Hall hath no fury like a woman scorned can not describe this book any better! It goes to show you that you never really know someone like you think you do. The book kept me guessing on what would happen next the whole time! I was never really expecting it to go the way that it did. I really enjoyed this read!

*SPOILERS AHEAD: BEWARE*

I was expecting a feminist revenge story but that's not really what this is and the reason for that is because in a tale like this you have to be able to empathize or at the very least sympathize with the abused but I couldn't because she is just so awful.

Faye is a very intelligent young woman that meets Jack and they hit it off. He is trying to start up a company and does so with a lot of help from Faye. You know the kind of help I mean: all of her ideas and money. Faye gives up her school and any career ambitions she has to cater to the needs of Jack. Jack is, well, a jackass. He's physically and emotionally abusive and spends most of his time letting his penis make his decisions and will sleep with any woman that has a pulse.

Faye doesn't believe the love of her life would ever cheat on her even if he is the biggest prick in the world because they are soulmates? 🤨

Imagine her surprise when she comes home one day to find her husband doing the deed with a co-worker in her bed. Shocking! 😲

He tells her he wants a divorce and leaves her high and dry thanks to that pre-nup! 😭

Faye is beyond devastated so she hatches a plan take her revenge once and for all. She will destroy Jack if it's the last thing she does. 🤬

That really does sound good but the rub here is that Faye's character is so inconsistent. For a woman of such high intelligence and confidence I found it hard to believe that she would become such a doormat. Let's not forget what she did to her ex-boyfriend (who was very sweet, btw) in order to be with Jack? Killed him! Yup, that's right she drugged him and then set him on fire! A completely innocent and kind man.

How can I ever root for a woman that did that???? And if she can do that then I highly doubt she'd put up with any of Jack's shit and I don't care how handsome he is.

Once you hit the 50% mark it's all about Faye and how she starts her own multi-million dollar company *cue eye roll* and it all began by her starting a dog walking business which then evolved into a makeup and hair care line called Revenge. Suuuuuuurrrrreeeee. In fact it seems like every one in Sweden is a millionaire. I am clearly living in the wrong country.

I mean dog walking -> hair and makeup line -> in about a year or two MULTI MILLIONAIRE! I wish everything in life was that easy. Oh wait, this is fiction.

Now let's talk about sex! There is a ton of cringe-worthy scenes and Faye is constantly running around wet in her panties. This lady ought to start packing spare ones in her handbag! Yuck!

Did I tell you all how much pleasure she takes in Jacks new girlfriends misery? She knows that he's abusing her and it gives her the giggles. She even goes so low as to start sleeping with Jack again just so she can rub it in her face by sending her the photos. This man that she hates. This man that she loathes. This same man she's taking revenge on. She sleeps with time and time again. Huh. What message are we sending here? I don't think this is how feminism works.

Pedophilia get's thrown in too - out of nowhere. Was that really necessary? I'll answer my own question. No, it wasn't.

I will say the writing is very good and nothing appears lost in translation as far as I could tell. I just really didn't like Faye. Couldn't root for her at all. Did I want Jack to get his? Yeah, but I kind of also wanted to take her down too. 2 *You aren't a feminist you are a conniving bitch* Stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

| BOOK REVIEW

@lackberg’s THE GOLDEN CAGE is a wild ride of secrets, love, betrayal, and revenge. And that’s not even the half of it. I’ve been really into Nordic thrillers and crime fiction for the past few years (thanks @crimebythebook) so I didn’t hesitate to move this book to the top of my list. WOW, am I glad I did!

Faye Adelheim is 34 years old, married, and living it up in Stockholm, Sweden. She has the seemingly perfect life with her husband and daughter, but things aren’t always what they seem. She met Jack in business school and ended up choosing to waitress in order to support his endeavors. Now that Jack is successful, giving up a career to please him hasn’t quite worked out the way she thought it would. Oh did I mention she signed a prenuptial? What is Faye going to do when she figures out Jack isn’t the dreamboat she thought he was? Well, read on book lovers because things get real good from here on out.

It’s always refreshing when you happen across a cleverly written thriller and Läckberg has done just that. What’s more perfect for summer reading than a dark, titillating psychological thriller? Nothing tickles my fancy more than a story of revenge executed perfectly. And Readers: I can confirm the cover matches the words inside. THE GOLDEN CAGE is sensational, sexy, and surprising!

Someone, anyone, please tell me if you’ve read Camilla Läckberg before because I need to know what book to pick up next!

