and an explanation as to why she was fascinated with this man on Death Row.
This was a real page turner without being overly complicated and I finished this book in one evening, storyline was good, twist at the end which was expected as with all good thrillers. Nice that the ending was left open so a sequel is possible.
I will be recommending this book to others, perfect reading for a cold winter's night.

This book was given to me to read and review by Netgalley.

Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. Well I have to say this book had me wanting more. It took a while to get into the story, I thought it went on a bit before the actual story started. I was for closing it after chapter 3 but kept going, I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a very good book. Great storyline and great characters they played the part well. Good suspense book and good twist at the end, although I kinda figured it out early on. Worth 5 stars and I’ll recommend it to anyone.

This one was not for me and was just ok. It meanders along at too slow a pace and I felt that the story was not very well developed.

It was easy to see (in the early stages) which way this book was headed from the interactions between Sam and Dennis, therefore there were few surprises along the way. One wanted to shout in panto fashion, “He’s behind you!” to the needy Sam in the shadow of the too good to be true Dennis. The best past was the latter third when the pace hotted up and the ending was in sight.

Couldn’t wait to read this. Really got into it. Struggled with the end thou, I kinda knew what was gonna happen early on. Good read just didn’t find the twists and turns were unexpected

I enjoyed this book. Well written, with a good story line and strong characters.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Amy Lloyd for the copy of this book. I was asked to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

This book started out well and would have scored 5 stars for much of it. I liked the premise - a British girl, Sam, starts a letter correspondance with Dennis, who has been on Death Row in America for almost 20 years. A lot of people believe that Dennis is innocent of the murders he was convivted of and are campaigning to have his sentence overturned. Sam gets more amd more involved finally flying to be with Dennis in the States.

Things progress at a good pace and the writing is good with plenty of action. It was a quick and gripping read but then all seemed to go fuzzy in the epilogue. There was a lot of action with characters seeing and remembering things with differing viewpoints and reasoning. I was left confused about what the ending was supposed to be and annoyed at having invested my time in the book.

Samantha writes to a prisoner on Death Row after watching a documentary on his wrongful conviction. She soon falls in love with him. Samantha should be ecstatic when Dennis is proven innocent and subsequently released. However, she soon finds that love behind bars is different to building a life together after moving to Florida to be with him. Suspicions continue to arise about the missing girls, and Samantha questions whether Dennis is the man she thought she married...

I liked this book: it was fast-paced with an addictive storyline. I was immediately drawn in by the premise of a woman writing to and falling in love with a man on death-row. Samantha is well fleshed out as the unhappy and unfulfilled school teacher from England and, of course, mentally unstable and reeling from a bad breakup for good measure. I particularly liked the light hand Lloyd deploys in her depictions of the underlying psychology of the characters; it is quite subtle compared to many of the giants in the genre in which it can often come across a bit too clunky and on the nose. Instead, she focuses on creating an atmospheric read with nuggets of information paced throughout, and I enjoyed this approach where it is left to the reader to decipher and theorise. On the whole, however, I did feel that something was missing for me for it to really go down as a favourite.

It is a very current novel, in that you can see the inspirations in Lloyd's writing as true crime documentaries have come to the fore in pop culture with Making A Murderer and the like. The climax was well-plotted; it felt unpredictable but I was not entirely surprised as well. I usually prefer this in this genre as plot twists that come out of left field often come across as gimicky in psychological thrillers and therefore do not stand up to repeat reads. I enjoy leaving a novel feeling that the dots match up in a surprising but not entirely shocking way. On the other hand, I felt like the ending, whilst interesting in terms of character study, ultimately felt too much like the go-to ending of today's psychological thriller titles. And this is coming from someone who only reads this genre every once in a while.

I am afraid I do not really have as much to say about this one. I really enjoyed reading it, but I am unsure whether it will stay with me. If you like psychological thrillers, this would be a good one to pick up and I will definitely be keeping track of this author.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a copy for review.

