Abbie awakens in a daze with no memory of who she is or how she landed in this unsettling condition. The man by her side claims to be her husband. He’s a titan of the tech world, the founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most innovative start-ups. He tells Abbie that she is a gifted artist, an avid surfer, a loving mother to their young son, and the perfect wife. He says she had a terrible accident five years ago and that, through a huge technological breakthrough, she has been brought back from the abyss.

She is a miracle of science.

But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins questioning her husband’s motives—and his version of events. Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together forever? And what really happened to Abbie half a decade ago?

Beware the man who calls you . . .

THE PERFECT WIFE



My Thoughts: At first glance, The Perfect Wife could be one man’s attempt to recreate his dead wife, unable to move on after the loss of her. Since he is adept at technological advances, what Tim does to create his dream wife seems almost sweet.

But it doesn’t take long for the artificial version to fill the reader in on the true motives, and even then, we have persistent questions about what is really going on.

The story unfolds in alternating narratives: Real Abbie vs. Artificial Version. We soon come to empathize with each part of her, turning pages rapidly to learn what she will ultimately decide to do when her very existence is threatened.

At the very end, I was stunned by what happened. Could there be some kind of happiness in whatever chosen existence prevails? Would the Real Abbie please stand up? 5 stars.

***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley.

I received a copy of this book from netgalley in return for my honest review. This book was so good. It kept my attention and really kept me guessing!!!! I never knew what was going to happen next!!!! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery!!

Abbie is the perfect wife, a selfless human, always doing and saying the right thing. This thought provoking thriller of sci-fi proportions will have you falling out of your seat. Just when I thought it was going one way it went another. Just when I really wanted to dislike a character I came to love them. But most of all, I learned to have empathy for Abbie, even though she was not what she seemed, she truly was human in the end, for all she did was love her son, just as any mother should. Just read it already!

This book was a wild, weird and totally unexpected ride into the world science fiction, suspense and psychological thriller. Combining a warning against Artificial Intelligence and a husband’s determination to have a perfect wife, this book is not at all believable, but it was definitely entertaining and absorbing. Abbie awakens in a hospital without any memory of her life, but her husband informs her that she had a terrible accident and is a great mom to their autistic son, an surfer and a talented artist. Abbie knows that all is not as it seems, and her memory evolves as does the book. This is probably the most original story that I have read in a long time. It reminded me of “The Stepford Wives” but it has so much more depth to it. Abbie actually has a personality and wants to make choices. This is a domestic thriller with so many secrets to be revealed and so much deception to be uncovered. Fans of contemporary psychological thrillers will enjoy this book, especially the twists and the unexpected revelations.

I had nightmares when I went to sleep partway through the novel. I dreamed of AI, of robotic people taking over my life. It was horrifying, but it also was a huge sign to me that this novel had achieved what J.P. Delaney had likely hoped for. It got under my skin, it was unforgettable, it was consuming. Abbie awakens with little memory, she doesn't know what has happened or why her recovery is such a miracle, but she will once she arrives home to the truth. As her husband tells her, she's a miracle of science, the woman he loves, an AI with thoughts and feelings. Some things don't add up though, like what happened five years ago and why her husband doesn't seem to be telling her everything.

Y'all, The Perfect Wife is like The Stepford Wives mixed with I, Robot; it's just a little too perfect and things are a little too neat. Luckily, we get two perspectives, that of Abbie's and that of an unknown from the tech offices of Tim Scott. We read about a woman finding her memories, finding her place after being away so long, and we read about the same woman, many years earlier, as she creates art and steals the heart of young, socially awkward Tim. These two narratives, at first, meet in the middle, but soon the dark sides of young love, of feverish desire for fame, and the love a mother has for her child, change the tone completely. The story turns bleak and while readers don't know what happened, like AI Abbie we can guess that something terrible happened five years ago, we can guess that someone is holding back the truth.

I was completely caught up in this novel, I am not very often into science-fiction type novels, but I love how J.P Delaney writes a thriller and he mixed the two genres very well. The story touches on misogyny, artificial intelligence, marriage, mental health, and more. It's a complex story with philosophical questions that will leave you questioning your beliefs and morals long after the last page. The Perfect Wife is filled with twists, it was impossible to guess what came next and I found myself shocked at the ending. It truly is a novel where nothing is as it seems.

It’s said that opposites attract, and that was true in the case of Abbie Cullen and Tim Scott. Tim was an intense, driven owner of a tech corporation, while Abbie was an artist who loved surfing. Tim hired Abbie to be the artist in residence as he was designing and developing “shopbots,” automated salespeople that were programmed to respond to customers and upsell as much as possible.

