The Surrogate by Louise Jensen hooked me in with an emotional but tense storyline. A surrogate theme is always going to be complex, but when all the major parties are hiding secret pasts, well it’s going to be complicated. And it was.

FIRST LINE OF THE SURROGATE BY LOUISE JENSEN:

“There is a sense of panic; horror hanging in the air like smoke.”

MY THOUGHTS ON THE SURROGATE BY LOUISE JENSEN:

I’m on high spoiler alert, as any sniff of those messy secrets will ruin the plot. So I’ll just share my give-nothing-away goodreads updates instead. I think they give an insight in to the poignant plot, and just how trickily the author unraveled everything.

7% – “Ouch, this might hurt. The infertility theme is painfully real for me.”
40% – “Just had an a-ha moment, where everything added up and made perfect sense! “
100% – “Twisty McTwisty. Nothing was the way I thought it was.”

I loved that I was guessing and second-guessing my way through the book. Lots of red herrings bopped about merrily to distract and divert me, and I foolishly followed them. In addition, the characters were delightfully complex and well-rounded. Initially some reactions seemed off, but in hindsight they weren’t. I just needed the full story to see that.

The plot is rolled out via 2 timelines; Now and Later. I enjoyed jumping around in the timeline, as it added to the confusion. I found I was highly anticipating both stories, as well as very curious to see how they connected.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

An emotive and dramatic plot, with unpredictable characters, and some shocking twists. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

WHO SHOULD READ THE SURROGATE BY LOUISE JENSEN?

Highly recommended to those who like domestic-style thrillers with lots of drama, action and interesting characters. I also think if you like books such as The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins or Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon then you might also like this one.

Thanks to Bookouture for giving me a copy of this book for review consideration. As always, no matter what the source of the book, you get my honest, unbiased opinion

Having enjoyed Jensen's previous books, 'The Gift' and 'The Sister', I was excited to see if her third book would live up to their high standard. I needn't have worried. Jensen is skilled at creating characters that get under your skin and a plot that plays with your mind and 'The Surrogate' is perhaps her best yet.
Whilst I came to find the protagonist Kat really annoying, her motivation is so believable and her desire to have a child of her own so painfully evident, that she is both a very realistic character and a superbly unreliable narrator. And it is the latter which left me so desperate to uncover the truth.
The plotting is so skilled that I was constantly lulled into a false sense of security, only to have surprise after surprise thrown at me. Obviously, I don't want to give anything away, but there was so much I didn't see coming. Just past the halfway mark I kept telling myself that everything seemed too neat and obvious, but I couldn't see another way things would fit together. Which made the climax all the more explosive, as I finally saw all the clues I'd overlooked.
I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Surrogate' and was gripped until the last page. Jensen seems to go from strength to strength, so I cannot wait for her fourth book.

I had been eagerly awaiting this book and was very excited to be approved to read it. It's a creepy, atmospheric story that moved quickly around the mystery of Lisa and Kat's relationship. Another hit by this author!

Kate and Nick seem to have it all ... except for a child of their own. Two out-of-country adoptions have fallen through and Kate is heartbroken.

A reunion with a childhood friend gives her new hope.

When everyone has secrets, who do you trust? When everyone seems to lie, who do you believe?

I guarantee this one will have you riveted to your chair until the very last word on the very last page. There are so many surprising twists and turns and trying to guess the ending is impossible.... and the ending is a real killer!

The story premise is excellent, and while all characters are not likable, they are credible. Highly recommend this one for anyone who likes psychological thrillers.

Many thanks to the author / Bookouture / Netgalley for the digital copy of this thriller. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Kat and Nick seem to have a perfect life but there's one huge gaping hole in their lives. Kat can't have children. They've tried adopting but everytime they're left disappointed. Nicks on the verge of giving up but Kat is all consumed by her desire to be a mom. Then she runs into her childhood friend Lisa who tells Kat she's been a surrogate in the past. When another adoption fails she offers to do the same for them. But Kat and Lisa share dark secrets from the past.....can Lisa really trust her?


I'm a big fan of Louise Jensen and this is the delightful psychological thrilling hokum I love.  And when I say hokum I mean it in a good way. Because it really is a lot of nonsense - multiple red herrings, coincidences and quite unbelievable situations all combine to make a fantastically enjoyable story. Like I've said before (and will countless times in the future) I don't want want realism in these books. I want plots that need deciphering, working out the twists and gasping out loud when I don't. I wanted that and Louise Jensen keeps delivering.How could I give it anything other than 5 stars?

