Ohhhh eeeee! What a hot spicy, and delicious dark romance. This definitely had a new air about it compared to most "romance " tropes. Definitely enjoyed and definitely recommend.

I truly enjoyed the pacing of the story and the well-written characters. This book took me by surprise. It kept me interested throughout the story and I needed to see what was going to happen. I would recommend this story to all thriller and who-done-it lovers.

Gripped me right from the start and kept my attention from start to finish. Absolutely adored this book!!

4.5 stars

It begins with a woman lying in a pool of blood in the hallway of her home. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she remembers how it all began. Knowing what she knows, would she still open that door?

Claire is a woman still grieving the loss of her young daughter three years ago and is just now seeing the fog disappear and taking an interest in living again.

Her husband has lied to her, cheated, got another woman pregnant, turned her friends against her. When she decides to pack her bags and leave, he becomes dangerously angry.

He locks her out of the home, changes the locks on her business, cancels the credit cards, and turns all her friends against her with his lies.

It’s one thing to discover the man you married is not who you think he is. It’s another thing entirely to prove it. After all, who is going to take the word of an unstable woman who’s never fully recovered from the heartbreak of losing her child?

This is an exceptional emotionally charged thriller with a finely crafted plot line. It's a tale of love, hate, loss, and new beginnings. The characters are memorable and the reader can feel the angst, the anger, the hurt, the pain ... and experience, along with them, hope and looking forward, even a new romance... and trying to stay alive when divorce becomes a killing offense.

Many thanks to the author / Sunset Coast Publishing / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological drama. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Absolutely fantastic had me gripped!!! Loved it! Can't wait for more from.this author. Story line was great, characters were easy to.connect with

Thank you for the advanced copy

The Scream Behind Her Smile is a fantastic book. It was suspenseful and definitely a page turner. The characters are well written and the story had my on the edge of my seat

A must read.

This book was provided to me for free in exchange for my honest opinion.

I give it a 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Finally, a story about a woman who knows her worth and fights for what she wants and deserves. I loved how the suspense ramped up through the story keeping my interest from beginning to end. I look forward to reading more books by this author.

Omg, what fantastic book! This thriller kept me up all night last night I couldn't put it down my pulse was racing and the pages were flipping. Excellently written, the characters were so well-developed they felt real there were people I hated absolutely hated and others I was cheering on and like yelling at them can't you see what's happening turn around and look look what's happening how can you trust that person. I've never had such a good time reading a book. I highly highly recommended. I've already plan on gifting this book when it comes out to two girlfriends because I think they're going to be thrilled with it. I have not read this author before but I'm going to look and see what else she's written.

I'd like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest opportunity. Again, wow!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley.
The Scream Behind Her Smile is a romantic suspense novel following Claire and Derek whom have been together for a decade!
This book was amazing. I couldn't put it down. It drew me in immediately!

Great read, would absolutely recommend! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion!

Be ready for lots of twists and turns in Athena Daniels' The Scream Behind Her Smile. Claire and Derek have been together for a decade. She believes they are still in love. They have worked, not always together, to mostly overcome a tragedy - they lost their five-year-old daughter three years ago. Life is different, but their marriage works.
Until it doesn't. Until Jasmine, a supposed old friend of Derek's, shows up at the door ready to move into their guest room. Claire doesn't know this woman and doesn't want her in her home. Who is she? And why does it look like Derek and Jasmine are closer than they should be?
Claire is trying to pull herself out of her long depression. Her friends and husband think she quit her medicine too soon. She isn't being herself. She is even attracted to a stranger, Zach.
But Zach is there for her. Wants to help her. Doesn't make her feel crazy or talk down to her. But her husband, the man she is supposed to love, has changed. Can she walk away from him unscathed? And how long can she live with Jasmine in her home, seeming to take over her life?
Fantastic novel, I really enjoyed the characters and the suspense. It was hard to tell who was the wronged party and how it would all play out in the end. Kept me guessing!

This book had me incredibly sucked in, especially for a romantic suspense! That’s usually not my style, but it was so well written and enthralling that I couldn’t help myself! The author made the characters so multi-dimensional that I couldn’t help but be completely pulled into the story. The love scenes were written tastefully and with nicely descriptive words, and the suspense parts woven in had me wondering what could possibly happen next. I loved this book, and am forsee myself watching it over and over again. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my ARC in return for my honest opinion!

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. Full review to come soon.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

The Scream Behind Her Smile by Athena Daniels. SPOILER ALERT!!!
I received this book as an Arc and it was my first book by this author.