Thank you so much @aaknopf for my #gifted copy.

Is this one on your radar?!

Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity. My review opinion is my own.
This is a outstanding psychological revenge thriller that every women will cheer for. Faye has a hidden dark past and a propensity for revenge that simmers below the surface of her well ordered life with her wealthy husband. He is the CEO of the company she helped him build to the success it is today. When he begins to ignore her, belittle her and questions her sanity (aka gaslighting her so typical of cheating men ) she finds out he is having a stereotypical affair with a young replacement when she walks in on them . He thinks she will go quietly away with their young daughter but he is in for a surprise of his life. Faye begins a calculated revenge plan that left this reader cheering out loud. The author is very skilled at evolving Faye's plans slowly so the reader keeps turning pages to see what will happen next. Note: there are extensive sex scenes which this reader just skipped through. They did not add to the story. I liked Faye and how she was so devious and calculating throughout . She finds her means to an end and every reader will cheer her on . A enjoyable romp of a read .

“Dear Reader, You hold in your hands a glass of champagne with a vodka chaser – a chilly, bubbly confection with a head-spinning kick.” And with that opening intro, I was off! I lost myself in this story of a scorned wife who carries out an insane revenge plot on her former husband and his new lover. The beginning started off quite slow, but midway through things picked up and I found myself flying through it. I loved the friendship between Chris and Faye and I thought the way Faye took Jack and his company down was brilliant.
If you like your thrillers on the steamy side with a wicked and smart female protagonist, add this one to your list. Many thanks to Knopf for providing an egalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first Lackberg book and it won't be my last. I'd heard she was a gifted storyteller and she is. I was on the edge of my seat from the first page.

After reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn years ago, I will pick up a psychological thriller on occasion, but I am always disappointed. Maybe it is because Gone Girl was my first in this genre, maybe it is because it was so twisted and unique.

The Golden Cage had wholly unlikeable characters, a painfully slow first third of the book, and I was not surprised by any of the “twists” to come. The main character, Faye, was revealed to be a psychopath fairly early in the book, so why she was able to be dominated by her husband was the only mystery in the book. The continuous references to high-end name brands felt like a commercial. (If you are into status, that may be a thrill to you. I am not. It was not.) The revenge premise was ridiculous. I have no problem with sex scenes in a book, but these were written like pulp fiction porn.

I am disappointed that I wasted time on this book when I could have been reading something much better. The only reason it gets 2 stars instead of one is that I stuck it out to the bitter end and didn’t give up at the end of part 1.

Read Gone Girl. Then consider the “psychological thriller” genre to be a continual failed attempt to shock the reader.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

DNF at 35%. Story was moving too slowly for me and relying too heavily on Faye’s past without sharing much of intrigue.

Women’s friendship is the theme of this book originally published in Sweden. It opens with the pronouncement that Faye’s ex-husband has killed their daughter. She lived a lavish lifestyle while married. It should have been wonderful, but it wasn’t. She had no personal freedom. She’d been dependent on her husband and he wants a beautiful wife who will obey him. And it is the women who support Faye she makes her transitions through life, because they’ve been there, too.

Faye decided when she was young that she would be the master of her own destiny. But back then, as a teenager moving to the big city to go to school and take on the world, she never thought she would see the day where the man she thought of as her soulmate gets arrested on suspicion of murdering their daughter.

Faye met Jack back when they were both students at the School of Economics. There were four of them who were inseparable: Hendrik and Chris, and Jack and Faye. Everyone knew that Jack was going places. He had that personality that just took over the room, so when he and Hendrik decided to open their own company right out of college, no one was surprised. And though Chris and Hendrik broke up, Chris and Faye remained as close as sisters.

While Faye decides to leave school to help finance the early years of the new company, Jack and Hendrik try to make a success of it. They use Faye’s ideas, even her suggestion for the name of the company, but as it grows in success, and Faye has a daughter and stays home with her, Jack becomes more and more distant. He spends more time at work, more time traveling, and misses out on time with Fate and their daughter Julianne.

Finally, Faye comes to a crossroad—does she stay the compliant wife, the beautiful bird in the golden cage, or does she break free and learn to fly?

Scandinavian best-selling writer Camilla Lackberg has created a gorgeous nail-biting thriller that will turn your world upside down. The Golden Cage is a truly beautiful work of Nordic noir, written from a master of the genre. I was blown away by the writing in this juicy novel and loved every paragraph of The Golden Cage. The lifestyles of the rich and Swedish meets a dark, twisty thriller in this phenomenal page-turner, and if you don’t take the time to read it, you’re missing out.