I really liked this book. I finished it in 1,5 day cause I was stuck, I couldn't stop reading.
Exciting almost from the beginning and love books that catch my intention that fast, than I know it is a great book.
I thought I knew how the ending would be, but I was totally wrong. Like the different twists the book has. I was guessing back and forth :)

I highly recommend it!

Well this book has more twists and turns than a country lane. Just when I thought I'd worked it out something else slams the door shut another fantastic psychological thriller from Louise Jensen that doesn't fail to deliver. Kept me up reading until late into the night. A gripping page turner that you won't want to put down

This is my first Louise Jensen book but won't be my last.

Kat and Nick can't have kids and have two failed adoptions. Kat bumps in to an old school friend who offers to be a surrogate but is all as it seems? The story is told in the present day and in the past to bring the story to an unpredictable (to me) conclusion.

There were no slow parts to the book at all and I really didn't want to stop reading. The ending was fantastic and there was only one part that I had worked out so plenty of exciting twists to surprise me.

I received a ARC copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

Omg the twist!.....well I really couldn’t wait to devour this book by louise as I’ve read her previous offerings and wow it didn’t disappoint.

So Kat & Nick are desperate for a baby after IVF failed and two adoptions have fallen through, along comes Lisa an old childhood friend who is all to happy to help them out and offers to be a surrogate regardless of the awful secret they share from their past.

Kat becomes Lisa is out for revenge, RIchard (Nicks best friend) totally hates Lisa from day one, and Nick is harboring his own secrets.

So away you go and the story kicks in pretty quick, I have to say I read it in a few hours as I literally ploughing through it (no other choice I was hooked) and I was gutted when it was over, the twist at the end had me shaking my head and wondering if I’d read right and then re reading the last few chapters again to make sure !

A seriously good book and it will have you hooked from the start!!!! Any wait for her next one!

This is my kind of read, one that you can get your teeth into [the thriller part] emotional and realistic [my female mothery part] and what 'fertility problems' have on a couple [my experience with a friend who so wanted/needed a baby].

So I could think out of the box with this one, I have had experience of being around a couple who had tried no endless of methods to have a baby, yes including surrogacy. The emotional wreck it can leave a couple is beyond trying to explain, so, I could see both couples side. Kat and Nick tried everything.

So many failed tasks, Kat is in despair and then from her past comes Lisa. Although they parted on bad terms, with the meeting of these two again you wouldn't really think so, the past seems like that..... past.

Now this is where my 'thriller nose' came into play, however, I was wrong a lot of the times because so many people seemed like they had a lot to hide, so I ended up suspicious of many. Including Kat.

Then Lisa learning of Kats plight agrees to carrying a baby for her.

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I wondered where the author was next going to go with this, I could see it was going somewhere........
Of course it would involve Lisa right?
But Nick struck me as an odd ball too.

Kat is obsessed with having a baby by any means but Nick sometimes seems reserved by this and distant one minute and full on the next [to me]

I wanted to know what happened with Lisa and Kat in the past, why did they separate? What is lurking in the past?

The mystery unravels as you read, I'm aware that some may have commented on this in their review, however, I will not, I would love for you to read it for yourselves and enjoy is.

This authors previous book was so enjoyable for me that I was wondering if she could pull it off again, well she did, big time.

This is one author I will be following. Her ease of writing is superb, easy to follow the layouts for the plots are always consistent as are the characters she makes come alive.

My thanks to Bookoutour via Net Galley for my copy.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, now wait a minute here. This is the kind of book that makes me wonder if the writer wrote it backwards and then forwards and then re-edited a million times for fluidity and accuracy. I’ve read several five star books lately (luck maybe?) and this one takes the cake as far as shocking ending. Why is it that the ending is so important in books? It’s that last little aftertaste of the whole story being built up into that last tidbit, that’s why. A bad ending is like eating a slice of chocolate cake but then the very last bite has a big chunk of mold on it. I actually had that happen once. Super disgusting. It was a slice of princess cake to be exact. But, I digress. The ending is so very important and this story takes the whole entire cake down the hatch with a chaser of chocolate milk! The story is told from different perspectives of each of the characters both in past and present mode so you really have to pay attention to who is narrating and in what time they are speaking of. I really liked all of the characters although I didn’t trust all of them. They were all well-developed. There were points of the book which I didn’t understand why they were included until the very end. I kept saying, “Aha! That makes so much sense now!” Louise Jensen wraps up this story with a neat-as-a-white-Tiffany-bow ending. Enjoy, suspense and mystery lovers!