Abbie’s disappearance nearly five years earlier left Tim devastated, and he came up with a creative solution to calm his grief. Meet Abbie, the upgraded “shopbot” who is programmed with the real Abbie’s memories and mannerisms. She is able, through a system of complicated algorithms, to access these memories and learn new things, the better to fulfill Tim’s fantasy of having the perfect wife.

This was a fascinating read, and I was captivated by Abbie and her determination to discover everything she could about Tim and the relationship he and the original Abbie had had, especially since she wasn’t human.

I've read and enjoyed all of J.P. Delaney's previous novels, so I was excited to pick this one up! It definitely has more of a sci-fi element than Delaney's previous works, which is hinted at in the blurb, but was not what I was expecting. Finding out Abbie was actually a "cobot", or "companion robot", was a surprise to me, and to be honest, I was worried I wouldn't enjoy the book because of that. 

Overall, I did really like The Perfect Wife, up until the final few pages. The beginning and middle of the book focus on Abbie trying to figure out what happened to the real Abbie, as her body was never found. The circumstances of her disappearance are suspicious, and many people believe her husband was involved. 

Chapters alternate between past and present, which was enjoyable, and I liked seeing the real Abbie's chapters juxtaposed with cobot Abbie's. Despite this book being a thriller/mystery, the underlying sci-fi elements give the reader a creepy insight into what the not-so-distant future may look like based on current technological advances. 

While I did find the ending of the book to be a little confusing, and a little rushed, I did really enjoy the book overall, and rated it 4 stars. I'd like to thank Netgalley and Random House Bellantine for my copy of the book. It was my pleasure to provide an honest review.

This was a completely unique thriller, with a sci-fi element! I was completely enthralled with the story, both the mystery and the moral question of robots. I was so glad I had nothing to do all day yesterday so I could devour this book! A definite 5🌟 read!!!

Let's talk about how CRAZY the story is in The Perfect Wife. It is not at all what I thought it would be about. I was expecting some book about a murdering wife who's trying to be the best. NOPE. Not at all. Instead, I was treated to a book about the emotions and struggles of an AI, who "used to be" (not sure what the lingo is here) married to a visionary. Then the wife died or disappeared or something nefarious, and the visionary decided to put his wife's essence in an AI. Bizarre, yes. But so so freaking good.

I read this book over two days and had a hard time putting it down. Nothing like I thought, and everything I didn't know I wanted. Super great book.

Highly recommend!

Review The Perfect Wife
Abbie wakes up from what seems like a coma. Then she learns that she is a cobot, a companion robot, with Artificial Intelligence created by Tim to replicate his dead wife, Abbie. Her hair and skin are coverings over a plastic body with moveable parts. She has many but not all of Abbie’s memories. She also has many gaps in her memories that will fill in eventually.

Tim Scott was the hard driven & extremely wealthy founder of Scott Robotics, a tech startup in Silicone Valley. His beautiful wife Abby had vanished 5 years before and left Tim and Danny’s, their autistic 9 year old son alone. Tim professed his great love for Abby, the cobot, but his work took precedence over his family life as it did when Abby was alive.

This story is told from Abby’s point of view as well as from a historical point of view. We learn about Tim and Abby’s courtship as well as their married life. Yet the more we learn about Tim, the more unappealing he became. He expected his employees to perform extraordinary things but excoriated them when they fail. He showed little interest in Danny’s progress but professed to love him as well.

Abby, the cobot, started getting text messages from an anonymous source and began to investigate the circumstances surrounding Abby’s disappearance. She learned that Tim had been accused of Abby’s murder but the case was thrown out when the judge ruled that without a body and conclusive evidence, it could not be proven that Abby was really dead.

This psychological thriller kept my attention soon after it began. My initial reaction was a distaste for science fiction stories but the story was so much more interesting. I was hooked until the very end and surprised at how it did end. The author based the experiences with therapies for autistic children on her own experiences as the mother of an older autistic child.

This ARC was provided by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I went into this book fascinated by the description and the author. But this was just not my type of thriller. It was a bit too sci-fi for me. While it did have a twist, it just wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped! I will say this, the concept is totally original and well written. Just not my cup of tea.

DNF at 35%. The plot sounded really interesting, and I liked Delaney's other two books all right, but this one just didn't work for me. Tim was an awful character, and nothing showed me why Abbie would want to be with him to begin with. While the mystery aspect of what happened to Abbie kept me going as far as I did, I skipped to the end to see how it panned out, and uh...let's just say I'd have been really upset if I had read 400+ pages for the ending/explanation that was served up.

People may wind up enjoying this, but just know, the description of the book versus what you get in the book are almost night and day...and not in a good way.

This was a very exciting book. It never lagged and kept my interest throughout. The ending was a total surprise and was extremely well written. I highly recommend it.

