#TakeTheVow #NetGalley A tense twisty thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat.  Told in two halves from the perspective of two different women  and with flashbacks to their childhood, this is well written and keeps you guessing the whole way through.  I couldn't really relate to the character of Amy but that didn't detract me or stop me enjoying the book.

The Vow was an excellent psychological suspense thriller.  Right from the start I was gripped by this story.   It was well written and the characters were all well formed.  I enjoyed everything about this book and it kept ,e guessing until the last few chapters.  A great read.

What a fabulous story of suspense, kept me turning the pages and guessing what happened!
I found it fast paced and the characters interesting.

Great first third of the book but then the unrealistic situations, characters and unlikely police procedures made me lose interest. I finished it but felt myself so disconnected to the story I was glad when the complicate£ plot was over.

Rating: 3.5 🍷 🍷 🍷 !!!!!!!
Book: The Vow
(AVAILABLE NOW-Release Date: October 15, 2020)
Author: Debbie Howells
Genre: Thrillers, Mystery, Suspense

The Vow started off really promising. I enjoyed the background story and the connection between the characters, as unrealistic as it was, lol. The level of suspense and mystery kept me engaged most of the story. I have to say I was a little let down with the ending. I wasn’t mad with the exact ending but just the lead up to it. I felt the power and thrill just kind of was let out like a balloon. Most of the story, I was on pins and needles then the last 20% was blah. Because of the suspense of the beginning and the backstory, I would recommend it. It was a quick read and really did enjoy the mystery and storyline. 

Thank you to @NetGalley @AvonBooks for an advanced copy of @TheVow

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EXCERPT: Lost in my thoughts, at first I don't notice the footsteps behind me.

'Excuse me . . .'

The voice is unfamiliar. I hesitate, unsure if it's directed at me, then as the footsteps come closer, I turn around to find myself staring at a stranger.

'I need to talk to you.' As the woman speaks, I feel myself freeze. She looks older than her voice sounds, her grey hair wispy, her face strangely unlined. But it's the colour of her eyes, a transparent ice-blue, that is hypnotic. For a moment I'm mesmerised then, as a van speeds past, her hand grips my arm, pulling me away from the road. 'I have to talk to you.' There's an unmistakable urgency in her voice.

'Someone's watching you. They know where you go, everything you do.'

As she speaks, my blood runs cold. 'Who are you?'

Without telling me, she goes on. 'You think you're meant to be together.' Each word both softly spoken and crystal clear, her eyes fixed on mine so that I can't look away. 'You think he's the love of your life.' She pauses for a moment. 'He isn't who you think he is.' Then a strange look crosses her face. 'You're in danger.'

ABOUT THE VOW: Everything was perfect. And then her fiance disappeared…

Two weeks before her wedding, a stranger stops Amy in the street and warns her she’s in danger. Then that night, Matt, her fiancé, doesn’t come home. Desperate, Amy calls the police – but when Matt fails to emerge, she’s forced to call off her wedding day.

Then another man is reported missing, by a woman called Fiona – a man meeting Matt’s description, who was about to leave his fiancée for her. He was supposed to be moving in with her – but instead, he’s vanished.

Amy refuses to believe Fiona’s lover can be her Matt – but photos prove otherwise, and it soon becomes clear that Matt has been leading a double life. As the police dig deeper, two conflicting, yet equally plausible stories emerge from two women who allegedly have never met.

The wedding day never happened. But the funeral might

MY THOUGHTS: Starting with something positive:I love the cover. The flowers were a brilliant touch.

But the book? Repetitive and contrived. There are a lot of things that I would like to say, but it would create spoilers so I won't.

I prefer the second half of the book, starting from where we get Fiona's narration. I didn't like Amy at all. I didn't enjoy Jess's input in the first half of the book because I think it gave too much away, but she really comes into her own in the second half.

Even then, I found myself skimming large tracts of text. This totally failed to keep my interest. I adored two other novels by this author, The Bones of You, and The Beauty of the End. The Vow is a big disappointment.

Many other readers love this book. Reading is a very personal subjective experience, and not every book is for every reader. So, if you enjoyed the extract, and the plot summary interests you, please do read The Vow by Debbie Howells. I hope that you are one of the many who enjoy this read.

Improbable, implausible, contrived and repetitive (at the risk of repeating myself)

⭐.8

There are two sides to every story. But there's only one truth.

THE AUTHOR: After a number of career changes, Debbie now writes full time, inspired by the peacefulness of the countryside she lives in with her partner Martin, Bean the rescued cat and a rather elderly golden retriever called Bernard.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Avon Books UK via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Vow by Debbie Howells. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

What a great read!

Amy is getting married to Matt. She has an 18 year old daughter called Jess from a previous relationship and feels like she is given a second chance at love when she meets Matt.

