This book was sadly underwhelming. It started off with the potential to be a stunning psychological thriller but quickly went downhill. It only took a few chapters for me to start intensely disliking Claire. I was shocked when I read that she was a lawyer; she seemed just as naive and gullible in the present-day storyline as she did in the flashbacks. She annoyed me as well with her constant obsession over Daniel and how she kept thinking she saw him in Mark. I understand the allure of first love, especially if it ended too quickly in tragedy, but reading about it over and over was tiresome.

The story and characters were messy, inconsistent, and underdeveloped. I felt that the story could have used a lot more work and was very convoluted. I disliked all of the characters, especially Claire and Angus. They had a terrible relationship even before the cheating began, and I was very surprised they'd gotten engaged. Claire is definitely the type to cling to men she's not necessarily into just for the security blanket a relationship can provide, but it didn't seem as though Angus was very into her most of the time either.

I could see the twist coming a mile away, and was surprised Claire hadn't put it together when I did. I guess that just shows how poor her relationship was, but her ignorance was honestly more shocking than the twist itself. The ending was messy and rushed, and also could have used much more work. Overall, I was not a fan and almost put the book down a few times, but I wanted to see how the story ended and felt that finishing the book would make my review completely honest rather than a partial review.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Bookoture for an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Clare is engaged to Angus but she's never let go of her relationship with Dan and now she's met a man who looks like him. Told in dual time lines of Clare's life, this one coulda shoulda been better. Sorry but that's the case. There's potential but I never really connected with anyone, especially Clare. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

The Couple is a thrilling book with a twist at the end. Claire and Angus have a whirlwind romance and have just got engaged and bought a gorgeous new house. Straight away we are suspicious around the seemingly lack of “that special something”, you know what you would expect with a newly engaged couple buying a house. But there was an obvious (to me) lack of passion about this couple. It’s not too long until we hear about Claire’s ex, ( the One that got away), Daniel. Enter the next character, Mark who was the previous owner of the house. Mark reminds Claire so much of Daniel, now we can know trouble is brewing.

The characters within this book were not really likeable. In my opinion if an author can give you any feelings about their characters then they are well written. Sometimes, it even makes it a better read if you dislike them. But it’s unusual to find a book with no likeable characters though. There was nobody that I was rooting for. Each character had their own flaws, issues and suspicions.

The author gives us a good insight into Claire’s job as an immigration officer. I do like a book where there is something different in the characters life to learn about. Legal immigration is something I knew little about, so it was good to learn.

I found it difficult to understand a lot of the decisions that Claire made. Perhaps some readers would see this as a negative, but I chose to see it as Claire’s flaws and many of the reasons why I disliked her.
The chapters range from present to 5 years previous where we learn about the ex Daniel. This way of writing made me more intrigued to know what happened in the past.

I would describe The Couple as a domestic thriller where you suspect the 2 men in Claire’s life of something…. and you will be surprised and satisfied with the twist at the end.

Claire, an immigration lawyer, is engaged to be married to Angus, an entrepreneur who has his own chain of boutique hotels. They had a brief, whirlwind courtship and decide to tie the knot. While house-searching, they find what looks like a perfect one. Even more “perfect” seems to be the man, Mark, who is looking for a distress sale. Doesn’t help, that Mark looks like Dan, Claire’s ex-boyfriend and the only person she truly loved.

Told alternatively between the now and then, Claire’s character slowly unfolds in front of you. You start questioning Claire’s decisions, choices and start wondering what’s exactly going on.
An important issue underlies the story – the case of illegal immigrants in the UK, a racket which could have been portrayed with more importance.

No one seems to be what they are. Mark is shady, Angus also seems to have some secrets of his own, and Claire perhaps takes the cake.
You have no idea who is really lying or who is the real "bad guy". The twists were unexpected and kept coming throughout, however, the ending felt a bit tad and abrupt.

A one time read.

3.5 stars. I liked it but didn't love it.
I didn't really feel a connection with the characters and found the story to be a little bit slow and confusing, a little messy and a rushed ending. Not as captivating as other psychological thrillers I've read from Bookouture's authors.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC of this book. This is my honest review. All opinions are my own!

