The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney
I rate this book 4 stars
"There's something I have to explain, my love," he says, taking your hand in his. "That wasn't a dream. It was an upload." A book about a couple, who seem on the surface to have it all but suddenly the wife disappears,the husband recreates her as a AI cobot who ends up on a mission to find the person she has replaced.
Once I started reading l couldn't put it down, part psychological thriller, part sci fi. l found it eerie with today's technology, tackling autism with great insight.This book gives so much! Plenty of twists and turns, l didn't see the ending coming.l highly recommend this book if you want something a bit different it delivers and then some.
Thanks to Netgalley for my chance to read this

This had my heart in my mouth. A real page turning thriller of the kind I love. This author is definitely one to watch. Highly recommended.

Couldn't put it down! I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy the book but it was actually fascinating and at times, quite tense. The Sci fi element was well done and it did not feel all that far fetched. Looking forward to reading more from the author!

This was another thriller read by one of the best crime authors around. I love the way the reader is gripped from the beginning until the very end. Recommended.

My rating might seem a bit harsh but as the parent of an autistic child, I just could not get on board with this book at all which is a real shame because I loved 'Believe Me'.

Tim Scott owns a large tech company in Silicon Valley. We learn that his wife Abbie is dead (presumably, no body found) and five years on, he has built his own "cobot" (companion robot) of her by making her look exactly like Abbie and downloading all of her memories and thoughts.

Abbie and Tim have a 10 year son called Danny who has Heller's syndrome (children's degenerative syndrome) but is mostly described in the book as autism. This is where my problem with this book lies.

I understand that the author has an autistic son and a lot of this story has personal influences. Delaney talks a lot about ABA, an abusive form of therapy to control autistic children's behaviours and stims to make them behave as neurotypicals.

I don't agree with statements such as "The mother of a child with autism knows her feelings for him will never be reciprocated. Her child will never say 'I love you...'" He goes on to say that they will never bring a girlfriend home or have children. Wrong and infuriating. There are a lot of comparisons between an autistic brain and the programming of the brains of the robots that our main character Tim Scott was building, insinuating that there aren't that many differences between them.

The main storyline between Tim and his "cobot" version of Abbie is great. She acts and feels like a real person but discovers that Tim hasn't given her all of her memories and she wants to find out what really happened to Abbie.

This was a fab audiobook with perfect narration by Saskia Maarleveld, Graham Halstead and Euan Morton.

It’s set in the new future, when robots or co-bots, are being trialled by a Silicon Valley tech company for various uses in everyday life.

The story is told from both Abbie’s point of view in the present day and also by one of her unnamed colleagues but in the past. It was a very clever way to tell the story, especially when the the view points catch up with each other towards the end.

It sounds like it should be more of a science fiction novel, but it’s not and works extremely well as a psychological thriller.

I liked Abbie but really didn’t like Tim, he was odd and definitely too focussed on his work, obsessed actually. The more I learnt about him the more I didn’t like him and felt there was something very off about him. I’m not saying anything else as it’ll spoil the story for you.

There were some really good twists, especially towards the end when I couldn’t believe what I’d heard, and actually said rather loudly ‘What just happened?’ I had to go back and listen again as I was really shocked!

As I mentioned above, the narration was excellent and worked so well for this audiobook, making it a very enjoyable listening experience.

I definitey recommend this one on audio if you enjoy psychological thrillers.

When Abbie wakes up with no idea who she is or what has happened to her, her husband Tim is more than happy to fill in the gaps. But what secrets are hiding within her past?

The blurb of The Perfect Wife is a little misleading; I had the impression that Abbie would have no idea what she was – a woman woken up from a traumatic accident and told bits about her life only to find something more sinister lurking beneath the surface. However, 3 pages in (so not a spoiler!) we are told Abbie is actually a very intelligent AI system, brought to life in the image of her maker’s wife. She struggles with the idea of her existence as she tries to find out more about the life her maker and his wife had before she was created.

The book is split into two perspectives – the second person tense account of the robot Abbie and the third person of someone else retelling the past. The changes in narrative work really nicely together and the second tense chapters are done very well. We feel a lot of empathy for the Robot Abbie as she comes to terms with having a downloaded human personality and a synthetic body. The plot is very nicely paced and gives small pieces of information away in a trickle until we are racing towards an action-packed finale. I have read that a few people found the ending confusing and although it isn’t quite what I expected to happen I personally didn’t have a problem understanding it – it was an interesting twist!

