I thought this book was ok, but it took me a long time to read it.  It just didn't grip me.  I liked Ella, the main character, but to be honest I thought the plot was really weak.  The constant 'Ella Bella' this and 'Ella Bella' that really grated on my nerves.  It was ok though, but that's as good as I can say about it.

The Liar’s Wife certainly has an interesting premise. In the first chapter, Ella has an accident. She wakes up in the hospital only to be told that her husband has been visiting. The thing is; Ella doesn’t have a husband. Naturally, I had so many questions. Did Ella suffer a brain injury that caused her to forget her husband? Who was this man?

The story is narrated by Ella in alternating chapters that feature past and present timelines. For me, the past timeline was the most intriguing because I knew that was where the answers lay. There were hints about a fire and lots of secrets. I couldn’t wait to unravel the mystery. I like the fact that I couldn’t guess anything. I was also curious to know how Ella would get out of her current predicament.

There are a few events that seemed a little implausible. That and the slow pace impeded on my total enjoyment of this narrative. Nevertheless, there was still enough to keep me turning the pages (albeit slowly) to the last page.In the end, this was a good read even though not my favorite book by Hayes.

Interestingly , I read it a few days ago but I am still thinking about some of the scenes, in particular, the night of the fire. The story is well-written and I love it when authors paint such vivid pictures with their words. Certain scenes really sucked me into the story. I felt like I was standing in the same room with the characters watching events unfold.

If you enjoy slow burner thrillers, this one might be for you.

DNF
I actually stopped reading after a few chapters, and skipped to the end to see how it ended. It just wasn't my cup of tea, I guess.

It started off well when Ella wakes up in a hospital after an accident. Someone is waiting for her to wake up. Her husband. But the thing is that she doesn’t have a husband. So who is he? It was intriguing. But that’s it. 
The story got boring after this. Just couldn’t connect with Ella. And the suspense fell flat.

I realize fiction isn't always very realistic, but this book is plain stupid. In addition, there are long and winding descriptions that are totally unnecessary for the story. Not even a pleasant waste of time.

Having enjoyed some of Samantha Hayes's earlier novels I thought this would be a light, easy read just as those were, but unfortunately it was another day, another family drama based around the idea that you never know someone as well as you think you do, and I feel this is a concept that's wearing very thin these days for me. As often is the case with these books it claims to be a thriller but in reality, it's a family drama or domestic noir only. I don't usually have a problem with a book that's a little less than believable, but here credulity was seriously strained. There is a difference in terms of improbable happenings and impossible ones, and in The Liars Wife, it was very much fixated on the latter.

That said, it is well written and engaging, but there is just one  "twist" which was foreseeable from the beginning, so it didn't take long to become tedious and I found myself wanting to place it down numerous times. The characters came across as most gullible and behaved in odd ways that didn't feel authentic or the way in which a regular person may act in the same situation. You simply cannot relate to any of them. If you're someone who appreciates fast-paced, adrenaline-fuelled stories then you may be wise to stay away from this slow-burning character-driven novel. I'm hoping Hayes's future works return to being exciting and unpredictable.

Many thanks to Bookouture for an ARC.

I’m so happy when I start a new book and it pulls me in right away. Such is the case with The Liar’s Wife by Samantha Hayes. I stayed up very late to finish this novel because I HAD TO KNOW what was going to happen.

Ella has been living a very solitary life. She goes to work, comes home and goes to bed and starts all over again. She keeps to herself even though she works in an office full of people who invite her out for drinks and show interest in getting to know her, especially her coworker, Liam. Something terrible happened in her past and she fears getting close to new people.

One day while bicycling home from work in the rain, she gets hit by a van and ends up in critical care. Awakening from a medically induced coma, she is told her husband has been to there see her. Only Ella doesn’t have a husband. The handsome man who has been keeping vigil next to her bedside is none other than someone from her past, someone she thought had died…

Zach insists on moving wheelchair bound Ella to their new home where he promises to take care of her. He keeps her locked in the house all day, with multiple cameras watching her every move. When he comes home with a baby, telling her their family is complete, she knows Zach is insane. She has a broken arm and leg so she physically cannot leave. And if she tries, Zach threatens that he will go to the police and tell them about the crime she committed, the crime she assumed Zach died from.

This book had me turning pages, gripped with fear for Ella and the baby. Chapters switch from past to present, keeping the reader totally engaged.