Amy is a herbalist and creates remedies from plants that she has grown in her garden. This is an integral part of the story. Whilst delivering an order, an old lady randomly approaches Amy and tells her not to trust Matt and that she is in danger. Amy thinks nothing of it. That night, Matt disappears and she reports it to the police.

Another woman named Fiona then reports her boyfriend as missing. It turns out to also be Matt and she claims that he was about to leave Amy for her. He had been leading a double life. But is Matt the only connection that the two ladies have?

The story is told from the narratives of Amy, Fiona and Jess. We learn that Jess has never liked Matt but said nothing because she thought that her mother seemed happy.

We also have flashbacks of an tragic event that happened back in 1996 between a Kimberley and Charlie. In true thriller fashion, everything unravels and makes sense as you read on. It had me totally gripped!

I received an ARC copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. What would you do if your fiance disappeared two weeks before your wedding and you find out that he was in love with another woman who he was going to leave you for? This book is told by both women, Amy and Fiona, and Amy's daughter Jess. It had me really trying to figure out which character was crazy or if they both were crazy. Amy grows and sells herbs and is having alot of guilt in her part of a teenage death that happened many years ago. I enjoyed this book. I felt like it was dragging at parts but then really picked up towards the end.

Amy, madly in love, is distraught when the man she’s going to marry in two weeks disappears.  What follows turns her whole world upside down.  I knew I was going to like this book from the first paragraph and it kept me gripped all the way through despite Amy being a bit of a doormat.  Daughter Jess seemed much more sensible and adult like.  It’s a pity Fiona didn’t feature a bit more than she did.  Loved the entwining of herbs and flower meanings into the story, garden descriptions and the inclusion of Steyning, a place I like very much.  Thoroughly enjoyed my first book by Ms Howells.

Amy lives with Matt who she is marrying in 2 weeks. She's excited and looking forward to the next stage in her life. Then one day he doesn't come home. Amy's life is turned upside down as she realises that her life with Matt might not be as rosy as she thought. 
This psychological thriller is great. The storyline is believable, has enough twists to keep you guessing and the ending ties up everything in a plausible way. 
A real page turner. You won't be disappointed. An author to watch

Wow. This was twisted. This just shows how pathological some people can be. This story had traces of Gone Girl and A Simple Favor in it. Very well written and the story was very well crafted. Creepy, but a good read.

I loved the premise of this book.  A woman’s fiancé goes missing two weeks before her wedding and you know she is going to be blamed. But wait! There are other suspects. And yet…there are skeletons in her closet. But wait! What do we really know about the fiancé?  

I was really engaged with this book in the first third of the book but there was so much retelling of stories and events, even down to the police reciting the whole “you have the right” bit every single time someone was brought to the police station.  The style of writing was a bit awkward, with a lot of dangling modifiers that made the sentences clumsy to read.  

I did enjoy trying to guess who might be playing games with whom, and what the motivation was, and I do enjoy some good unreliable narrators so it was worth a read, but I would have enjoyed it more with some of the repetition edited out.

Thanks to the publisher for an advanced reader's copy for review.

The Vow by Debbie Howell's has kept me glued to the book till I reached the end. 
An absolute plot twist in the end makes this a very exciting book to read. 

The vow is the story of Amy who is engaged to Matt to be married in the next two weeks. She has a young daughter Jess who is very close to her mother and although she does not agree with her mother's choice she is supporting her. Although the story starts in a simple way when Matt goes missing. The police arrest Amy du to circumstantial evidence and the story unfolds for the reader as it goes along. Jess who is her mother's great supporter is the only one who stands by her and tries to unravel the truth. To add to the existing story, a past that Amy had conveniently hidden comes to light and that's where the story gets very interesting

The characters are very well written. As the story unfolds I as a reader was going through phases of liking her and hating her and then reached a place where I just went with the story to wait till the end to know what was Amy like. Jess is a very lovable and a strong character. Although I had my judgements about Cathy, she really was a great friend. Matt was a character I was not sure right from the beginning and  it was rightfully so. 

I enjoyed the journey of reading the story. If you love to read stories where the plot gets from simple to twisted then you will definitely like this. I will definitely recommend this story to all those who love to read psychological thrillers. 

I thank the author, the publisher and Netgalley for accepting my request to read and review the book. All the opinions expressed in the review are entirely mine.

Gripping read from the offset. When Matt goes missing 2 weeks before his wedding to Amy, lots of information about him and their relationship comes to light.

The POV is mainly focused on Amy, who comes across as a very unreliable narrator. While you’re reading, you sympathise with her and doubt everything about her all at the same time. However, it flicks to a few other POV too, giving you more viewpoints but also leaving you with even more questions!