The Perfect Wife: A Novel
Author: JP Delaney
The genre of this book is a psychological thriller. The author keeps you in suspense until the very end, which fooled me, as I did not think the person who manufactured and plotted the “crime” was one of the main protagonists. I am not a lover of Sc-Fi and it did take me longer than normal to finish the book.
Tim Scott, famous entrepreneur, is married to Abbie Cullen. One day she goes missing while surfing in rough waters. Five years later, Tim builds a robot re-creation of his wife (cobot Abbie). This robot can talk and was created to have emotions and even memories. The cobot begins to look into what actually happened to Tim’s wife. We follow the twists and turns of this thriller, which is disturbing, and at the same time fascinating.

OMG - what a great book!! The well-crafted storyline will keep you guessing until the end. This is the first book I’ve read by JP Delaney and I look forward to reading more.

Holy Moly was this a fantastic book. I read this book in less than a day. It complexly sucked me in right from the beginning. And I literally could not put it down.

The book is told in the second person, and on two different timelines. While some authors would not be able to do this without simply confusing readers, XX does it in a way that not only makes it clear what is going on, but it somehow adds to the story.

This book kept me guessing from the very beginning and I loved every minute of it. There is. West world feel to this as a robot is essentially the main character. And much like east world you are made to wonder just what makes something human.

J.P. Delaney knows how to create a story that isn't what it seems. Twists and turns are around every corner and when you think you have something figured out, another curve ball is thrown in.

Abbie has very fuzzy memories of the last five years of her life. Waking from a coma one would expect that. One would also expect a great deal of confusion as to how they got to where they are. Lucky for Abbie she has her husband by her side.

Soon after returning home Abbie is realizing a lot of things are not as they appear. She's also starting to suspect that multiple people are keeping things from her. Things that could reveal what really happened the night of her accident and how certain people fit into what happened.

A twisting and turning ride that will have you second guessing yourself right until the end.

This book was so amazing! Definitely the most interesting thing I’ve read this year! I will be honest, when I first started it, I realized it was not at all what I thought it was going to be about, but very early in, I could not put it down. I read it in basically 2 sittings, which NEVER happens for me anymore. I simply don’t have the luxury of time to read that way at this point in life! But this book was an exception! Although not at all what I expected (and very strange at the beginning to me), I simply couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen in this story. I genuinely cared about Abbie and what happened to her and I was fascinated about the storyline and couldn’t wait to see what happened! What an intense ride! This is such a great read on so many levels and definitely doesn’t disappoint. The Perfect Wife will definitely be on my mind for a long time and will definitely be a book I recommend.

In 1632 Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a monument to his late wife. In 2019 Tim Scott builds a cobot (companion robot) to replace his (presumed, as a body has never been found) deceased wife after mourning her loss for five years. And she's The Perfect Wife-an exact physical replica (although not totally anatomically correct) of his beloved Abbie-this technological marvel can also feel emotions, and has been uploaded with Abbie's memories of her life as a human. Sound crazy? This kind of invention is probably not too far away from becoming a reality. While J P Delaney is known for blending mystery with technology (his debut novel The Girl Before featured a house with more bells and whistles than a fleet of Amtrak trains), The Perfect Wife takes "artificial intelligence" to a whole new level. At first cobot Abbie thinks Tim created her because he and their autistic son could not live without Abbie, but ultimately learns his true intention-AI Abbie exists only to help find out what really happened to human Abbie. The first two thirds of The Perfect Wife passes quickly but fairly uneventfully-mostly dealing with the founding of Tim's business and his courtship with Abbie-but the last part is a runaway locomotive of twists and turns. The Perfect Wife is told in alternating POV's-between cobot Abbie and an unnamed narrator (the big reveal is the novel's ultimate "I didn't see that coming" moment). Comparisons to The Stepford Wives are inevitable, but unlike that campy classic the threat here does not come from the robot. Despite the subject matter, The Perfect Wife deals with very human afflictions of the heart and mind-love, loss, death, and a fate that may be worse than death...living with a person who doesn't want you to stay, but refuses to let you go.

I was extremely excited to receive a copy of The Perfect Wife. I had thoroughly enjoyed The Girl Before and anticipated reading JP Delaney's latest endeavour.

With a techno-thriller vibe, The Perfect Wife inhabits the world of Silicon Valley where a start up company has developed a prototype for a "cobot." This Artificial Intelligence companion has been customized to fill an emotional void for the grieving CEO. As the story unfolds, we learn, as always, things are not as they seem. We delve into the personal and professional relationships of the characters. Dysfunction and intrigue abound.

Although the concept was clever, this novel fell short of my expectations. I just was not emotionally vested in any of the characters. Although the ending included a twist, it didn't pack the punch I expected. Perhaps someone with more of a tech background would have a greater appreciation, but it just wasn't for me. My rating is a solid 3.0