Here is the official synopsis:

When Ella wakes up in a hospital following a hit-and-run incident, she is scared and confused. Close to tears, her eyes fall on a get-well-soon card on the window sill and the nurse reassures her that her loving husband will be back soon…

But Ella has never been married.  In fact, she has lived alone her whole adult life; working hard, rarely socialising, quietly harbouring a terrible secret from her past.  Fear sweeps through Ella when she instantly recognises the man who enters the ward. He is not her husband, but she knows that she must do as he says and play the part of dutiful wife.

What choice does she have? He was there the night of the fire, he knows her secret too…

If you enjoy psychological thrillers, you must get your hands on this book. You will probably read it in one day!

I’m a huge fan of Samantha Hayes and she never fails to surprise me with her domestic psychological thrillers that give her readers an insight into their worst nightmares by asking “what if?” Her move to Bookouture seems to have breathed an even bigger shock factor into her books and The Liars Wife really will leave you with your jaw firmly dropped onto the floor!

I purposefully don’t want to rehash any of the plot here in my review as I’m terrified of giving something away! But basically, Ella awakes in hospital after an accident to a loving husband by her bedside. How sweet, you all say! And I would have agreed….apart from the rather small problem in that Ella actually isn’t married!!! And there you go. But from that simple plot point radiates a storyline full of shocking twists and turns that defy the readers attention. I wanted to applaud by the last page and hold the book up as the perfect example of how to plot and deliver a psychological thriller. Ms Hayes really does go from strength to strength and is one of the few authors where I will preorder their books without even reading the blurb.

The Liars Wife is a dark, disturbing and tension filled shocker that completely overwhelmed me whilst I was engrossed in it. I have to say that I followed the almost invisible trail of breadcrumbs and did come to a conclusion quite quickly about where the book was going but that’s my thing! For me psychological thrillers aren’t all about “the twist” or I would have stopped reading them years ago! No, I want that suspense, the “I can’t believe she just did that!” and to truly believe that this is happening to the characters and could, one day, just as easily happen to me…..or even YOU!!

Top marks once again for Samantha Hayes!

I devoured this book in 2 sittings. Something I rarely have time to do but it was impossible to put down.
Plot twists and turns throughout which kept me guessing. The perfect book for any fan of this genre. Fantastic!

Well, well, well. Who would have thought this would be the outcome of this story? I certainly did not, because I was so proud of myself in thinking that I had it all figured out. It seems like I was shooting the penalty kick but completely missing the goal. 

This is a book that slowly builds up to the climax, but once you start getting closer to the revelations, you feel like your are walking on quicksand, are being dragged into it and honestly that all you want at that moment.

It's such a pleasure being utterly wrong-footed and being surprised with something you did not see coming a mile away.

If you are more into fast paced thrillers, you might think this is not your cup of tea. I assure you that you have to give it a go, because you will not be disappointed.

Do you love books that leave you with an OMG feeling? In this case, you just have to read this one.

Thank you, Samantha Hayes, Bookouture and Netgalley.

Having loved Tell Me a Secret by Samantha Hayes I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her latest offering! The Liar’s Wife had me gripped straightaway and I flew through the pages; it was another book that I couldn’t put down until I had answers to all my questions. 

Work. Home. Sleep. Repeat – this is Ella Sinclair’s mantra in life and one that she sticks to rigidly. She is obviously a recluse and we are left wondering why; what is it that she is running/hiding from? Even enthusiastic work colleague Liam can’t break through her routine and tempt her on an evening out. Ella does not socialise in any capacity, she cycles home alone to her flat every day so when she is involved in a traffic accident and wakes to be told her devoted husband Jacob has been waiting for her to wake up and take her home my brain did a little flip and my stomach dropped. Ella is obviously terrified of this man but he claims to hold information on a terrible secret from her past that he will reveal if she doesn’t play the happy little wife.

So begins a dark and disturbing story of Ella being incapacitated and held against her will by a very dangerous (and clearly demented) man. Jacob is one of the most horrible characters I have read recently, my skin was crawling over his actions and my heart was in my mouth every time Ella had a confrontation with him or broke his many rules. I was desperate to know what this secret from the past was that Ella and Jacob shared and as The Liar’s Wife reached its epic conclusion my mind was well and truly blown!

Synopsis
Ella Sinclair lives a reclusive and predictable life; wake, work, sleep.  She keeps herself to herself and tries hard to keep her head down and her life people free.

That is until the day that Ella wakes in hospital after an accident to be told that her husband, Jacob, has been visiting.  Confusing to Ella because she’s never been married!

After a lengthy stay in hospital, Jacob takes Ella home to begin their new life together, leaving Ella with limited choices.  Escape is not an option because he knows something from her past that would devastate her whole world.