I also really enjoyed the characterisations explored in the book – particularly Danny who has late onset autism. I found the chapters that included him to be very heart-warming and he felt very fleshed out and well-researched as a character. The asides to his treatment and behaviour therapy were also very interesting. Tim’s colder and ambitious side was also well detailed and the fact we empathised with the robot version of Abbie shows real skill in J.P. Delaney’s work. The writing in general was a joy to read – producing an easy to read book which kept me gripped throughout.

Overall, The Perfect Wife is well-written Sci-Fi with a thriller angle and I highly recommend it. Thank you to NetGalley & Quercus Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had been putting this book off for ages because I was such a big fan of JP Delaneys other book and now I’m really annoyed with myself because I missed out on the genius of this book for so long. - I was hooked right from the beginning, I needed to know why this man was creating a robot version of his wife,

This story had SO many twists and turns that just when you thought you may have worked out where the story was going another spanner was thrown in the works.

I really loved the fact that the story was told from 2 different timelines as we were able to see and really appreciate the subtle differences and changes to Abbies personality and just the way she carried her self in general.

Thank you for giving me the chance to read this. I can or recommend it enough to just about everyone!

I have mixed feelings about this one, at times I really enjoyed it although I found it a bit far fetched. I did find the parts about the different therepys for autism fascinating and found myself googling more about it.
I found the ending a little confusing and was hoping for abit of a happier conclusion.
Admittedly a very clever book that is certainly unique.

I was really excited to read The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney. I am a huge fan of The Girl Before and couldn't put it down so The Perfect Wife had a lot to live up to. (Admittedly despite looking forward to reading it, my eARC of The Perfect Wife sat on my Kindle waiting to be read for far too long and was way overdue by the time I got round to reading it!)

With a plot centred around developments in smart technology and AI, The Perfect Wife is different to anything I've read before. Straight away we are introduced to Abbie, wife of AI-technology-genius Tim Scott, as she finds out that after an "accident" five years ago, she is a new kind of Abbie ... a high-tech AI replacement "Co-bot" developed by her husband's company Scott Robotics.

Struggling to figure out what she is and how she fits in this world, Abbie is also struggling to understand what happened to her human self. What was the accident that ended her life and why is Tim reluctant to tell her the whole truth? As she starts to uncover secrets, she questions if she can really trust her husband.

I enjoyed following Abbie as she learnt the details of her past whilst also following the POV of an unnamed insider at Scott Robotics who told us the story of Abbie and Tim's relationship and the development of the technology that now hosts Abbie.

The Perfect Wife is a really interesting concept and an enjoyable read but I also found it confusing in parts with the different narrators' use of "You". I struggled to understand whose perspective I was reading and had to go back and re-read a few sections to try and get it clear in my head. I felt that the ending escalated quickly when you discovered the reality and scale of the AIs. This felt a little rushed and I would've liked to have read more now that we knew the truth but it does leave it is a sinister little cliff-hanger of an ending.

Thank you to NetGalley, JP Delaney and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had heard wonderful things about J P Delaney’s previous novels “The Girl Before” & “Believe Me”, so when the opportunity came to read “The Perfect Wife” I snapped it up. In truth my review for this book is not what I expected it to be and I have wondered how to form my thoughts into a review that others may find helpful.

The premise of this story was something I was really excited about. Its not a surprise that thrillers are my genre of choice, but couple that with an edge of sci-fi and I’m really excited! Sadly, for me, this storyline didn’t fulfill the expectation I had for it.

I did enjoy the concept and quickly flicked through the pages as it ramped up towards the ending, but the ending is what left me which such an unsatisfied feeling. I was utterly lost and not entirely sure what Delaney was hoping to achieve. I did re read the ending thinking it may have been my misunderstanding that tainted my view, but unfortunately it wasn’t any better the second time.

I do appreciate how Delany was not frightened to try something a little different, even if it did fall short of the mark for my personal taste. I don’t think this title is an indication of what this author is capable of and will certainly read any upcoming work published in the near future.

This book was very different to how I imagined it would be. However, it really drew me in and I couldn’t wait to see how it all turned out. A very well written thriller. 4****

JP Delaney has become an auto buy author for me. His books are full of twists, turns and you are never fully sure what's happened until the very end and even then sometimes it leaves you wondering. I've realised I quite like a book where you don't understand what's happening or it's a bit weird.
While this wasn't my favourite of his books, the AI robotic talk kind of went over my head a bit, I did still really enjoy it.