Thank you to Netgalley, Louise Jensen, and Bookouture for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Surrogate by Louise Jensen can only be described as an edge of your seat psychological thriller. The book is full of secrets and lies, twists and turns that are revealed slowly right up to the last page.

Kat and Nick are desperate to start a family. They are not able to have a child of their own and adoption has not worked out for them, so when Lisa offers to be a surrogate, they jump at the chance and so started the rollercoaster ride through the alternating chapters of the present and past. Just when I thought I had guessed a twist, I found I was a wrong and there was another plot turn to keep me turning the pages.

This was the first Louise Jensen book I have read, it won't be the last.

I received this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow absolutely fantastic read and definitely one of my favourite books this year. It had me hooked from the very first page and I couldn’t put it down. It was full of twists and turns I didn’t see coming. I devoured this book in a day and would highly recommend it.

I totally recommend this book for people who are seeking for a thrilling, suspending and not predictable. I find the story very thrilling and exciting without any boredoms in it.
We follow Kat, Nick and Lisa (an old best friend of Kat). Kat and Nick are hoping for expanding their family by adopting a baby. Nevertheless, they find Lisa as a surrogate. Even though the three of them have their own secrets and difficult past. The writer found an easy way to constantly switch between the past and the present. Therefore my attention for this book has never left. You want to know what actually happened and what is going to happen. Also, I think the story is fast paced and easy to read because of the short chapters.

I really did enjoy this book! I've already recommended it to a friend of mine.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I have really enjoyed Louise Jensen's previous books and was looking forward to getting started on this new offering.

It was a very entertaining read with an ending the reader does not see coming at all. Well written and fabulous characters which we can all relate to.

While this isn't quite what I expected it was well written and up to the standards I have come to expect from authors who are published by bookouture there was something thst I was missing. I enjoyed but it didn't blow me away like the sister did

Kat & Nick have been married for eight years. Nick owns a property development company and Kat runs a successful charity. They love each other and have a nice home in a nice neighborhood BUT something is missing. Kat is unable to have children and it’s the one thing she wants more than anything! After a failed adoption attempt Kat & Nick are beginning to lose hope. THEN one day kat hears a voice from her past. When she turns around it’s her ex best friend, Lisa, whom she hasn’t spoken to in 10 years.

Kat & Lisa reconnect and Kat shares her inability to have children with Lisa. Lisa quickly offers to become a surrogate for Kat & Nick. . Is it a good idea? What is Lisa really up to? Are the secrets between Kat & Lisa too much to bare? Kat ran away 10 years ago to start a new life - should she trust Lisa?

It was a nicely paced psychological thriller that opened with a crime scene in a quiet neighborhood, flipping back-and-forth between THEN and NOW, with Kats voice being the main voice. Midway through I did become a little irritated with Kat because of her extreme paranoia about Every. Little. Thing. BUT that quickly subsided as the story started coming together. Giving this book 3.5 out of five stars.

Thank you Net Galley, Bookouture & Louise Jensen for an e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Pam Andersen @crimebookjunkee

This was my first book of Louise Jenson's and what a lovely feeling it is when you find a new author, who's story you enjoyed, to find out that the author has written other books.

This was a fantastic story which had me changing my mind time and again as to what the truth was at the heart of the tale. Highly recommended!

This is the first book I have read by this author but it certainly won't be the last. From the start I had an idea of where this book was leading me but boy was I SO wrong!!!! It was a total roller-coaster of a book and my head spinning trying to keep up with all the twists. The characters weren't very like-able but that's what really added to the story and made it impossible to guess where it was going, every theory I came up with got blown out of the water. A fantastic read!!!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advance copy of The Surrogate by Louise Jensen in return for an honest review.

Absolutely brilliant, brilliant book. The first half of the story has you thinking that one thing is happening, you guess how the book is going to end then bam its all switched around! Amazing book, brilliant writing and will definitely be reading more of Louises books.