Review
This book had me hooked from the beginning.  To begin with, there are the many clues about Ella’s past and why she has become so  aloof and alone.  Then there’s the unexpected appearance of a ‘husband’ that we know does not exist, a person from Ella’s past who has something over her, enough to make her play along with his cruel and wicked game of happy families.

The character of Jacob was written in such a way that my skin crawled every time he was there.  Occasionally I would become frustrated with Ella, willing her to shout out or tell some one what was happening.

I spent the reading time sitting with a huge pit of fear in my stomach, always wondering what was going to happen next.  each chapter unravelled a new element to the story.  The flashback chapters provided glimpses into Ella’s life before and the people in it.  The present scenes became more and more intense as the book went on with each appearance of Jacob becoming more sinister and monstrous as the previous one.

Each chapter build tension until it ends a twisted crescendo of fear and panic.

I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it to any thriller/suspense lovers.

This is a breathtaking read which had me racing through the pages to see what happened next. 
Ella likes her own space and lives alone. She doesn’t like socialising and just wants to get home rather than go out with her colleagues at work. 
One night whilst cycling home she’s hit by a van and wakes up in hospital. 
The nurse is lovely and brings her round gently but Ella is in for a shock when the nurse says her husband has been in everyday while she has been in a coma. 
Ella is shocked as she’s not married. 
Her stomach churns when she realises who he is and she knows she must go along with the charade as he knows her secret. 
Ella is told that ‘her husband’ has adapted their home for the wheelchair that she will need for several weeks and the nurse tells her how lucky she is....
When Ella gets ‘home’ she finds out just how far he has gone to get her under his control. 
This is a nail biting story at times and I was desperate for Ella to get the upper hand. 
If you enjoy a gripping psychological thriller then this is the book for you. 
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Whilst the book had a well thought out plot and was well written, when the twists were revealed they were not a shock as not enough information had been given for the reader to have speculated on the outcome.

If the reader had had more clues and misleading clues along the way then the suspense would have built up and the twists would have been more eagerly anticipated. 

Regardless of this, it was enjoyable written, flowed well with a good storyline.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy..

Omg!!! So much happening!! Amazing storyline!!

Looking forward to read more books soon.

The Liar's Wife is a mind-twisting tale that will have you dangling helplessly from the edge of your seat; with heart-pounding action and suspense at every turn, you'll be completely captivated from start to finish! This first time read shocked me with it's exquisitely crafted words and had me in a state constant suspicion over every character that graced the pages. If you like your reads fast paced, filled with tension and heavy on suspense then I highly suggest you get your hands on this book, it promises to give you all of that and more! By far one of the best thrillers I have settled down with this year!

I requested an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, via NetGalley, and I am voluntarily leaving my honest opinion.

Samantha Hayes

The Liar’s Wife

5 Stars

I am a fan of Samantha Hayes but this book is one of her best and it does keep you guessing until you reach “The End”.

This is a story about Ella, who lives on her own and keeps to herself at work, she is a self-contained unit of one and that is how she wants it to stay. However, things change dramatically when she is hit by a van whilst cycling home from work one evening and when she comes round in the hospital there is a man sat beside her bed who says he is her husband and he will, and does, do everything to keep Ella under his control.
I do not want to give any more of the story away because it will spoil it for the reader but you will not be disappointed. Word of warning – you may need to read this with the light on and a box of tissues to hand.
Samantha has not only written a physiological thriller but also a tale of abuse and terror. Ella is a believable and strong character who will stay with you long after you have finished her story. 

The story flips between the present day and Ella’s University days, and the friendships and relationships she made at that time. Both present and past are equally engaging and I raced through each era to get to the next. Samantha has packed a lot into her story and every time I thought I had sussed out the characters - BANG there was another plot added. 

Take a bow Samantha and hurry up and eagerly await your next book.

What can I say other than what a creepy and intense read this book is! Well alright I can say more although I'm not entirely sure where to start or even what to say as I would hate to ruin a single moment of this book. The Liar's Wife follows Ella who appears to lead a quiet kind of life and who sticks to her own company until an accident puts her in hospital and everything changes but not in a good way!

This book has such an addictive feel to it with me feeling ever so curious as to what was actually going on. It really is a one more chapter kind of book until before you know it you have nearly finished the book! My mind was constantly trying to come up with answers and the not knowing was half of the fun. The main question being who is Ella's husband? 

There were quite a few moments where this book felt increasingly claustrophobic and I felt as if I needed to read it through my fingers! There were times where in a way I guess I had to slightly suspend disbelief but to be honest this probably added to the drama of the story. The characters in this story really made this book especially one in particular who sent shivers up my spine. Put it this way they were responsible for providing plenty of dark, unsettling and disturbing moments. 