I enjoyed this book. The writing was good, but I didn't like any of the the characters. At times I found the past to present story telling to be a bit confusing. That being said though, I was hooked to the very end.
Thank you to NetGalley and the the publisher for this ARC.

This book was brilliant! The story unfolds steadily, revealing the main character, Claire's, life, both past and present, piece by piece. As it twists and turns, you become more and more intrigued about the things you don't yet know. As the secrets of her past are revealed and the intrigue of her current relationships play out, you just have to keep reading. At 2am, I was telling myself "just one more chapter". The author's clever use of alliteration only serves to make this stand out as more than just a simple thriller. Very sophisticated writing and an excellent and intriguing story.

After a whirlwind romance Claire and Angus are engaged and soon to be married .
However, when Claire goes to view a house she meets its present owner Mark, who bears more than a passing resemblance to a past love, Daniel and she finds herself more and more drawn to Mark.

Definitely a story with a difference , started slowly for me but as I got into it I began to enjoy it more.
On the plus side there were plenty of twists and surprises, you never quite knew who to believe and author Sarah deftly moved from past to present and kept you interested.
On the minus side I really didn't gel with the characters , especially Claire who was just too weak and not likable.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC for an honest and independent review.

Sadly I failed to connect with this book. I found the story not only slow but very disjointed. Unfortunately I didn't particularly like the characters either.

DNF @30% mark due to the book's inability to grab my attention. Simply put, it wasn't interesting to me.

Thank you Netgalley for the Opportunity to preview The Couple by Sarah Mitchell.
A woman, Claire, falls hard for a a man, Angus, she just met and then she she meets a man, Mark, who looks awfully like her past lover.
Her new husband is getting suspicious that something is going on and soon Claire feels dangerously off kilter and she doesn't seem to know what is going on. After reading this book, i didn't really know what was going on. Not sure if I would call this a thriller but more of a drama.
I didn't find this book as interesting or thrilling.
2 stars

Well, well, what was this all about? I felt like I got a bucket load of information thrown at me and I had not the slightest idea what was going on. I could not imagine where it would all lead to and I wondered how this was going to come together.

The author played a game of table tennis and I was the little ball going to and fro between past en present. 

Little by little every small bit of information became connected to the next one and I saw the light! At least I thought I did, but I had not taken the curveballs into consideration.

I love it when the chaos turns into orderliness. When you thought, in the beginning,  some of the details did not add anything, afterwards you have to admit they had to be there indeed.

This story had a slow take off but it certainly picks up speed towards the end. 

The male characters were not very likeable, but they were perfect for the role they played, because nice men don't get involved in this kind of dodgy activities, don't they?

Overall, I enjoyed the story and the idea behind it was original. 4 stars.

Thank you, Sarah Mitchell, Bookouture and Netgalley.

Claire and Angus are engaged to be married after a quick, 4-month romance. They are moving forward to build their future together, which includes buying a house. When Claire meets Mark, the man trying to sell her the house, she feels unsettled as he reminds her of Daniel, her old love from 5 years ago. Claire finds herself drawn to Mark while dealing with Angus showing her a side of him she has never seen - a jealous, angry side.
I liked the book just OK - it seemed a bit slow at times and I didn't connect with any of the characters - in fact, I really disliked Claire. She seemed very wishy-washy and gullible and I didn't buy her as a lawyer. i also wasn't sure where the book was heading - sometimes this is a great thing for building a twist - but this story line seemed erratic and disjointed. It wasn't bad, just wasn't a favorite of mine.
Thank you to Sarah Mitchell, Bookouture and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

This was an easy, engaging book to read and kept me pretty absorbed. I enjoyed her writing style.

There were a few of Claire's actions that I felt were not believable. There was a lack of character development for the four main characters, other than a feeling you didn't like them. This is unusual as in most books there are one or two characters you like! I feel the author missed an opportunity to show us why Claire's relationship with Daniel was so great, but instead we were just told it was. Likewise, other than hearing her relationship with Angus was a whirlwind, we did not get the flavour of the relationship development, or the wooing. I felt the description of the 'baddie' just as the albino pretty unimaginative.