This is the most unusual book I have ever read and I enjoyed it so much. Abbie awakes in the body of a cobot - an AI who has had (many of) her memories and also personality uplifts from her social media presence blended to form a new and still sentient version of her old self. Her husband Tim who is an extremely successful software creator is the person who has brought cobot Abbie to life. She is far smarter than he gives her credit for and she soon begins to fear all is not as it seems. Threaded throughout Abbie's complex journey to accept her new self and her increasingly complicated relationship with Tim, Tim's myriad adulterous flings and the needs of their beloved autistic son Danny.
The author seemed very knowledgeable about software function, constructs and AI and there were many more books written about this idea of cobots.

Unfortunately, unlike his other work, this book just did not captivate my interest. I usually love his quirky and different storylines but feel this book wasn’t up to par with his other work.

Thank you to Netgalley for this advanced reader's copy in return for my honest review. Having enjoyed JP Delaney's previous novels; I was excited to read The Perfect Wife. Enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend.

On the whole I did enjoy this book but it wasn’t what I was expecting. After reading a book by this author previously I do know that his stories are quite out there. I did find the whole storyline a bit far fetched and out there but it was well written and enjoyable all in all.

This was so different to my other books I read, I read Believe Me and I loved it, so jumped at the opportunity at another book by this author,

I loved it. Absolutely loved it.

So many twists and turns and jaw dropping moments, the writing was good and I really enjoyed the plot.

Wow, this was a complex plot line and I was enthralled by it. You have to suspend your disbelief for the duration but it was a page turner for sure. You are thrown back and forth on a sea of uncertainty about who is to blame for the explosive events throughout. Is it the wife of the husband or the neighbour?? Really enjoyed this.

Much of humanity seem to have a obsession with perfection,almost every day there is a new advert on tv for some miracle cream that costs a fortune and probably isn't likely to work. People spent large amounts of money on cosmetic surgery, BOTOX injections and anything else to make themselves as perfect as possible. It's all a waste of money because,no matter what you do,we all get wrinkles,we all grow old and we all eventually die. And anyway no matter how much money you spend,nobody is perfect And then there are the people who abort their unborn child just because they have discovered that the fetus has a disability or don't want the poor child after it is born because it isn't perfectly healthy. Or, as in this shocking story about the strive for perfection,are prepared to use cruel and controversial methods to attempt to cure their child's disability.I

This enthralling story is voiced from the perspective of Abbie Cullen Scott,who is married to Tim who is the CEO of a robotics company and the couple have a young son named Danny who suffers from a degenerative disorder which is also known as Heller's syndrome. When we first meet Abbie, she is just waking up.in a room that is full of beeps and machinery,she is in a lot of pain and automatically thinks that she has been involved in a accident. That is until Tim informs her that she is actually a highly evolved SO that he has built in the image of his beloved wife Abbie who disappeared five years ago. Abbie is understandably shocked and doesn't want to believe that what he is saying is true. She has memories of their lives together,the memories are admittedly a bit disjointed but that is just because of the trauma that she suffered in the accident. We follow Abbie as she begins to understand that what Tim is telling her is the truth but that doesn't mean that he is being completely honest with her and she gradually begins to understand just what sort of man she is living with. As time passes and more of her memories start to return,she begins to wonder if maybe Tim had something to do with his wife's disappearance and she starts having fears for the safety of herself and young Danny. Her fears were not unfounded because Tim was a very obnoxious character but was he a killer? Or had Abbie just ran away? but why would a apparently loving mother disappear and leave her beloved son behind? I really liked AI Abbie,I thought she was a wonderful character with very realistic emotions and it was lovely witnessing the growth of the relationship between her and Danny and how she figured out a way to communicate with him. I thought it was very ingenious how the author used the striking similarities in the emotions of people with learning difficulties and robots as a plot devise. How the way that Abbie was treated like a inanimate object with no rights and ostracized by at time is also exactly how people with disabilities are very often treated. Interspersed throughout the story there was chapters that were voiced by a unknown narrator who took the reader through the back history of Tim and Abbie's relationship before she disappeared. The identity of the narrator isn't revealed unti! towards the end of the story and was one hell of a unexpected plot twist.

The Perfect Wife is a extremely well written,chilling thriller that is a mix between The Stepford Wives and Westworld. The characters are well rounded and realistic,some likeable,some not so likeable. One of the chapters was seriously intense and definitely pulled on this reader's heart strings and the ending was chilling and very creepy. I'm certain that this book would raise some interesting discussions if it was read by a book group. I would happily recommend this book to other readers and look forward to finding out what this talented author's imagination has conjured up for his next book.