I have to say that this book grabs your attention from the first page and doesn't let up; but about half way through, I felt it was a bit repetitive on how many times Claire brought up her feelings about Zach. I mean I get it, she's only been in one relationship her whole life and he's a scumbag but it felt like it went on and on about her feelings for him. Then the sex scenes were just too over the top. I don't mind sex scenes or any type of intimate passion/romance in a book but I just couldn't find it in me to love this book because I felt like it drug on and on and so repetitive that I almost decided to read a diff book but it takes quite a lot for me to DNF (did not finish) a book. I did finish the book and I'm glad I stuck with it because it did pick back up, granted some of the parts were dragging and repetitive but I pushed through to find out the ending.

I did want to give Derek an intense throat punch for being such a prick to his wife. Controlling her to the point of taking full control of her bank accounts, her business, her credit cards, her home by giving her a unfathomable ultimatum. I was literally seething inside thinking how twisted this guy is to be so cruel to his own wife for nothing she did at all, but for his infidelity and benefit!! Disgusting! Then he's always taking Jasmine's side on everything no matter what and making Claire out to be a jealous unstable woman, stating several times that she's not been the same since she hasn't been taking her meds. Meds that make her numb to everything, even too numb to think she's the crazy one for being so upset over Jasmine. All I can say is WOW!

Jasmine is on a whole nother level. Can I say barbaric, vindictive, conniving hussy!!? She purposely antagonized Claire since the day she showed up at her front door. Acting all innocent and sweet but then 2 minutes into the front door, she's babbling on and on about Derek and rubbing everything into Claire's face...being overly flirtatious with Derek, Touching his arm, his thigh, & giggling like a school girl when she and Derek were reminiscing old times....shaking her ass in the thong swim suit giggling to Derek to come swim with her, intentionally making her proximity to Derek as close as she could, being brash to try to keep Claire out of the conversation, telling Claire that she's "just old friends" with Derek and that she shouldn't be so uptight about her. Basically laughing in her face because Derek didn't fight off the seductiveness she was giving and she enjoyed hurting Claire as much as she could.
B*tch please!!! I would've grabbed her up by the hair from the pool, dragging her to my front door and then would've literally slung the homewrecking wh*re out my front door and told her to stay off my property or else next time I wouldn't be just throwing her out the door but something much worse! Then I would've told Derek if he didn't like it, he could pack his shit and leave with her since he's so effing oblivious to the trash he allowed into their lives, and how obsessed he is with every single thing about her. Also since he can't stand by his wife over some "old floozy/friend" and not try to comfort her when she needed confirmation that she wasn't in-denial or crazy about that Savage woman and her motives.
Darn right, I would've told him to get the eff out!!!.. Probably a bit more than just that, but you get the gist. Lol

But thats not even all...the pregnancy! What a gut punch! That made me mad for Claire. Oh and her "so-called" best friends needed to be thumped hard for not believing in Claire and supporting her through the most horrific thing in her life since her daughter Katie died. True friends don't care what you've done wrong, if it's your fault or not, if you're a basket case and don't realize it yet, they don't judge you or your issues/problems, and they most certainly don't defend a man over you! They just cowardly dropped her like she had an infectious contagious disease and stood behind Derek and Jasmine!!! Seriously? I wanted Claire to punch them in the face for being such weak minded hypocrites!

I want to love this books because it brought out so many emotions in me and had me seething inside on some things Claire had to put up with and deal with but the overall repetitiveness and dragging scenes of her feelings made me go a bit lower than I wanted. But I will try another book by this author for sure. Would recommend to any readers out there that like a romance/suspense book.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Athena Daniels & Sunset Coast Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC!

#TheScreamBehindHerSmile #Netgalley #SunsetCoastPublishing

Relatable as a girl who married young, gives so much of her power away without truly knowing her own strength and ability. Who has to learn to get her own power. Lots of twist and turns kept me turning pages late into the night. Love her growth and her power love interest isn't to bad either. Bad can be oh so good.

A good read. It would have been better without the graphic sex scenes. Maybe sex sells...but, could have been better without it.
Good read and I enjoyed.

Interesting story good storyline,could not put the book down.
Towards the end the storyline gets a bit drawn out making it almost unbelievable otherwise a good read.

All and all, fantastic read! I thoroughly enjoyed Claire’s story, her strength, her battles, her heroism (small and big ways). The only reason I’d give this 4.5 out of 5 instead of 5 stars is it starts to get a touch unbelievable towards the end, however, the author does an amazing job of bringing you back in!

I liked the thriller part of this story, I could do with less graphic sex, I am just not into that. The rest of the story was just fine. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book from NetGalley.

The Scream Behind Her Smile is a fantastic book. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Well written and great characters.