Egalleys for The Golden Cage were provided by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group through NetGalley, with many thanks.

The book begins with Faye at the scene with her daughter’s body. She is hoping that her daughter is just injured, but the female police officer carefully replies that with all the blood, it looks as though her ex-husband Jack has killed their daughter.

The rest of the book leads up to that point.
We meet Faye, wife of Jack. Faye who is always trying to please Jack, but never quite meeting the mark. This part of the story is told by the narrator as we watch Jack leave Faye and Faye try to cope with his leaving.

We also go back even further in time and meet Matilda. Matilda’s story is told in first person and we learn how Matilda changed to become Faye.

Yes, Faye is Matilda and that’s just one of the many twists that occurs in this twisty thriller.

I love stories like this, where you know the ending and you get little glimpses of the past to see how and why we ended up where we did.

I really enjoyed this book and will be looking to read other books from the author.

I received the digital copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

It’s hard to know where to begin after reading The Golden Cage. It is a wonderful hard to put down book with a strong female protagonist although it might not appear that way initially. The story alternates between the present and the past providing insight into the main character’s personality, motives and ambition.

The story begins with a brief description of the ending which involves police telling her that her ex-husband has been accused of killing their 7 year old daughter, Julienne. This is where the author grabs your attention because the story then unfolds with a less dramatic fashion.

Faye Adelheim lives the luxurious life that most could imagine in their dreams. When she met Jack Adelheim at the School of Economics she was instantly drawn to his charisma and confidence. She was a top student when she left school to help support Jack and his friend Henrik Bergendahl become successful entrepreneurs of Compare. She had been instrumental in their success which she had hoped someday to receive recognition. Instead, she passively took satisfaction in being a mother to their daughter, Julienne.

Faye loved the life they had built amongst their affluent community. It was a far stretch from where she originated and to which she never wanted to return. She sacrificed a lot to reinvent herself from her traumatic childhood. She vowed to do anything she needed to keep her past hidden including never opening the letters from her father in prison. She found it easier to explain she was orphaned when her parents died in a car crash. After marrying Jack, it felt like her life was complete until Jack becomes more domineering and demeaning to Faye.

Craving the love and attention she never received as a child, Faye held strongly to her desire to ensure her husband was happy. Although she had helped build the business Compare which Jack and Henrik ran the shares holders had her sign a prenuptial agreement. She never worried since she never imagined what would eventually happen.

Fortunately, Faye always maintained a close friendship from her time at the School of Economics. Chris Nudahl was her adventurous and outrageous friend who would always tell her the raw blunt truth. They continued to strengthen their friendship much to Jack’s dismay. Chris is the type of friend everyone needs who will always have your back and always provide laughter when life goes astray.

This is a wild story of family, friendship, betrayal and revenge. It portrays women who come to recognize their importance and value. I must say that as the story progressed my deep sense regarding a mystery was spot on! I had hoped all along as it would just be the icing on the cake!

I just discovered there’s a book 2! I can’t wait for the English version!

This is the first book in a new series and what a start! The suspense, intrigue and thrills are captivating! I read this in one sitting because every time that I got to the point that I promised myself I would stop reading, I had to see what happened next!

Wow! What a great read this was. A woman out to get revenge on her ex-husband and totally ruin him. Not sure the way it happened could actually happen in real life but the story kept my interest until the very end. The end with the unexpected twist. Didn't see it coming. I actually didn't like Faye that much, didn't understand why she was hiding hiding her family past, but I did like how she ended up getting her revenge. Her friend Chris, though, was very likable. A powerful, successful business woman, she was a true friend to Faye. I actually loved her character. I will definitely be checking out more of Camilla Lackberg's book. This one was quite enjoyable.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

CW: sexual violence, domestic violence/abuse

Faye Adelheim has a glittering, beautiful life. She has a beautiful apartment in Stockholm that she shares with her beautiful husband and beautiful daughter. However, Faye also has a dark past, a literal skeleton in her closet, and a nasty mean streak. When Jack, Faye's husband, cheats on her with his younger and thinner secretary, she puts the full extent of her intelligence and anger into play to make sure that he gets what he deserves.

This thriller was tightly plotted, exciting, and full of unexpected turns. However, I also found it deeply, profoundly upsetting, and I could never quite shake the knot in my stomach throughout the entire book. I don't recommend it for anyone with issues surrounding sexual violence or domestic violence/abuse.