As the past comes to haunt Amy, you’re left guessing as to what happened to Matt and who is responsible. I couldn’t figure it out!

Well this was not good. I think having at least 4 separate points of view (POV) did not help matters. And the whole why behind things made not a lick of sense. There was too much going on plot wise. If Howells had kept the book to Amy dealing with the fallout of her fiancee Matt disappearing, and finding out what kind of man he really was deep inside, the book could have worked. Instead there were way too many characters with split motivations. The smartest and most developed character was Amy's daughter Jess, but her POV sections were not enough to help this book.

"The Vow" follows a happily engaged woman named Amy. Amy and her fiancee Matt are to be married in about two weeks. When Matt calls her to tell her he will be late, Amy starts to feel uneasy. When Matt doesn't come home and she is unable to track him down the next day, she calls the police. Quickly things unspool and Amy finds out that the man she has been engaged to, was a total stranger who had a hidden life from her. Howells then follows Amy, her daughter, an unseen narrator, and then another woman throughout this book.

Amy was not smart. I think Howells wanted us to feel sorry for her, but I just felt irritated. We also have a lot of unreliable narrator going on with her and someone else and the whole book just started to wear me down at the 35 percent point. 

I can't speak much to anyone else because I don't want to spoil, but Howells just has way too many coincidences in this book to even make sense after a good bit.

The writing wasn't that great. Most of the book had tortured dialogue or someone running around talking like a cartoon villain. There are a lot of logic gaps going on too which I am too tired to get into here. 

The flow was really bad. I think if Howells had maybe just kept the book to ping-ponging back between Amy and Jess that it would have been better. But when we have the unnamed narrator, the other character too, and then it was just a lot happening. 

The ending made zero sense and I just was glad to be done with this one.

The Vow begins two weeks before a wedding us due to happen.
It is a story about a double life and a missing person and also friendships.
The story is well written and has several twists and turns.
I would give this 3.5 stars

****A refreshing and absorbing thriller***

I thought The Vow was an engaging, edgy and intelligent psychological suspense story. 

This book kept me guessing throughout, and I kept asking myself where was this story heading?  I thought it was completely unpredictable and a refreshing book. I was on edge the whole time reading this, asking myself who could be trusted, and who most definitely couldn't. There was plenty of twists and turns along the way, and overall I thought this was an unsettling and absorbing thriller.

Told from a variety of perspectives, this tale is about Amy and her fiance - who vanishes two weeks before their wedding. Accusations and secrets begin to appear as Amy's life swiftly unravels, with everyone wanting to know where Matt is.

This book is a compelling read, and I would recommend for those who enjoy intense psychological thrillers.

The Vow is a mystery thriller by Debbie Howells that takes readers on an emotional roller coaster full of twists and turns. A story that keeps the reader second-guessing with every page they read. The plot twist is unexpected and sure to catch the reader by surprise. The Vow is a story that stays with you long after reading.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for the ARC in exchange for my honest review of "The Vow" by Debbie Howells.

Amy thinks that she's finally about to have the life she always dreamed of. Dream home, dream wedding, dream husband. But then two weeks before her wedding a mysterious stranger in the street grabs her arm and tells her she's in danger. When Matt, the man she's to marry, doesn't come home that night, Amy gets a bad feeling that there's more to this warning than she had thought. The plot thickens when another woman also reports Matt missing, with claims that Matt was going to leave Amy to be with her instead. As the investigation digs deeper, both women tell plausible tales, but who is telling the truth? What happened to Matt?

This book was so mind-bending! With so many unreliable voices and characters, it was hard to know what was real and what was fake. Add on to that all the new identities and new names people had taken on. Crazy. At times, it was a little frustrating, but thank goodness for Amy's daughter being a clear headed voice to lean on.

I think that it's interesting that this book questions gaslighting in the book, as well. Is Amy gaslighting Matt? Is Matt gaslighting both women? In a web of manipulation, this feels like an obvious answer, but things are never that simple. This extra layer of doubt adds to the mystery.

Overall, I gave this book 4 stars. I wish that things would have been just a little more clear. For a brief moment it felt like it might tip over the line into witchcraft and spells. It got to be a little confusing and a little frustrating. But the mystery of Matt kept me hooked. In the end, I think that the resolution connected well with the past and gave this book a satisfying end.

This book draws you in from the very start. I was curious to know how it would unfurl. I enjoyed the style of writing, it is well written. I took a great dislike to Matt fairly early on and must admit to being slightly annoyed at Amy for how she initially fell to pieces. It a]l added up to a very good story. The back story of their relationship does involve gas lighting so if that’s a subject you would rather not read about then perhaps this book isn’t for you. I do however recommend this book and am glad I had the chance to read it. Thank you #netgalley.