The Liar's Wife is full of secrets and Samantha Hayes revealed them at the perfect points so that the tension was kept pretty constant throughout. I had my suspicions regarding certain things and I couldn't wait to see if I was going to be right. There are a few threads within the story so the reader gets to see the past, present and a couple of different perspectives too. This all helps to keep things interesting but the moments where Ella and her 'husband' are at home really do make a chilling impact and I was especially addicted to these chapters.

The Liar's Wife has mystery, suspense and a deep rooted tension running throughout, loved it!

With thanks to Noelle at Bookouture for my copy via Netgalley.

I'm a big Samantha Hayes fan, but this one had me in a tailspin. Meaning – I enjoyed it but there were too many moments when I sat back and thought, 'Nope, not buying this'. For me, it comes down to the 'improbable versus impossible' conundrum. There are certain things I can swallow while reading a book – especially a twisty thriller where nothing is quite what is seems – but from the outset I was screaming at main character Ella to just bloody open her mouth and say something!
I won't go on about the plot, which was certainly well thought out and executed. I figured out the twist early on, despite a plethora of red herrings. And there were other 'fishy' moments, particularly surrounding Ella and Jacob's baby. I just couldn't believe that kindly neighbours would accept her version of events so readily.
All that said, this is an eminently readable book. The author writes with fluidity and style and knows how to suck you in with each chapter. I just don't think – compared to The Reunion – that it fully hits the mark.

I tried so very hard to like this book, because it sounded so intriguing - but unfortunately it didn't work for me at all. This is partly due to the fact that it hinges on actions by the main character I found to be totally far fetched and unbelievable, and I am ready to admit that I am terrible at suspending disbelief. Secondly, I found it hard to relate to any of the characters, both in the past and the present, which didn't help matters. Seeing how this is a slow burning, character driven story,  I was therefore doomed from the very beginning! Even the lure of the unexpected twist could not salvage this for me, and I resign myself to the fact that this is not the right book for me at this time. I have read and enjoyed Samantha Hayes' books in the past, so I will definitely give her another go, but decided to DNF this one around the halfway mark. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review it.

As I recently mentioned I’ve read far fewer psychological thrillers than usual in 2018 but occasionally a book, or author has come across my radar that begs to be picked up. The Liar’s Wife was one such book; I’ve read previous books by this author, her earlier books being published long before this genre burst into popularity.

And The Liar’s Wife has a premise that you know is going to prove to be a gripping one if only to work out what on earth everyone’s motivation is!

Ella works on promotional films and one night after working a little later, as usual refusing to go for a drink with her colleagues, she gets on her bike to go home. On the way a van clips her bike and she hits the ground. The van driver, as she finds out later speeds off and an ambulance is called to take Ella to hospital.
Ella wakes from a coma to a nurse saying that her husband is on his way to visit her but Ella doesn’t have a husband. However unlike any normal person even when Ella is on the road to recovery she doesn’t tell the nurses who are devoted to her, who this man is. No she keeps quiet and lets him take her home to his house in a gated community. The thing is you see is Ella knows who the man is and keeping quiet is a far better option than that secret being exposed.

The story is full of suspense with the twists and turns kept to the right number, enough to allow the reader to get swept up in the story but not so many that the reader gets that travel sickness feeling as the road ahead is switched backwards and forwards before you’ve got your bearings.

Samantha Hayes knows how to write a good story, the tone is right with the dialogue perfectly pitched (one of my biggest gripes is that the villains in these stories often do little more than menace and grunt while their supposed charm would raise the red flags at an alarming rate of knots). I’d like to stress just how well the author recreated married life for Ella once she was at ‘home’ and the scenes were right up there on the creepy scale and I was absolutely on the edge of my seat for these. And then it all tipped over into the unrealistic territory which was a great shame as my enthusiasm then waned somewhat before the ending. That said, I will stress that part of my ‘problem’ with the genre is the number of books I have read within it. I know that if my brain starts flashing ‘I can’t believe that would happen’ types of warnings that no matter how good the author is, I’m unlikely to buy into anything else and of course what I find unbelievable won’t necessarily apply to the next person.

So if you really do enjoy a fast-moving and well-written psychological thriller The Liar’s Wife has a lot to offer.

I'd like to thank the publishers Bookouture for allowing me to read a copy of The Liar's Wife before publication later this week on 22 November 2018. This unbiased review is my thanks to them.