Sadly the twists didn't really do it for me as they felt dropped in without an explanation, which would have helped wrap the story up.

I love a good thriller, and had high hopes for this book, but it didn't do it for me. It sounded just like my sort of book and kept reading hoping it would grab me, but in the end it was just too far fetched and needed more wrapping up to finish the story.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

Honestly, this book is a bit of a mess. I really didn’t get it at all. It’s underdeveloped and the ending was sort of a let down. I would pass on this one.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I very much enjoyed Ms. Mitchell's thriller. It was a nice departure to have a book set in a government ministry. A very timely background story discussing immigration/migrants.

Lots of twists and turns, excitement and shocks until the very last page.

I was totally seduced by the tag-line for this book: Whatever you think you know, you're wrong. Wow! This book could go anywhere plotline-wise with a premise like that. So, what are we led to believe which we could misunderstand so badly?

Claire and Angus are newly engaged, setting up their together home and making plans for their wedding. Personally I found Angus to be rather overbearing, quite pompous and controlling and couldn't see what Claire saw about him as being attractive - especially as it is hinted that things ended badly with her previous 'significant other' and it took her a while to be ready for a new relationship. The only reason for her falling for him that I could see was that he would offer her financial security. It didn't seem enough for her to marry him in my opinion - or maybe I am getting older and more cynical?

There are regular flashbacks to Claire's previous relationship with Daniel, her ex boyfriend when she was at uni in Cambridge, which dripfeed snippets of history into the mix which kind of explain certain aspects of Claire's current behaviour and this is where that wonderful tag-line comes into play. You make lots of assumptions as to what transpired at this time and make links to her current situation but still I didn't feel entirely comfortable that she would make the decisions she did based on the information I had about her. The writing is very clever in leading you to jump to conclusions and make up your own ideas as to the facts when the reality is brilliantly cloaked in non-disclosure.

I have to admit that I tied myself in knots at one point in the book and even when I had read the final pages I was still a little confused about some parts of the story which left me feeling unsettled, and thinking about the characters long after I had put the book down. I didn't find any of the characters at all likeable, and despite her initial squeaky clean image Claire certainly has a hidden side to her which will have you rethinking the whole tale by the time you've finished. Nothing and nobody is what they seem in this one.

This is one of those books which I say to people that they need to read for themselves to form their own opinion, because even now I'm still not sure what I think - other than what a great bit of writing!

I was given an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and independent review.
Slightly mixed feelings about this book. On a positive note I was intrigued by the story and was happy to keep reading to see how it turned out. I also liked the way it which it was written - fairly to the point and not lots of unnecessary narrative.
On the negative side I did not warm to the character of Claire at all. She was a bit wishy washy and gullible and it was hard to tie this up with her being an immigration lawyer. But perhaps this was the author’s intention.
The second half of the book for me was significantly better. So overall not a bad book.
3.5 stars

Surprising until the very last page. The Couple has a gripping plot that will captivate mystery and romance lovers. You just don't know what's going on. There were pages I had to read twice because I couldn't believe my eyes.
The main character Claire is an immigration lawyer with a dark past whose job makes the story even more interesting. In spite of being engaged, she isn't besotted by her fiance Angus, a serious hotel owner, so they are a bit far from being the perfect couple. They buy a house from an attractive man and Claire's life changes in unexpected ways.
The book is full of twists an turns and even if it is fast-paced you should read it slowly or you may not be able to understand how complex the story is.
I would like to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2668464646

„The kind of knowledge to which you close your eyes and exist, quite happily, in willful ignorance…“
A supspenseful story told in the present and five years earlier. IMHO this works out perfectly in this book. The subplots are tied well as well as the characters are original and there are quite a few twists and changes going on that kept me reading! Just as I thought I had it all worked out another turn came up; so the tension never left! Some of the characters are likeable while others wanted me to wring their necks!
Some highly current issues are brought up as well which worked perfect for me.
Thank you #Netgalley for this ARC