Many thanks to Amy Lloyd, Cornerstone and Netgalley for my ARC.
I have a thing for these kinds of stories. Murderers in prison and the women who love them. It's crazy. So l knew this book was going to be by jam the minute l read the blurb, and it didn't disappoint.
There were a few minor issues l had (especially at the beginning) with either the writing or the flow, but by half way l was full invested in the story and rushed to the end. So don't let this put you off, my complaints are really minor. And the second half was truly excellent.
Honestly, l wasn't a fan of the letters between our jailhouse lovebirds, l think it would have been really hard to express the growth of feeling that this pair supposedly had for each other through their letters. I think this aspect would have been better as a tell, rather than show type of writing.
For me, this book really hit its stride when newly exonerated Dennis (who may or may not be a serial killer) returns to his home of Red River with his new bride. Suspicion grows for his new bride, who starts to see another side to Dennis. But is she just driving herself crazy?
And the sense of place was perfect. Poor Samantha was so out of her element in Florida, the swampy bushland, the critters and the heat.
I think maybe the first third of this book was 3 stars and the last half was 5 stars, so l'm going to meet in the middle and call it 4 stars.
Amy Lloyd shows great potential, and l'm truly excited to pick up whatever she writes next (hopefully another thriller).

This seemed somewhat derivative of the premise behind Making A Murderer, but since I enjoyed that documentary, this book hit all the right notes for me. Tense and twisty, it did keep me engaged right until the dark and chilly end, I didn't warm to the central character, but I think that's deliberate and the plot was enjoyably silly. Fans of the genre will enjoy.

I’m not sure where to even start with this review. But I throughly enjoyed this book.
The first thing that grabbed my attention was the similarities with ‘Making a Murderer’ documentaries which I found really interesting. You think you know where the book is going, then it just catches you off guard.
This was an addictive thriller which I found hard to put down. I would even go as far as saying that I loved this book.

This book was reasonable - I think it would be alright to read on flight or a beach on holiday but it's not something I would recommend otherwise. I did think the setting and environment were well described and added to the thriller effect, but some things were a bit overdone or obvious (e.g. animals being killed, a rundown farmhouse in the woods). I found there were parts of the plot that didn't really add up and the mystery didn't have the layers of complexity that I would like. As I read I had less and less sympathy for the main character - I thought she was unlikeable and came across poorly - she seemed lazy and had no personality other than being needy and insecure (eg she quits her job and then doesn't work, she's messy and eats takeaways, she seems to have no interests or hobbies). I cringed in a few places because so much of her behaviour (snooping through things, obsessing over other women and throwing tantrums) seemed inappropriate and unreasonable - in the end I wasn't really interested in what happened to her. I disliked a lot of the social media and context that was put in, such as the well educated middle class wife having the proper views on things like privilege and mansplaining, and attempting to correct her husband's views - it felt to me very patronising and ignorant.

I tried to read this book, I managed about half. While it was very well written, it wasn’t enjoyable. I didn’t like any of the characters and I found the story very slow. I found I didn’t care what happened and I was forcing myself to read on. I concluded I didn’t want to spend any more time on this title, I’m sorry.

Amazing thriller, had me hooked from beginning to end - i predict this will be a big hit!

THE INNOCENT WIFE

Samanatha is teacher in England, single with a failed relationship which ended badly.

Dennis is serving life imprisonment in usa. He was charged with killing a child and suspected of killing a number of teenage girls from his home town who mysteriously disappeared.

I think Sam believes in Dennis so much because she feels she’s not worthy of anyone else. You find out later in the story that her boyfriend wouldn’t commit to her and found someone whilst still seeing Sam. She reacted violently

They start out as pen pals things progress quickly and Sam decides to visit. Dennis asks her to marry him. Then he’s released when new evidence comes to light.

Sam is not really ready to have a normal life with Dennis after all they are not a normal couple. From the beginning life is strained.

I don’t want to give away to much of the story. I certainly wanted to find out what would happen but as the story was told from Sam’s perspective I felt you didn’t really get to know Dennis as well as you could. But I think that was the point to keep him mysterious.

The ending for me was a bit rushed and then skipped forward a couple of months.

The book is well written and I did enjoy it and would be happy to read another book by this author

Wow, loved this book from chapter one. Constant stream of a well written story. Easy to read and thoroughly enthralling.
Love the constant did he didn’t he. The secrets and lies withheld until you least expected it.
Well done.
Would definitely buy this for a friend