This was my first book by this author and I chose it based on the cover and description. I had never read a revenge story before. This was terrific! I loved that Faye was a strong female MC and that it didn’t take her forever to bounce back after her husband’s cheating. I loved that she jumped right into creating a new life for herself while plotting out her revenge. Her back story gave her more depth as a character and really pulled together her need for revenge.

Her relationship with her best friend Chris added another story line besides revenge and I enjoyed the strength and bond between these two women. There were many layers to Faye shown through this friendship.

The ending was a bit anti climatic for me but satisfying nonetheless. I will definitely pick up another revenge themed book after reading this!

OMFG!

This book!

First off, once you start...you won't want to put this down. Lucky for you it just came out on 7/7.

Although it's translated, overall it is a a seamless read in that regard.

It's a sexy diabolical tale that I LOVED.

Think a more sophisticated Jackie Collins. And by the way, I love me some Jackie and now Camilla too!

I LOVED Faye. Every dark evil thing about her. And oh yes, she really is and I loved rooting for her! This is a smart, well plotted paced book. Enough of me gushing-go buy the book already LOL

I give this book 5 hearts (out of 5).

OH Camilla, you seductive and revengeful mynx. First of all, it's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Lackberg so it's probably not going to be a surprise to you that I absolutely LOVED this book. While y'all know I'm a binge reader, I stayed up LATE to finish this one because I absolutely needed to know what was going to happen. And honestly, I felt like I should've seen a lot of it coming because as a domestic, sexy thriller, we've seen this storyline before - but we haven't seen it done THIS well. Instead of trying to figure it all out, I was simply was absorbed into the pages and am still a bit hungover.

Within these 350+ pages, Lackberg has us deep within Faye's life. The very first page has us knowing that her ex-husband Jack has killed their daughter. This isn't a spoiler, this is the FIRST PAGE. So WTF has happened? Immediately I'm drawn in. We already know that this is a revenge thriller and personally, I find these stories SO satisfying if they're done right and Lackberg, for me, is never wrong. SO.... we follow Faye's story in how she meets Jack, their tumultuous marriage and everything after. It's hard to go into anything without spoiling, as most reviews tend to go right? So I'll try to keep it as simple as possible.

Faye is a HARD character to like... at first. You want to throttle her. I rolled my eyes and clenched the pages so many times! And then the revenge process begins and personally.... YOU GO GIRL. While she may seem single focused and selfish, she also remains violently loyal to those she does let into her life and this is where the book SHINES. Her relationship with her best friend, Chris... OH MY HEART - seriously, this was probably my absolute favorite part and I'm still having all the feels.

Some people might consider this a book about female empowerment because it touches on the very real topic of how the world is skewed in favor of men... but we also see how women have this ingrained feeling to adhere to the men in the world. I most certainly have lost myself within a relationship or have felt about *this* big from being emotionally abused. But I digress....

At the end of the day, Lackberg brings us complex characters who we most definitely have love/hate relationships with. Jack can go fuck himself and unfortunately is so real in men I have known (not in the biblical sense thankfully). I could go on and on about SO many things so I'll end here - if you like sexy domestic thrillers even in the slightest, READ THIS BOOK.

This was a wild and sexy ride! I've read previous books by this author from her Fjallbacka series, but they didn't prepare me for this crazy, fun stand alone.
Faye Adelheim is married to Jack, a rich and successful Swedish businessman and they have a young daughter.
She has sacrificed everything for Jack, forgoing her education to help finance his climb to the top.
But Jack isn't grateful, he's forgotten all she has done, and he treats her badly.
After she finds out about one of his affairs, he dumps her for a younger woman.
She is left with nothing, emotionally and financially.
Devastated and infuriated, she begins to plot her revenge. And she will stop at absolutely nothing to attain it.
This twisted psychological thriller was disturbing and unpredictable, but highly entertaining.
With many unlikable, but intriguing characters.
I recommend this steamy, well written story if you're looking for something a bit different.
Thank you Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

How do you spell “revenge”? In Faye’s case, you spell it in the form of a new company on track to make a half billion kronor in only three short years. Three short years since her difficult divorce from narcissistic, cheating husband, Jack. But the new company and the new success are just the beginning of what Faye has planned for Jack.

The Golden Cage is a unique, sexy, twisty psychological thriller like none I’ve ever read. There’s a strong theme of female empowerment which I appreciated. “But she never missed the golden cage.”