The Happy Couple by Samantha Hayes

I loved this book!

From the very first chapter I knew I was going to enjoy reading it and it did not disappoint. I could not put the book down as the story kept me on the edge of my seat. The story is fast paced and exciting.
The drama and suspense are excellent.

I was feeling dizzy and light headed from so many twists in the last quarter of the book.
Samantha Hayes is a wonderful author I found this book very addictive and I couldn’t sleep, eat or work until I have finished her book.

I would like to thank Net Galley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Looking at the outward appearance of couples, we only see the persona that they want to present. We never see the lies, secrets and fears that they have deep inside. The Happy Couple really shows that appearances can be deceiving.

Jo’s husband Will has been missing for a year. She has no clues as to whether he’s dead or alive, he simply vanished. Even though her friends are encouraging her, without answers she just can’t move on. In her grief, Jo “sees” Will everywhere. Looking for a break, Jo visits a house-sitting website even seeing Will in photos in someone’s living room. This time she’s not imagining him. Jo just knows she must get into this home. The answers she is looking for, might be in this house.

This was a quick read, suspenseful enough to keep me reading to find out what happens next. Just when I thought I knew what was going to happen, there was a plot twist to keep me guessing. While this kept my attention, I thought the plot wrapped up a little too quickly in the end. While I saw the irony of the ending, it came across as a little too predictable.

The part I liked most about this story was that all the characters had secrets. Jo refers to something that happened on the drive home one night. Jo catches her best friend in a lie about working at home. The homeowner has pictures of Jo’s missing husband. Even the neighbor is mysterious. The story flows smoothly, even with Jo’s flashbacks into her previous life. Overall, the book was enjoyable and easy to read. Thanks to the Netgalley and Bookouture for the advanced copy!

This thriller was a page turner and I was intrigued to unravel the mystery. While I enjoyed the main character's quest to find out what happened to her missing husband, the conclusion felt piled on and missed the mark for me. Was not a fan of the twist.

What happens when Jo's husband goes missing and she sees photos of him at a house she may rent. Jo, Louise, Suzanne and Will are deeply intertwined but we the reader don't know how. The unraveling of this story takes awhile but when the truth is revealed...watch out.
Thanks to Netgalley and Overture, the publishers, for an advanced reading copy.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. This was a good read, found the main characters sometimes a bit much but other than that I really enjoyed this..

Jo’s husband, Will, disappeared a year ago - nobody knows where he is, or even if he’s still alive - and it’s fair to say she’s not coping very well. When her friend Louise suggests Jo sign up with a house-sitting website in search of a cheap break away, Jo isn’t keen. But then she sees something very unexpected in a photograph of one of the houses on the website - pictures of her missing husband, on display on a stranger’s mantelpiece. Naturally, Jo has to find out why.

It’s written in that near-ubiquitous (for a certain genre) present tense, which never fails to slightly irritate me. (She comes in. She sits down. She wonders what the heck is going on. Etc.)

I’ve really enjoyed some of Samantha Hayes’ other books, but for some reason this one failed to really engage me. The plot was ultimately both slightly confusing and fairly unbelievable, and actually dragged a bit, which I haven’t experienced with the writer’s other books. (Maybe it was just the mood I was in.) I couldn’t really believe in the character of Jo, though, and never felt I had a handle on her personality, which seemed to consist entirely of “Where’s Will?”. The twists , of which there are many, were slightly too obvious and the end didn’t ring true at all.

Both Jo and Suzanne, the owner of the house Jo goes to stay in, act in very peculiar ways - granted, there are reasons, but still. Jo continually speaks her thoughts out loud without knowing she’s doing it (awkward) and “sees” the missing Will all over the place. Suzanne behaves very strangely.

I feel like I’m being a bit too harsh - although the book didn’t totally grab me it did keep me reading, and it has many great reviews so clearly hit the mark for many people. Just not for me, unfortunately. I’ll read whatever Samantha Hayes puts out next, though, and will hopefully enjoy it more!

Jo and Will the Perfect Couple....WOW!! Are they? This book was really really good and I never seen THAT ending coming!! Fantastic!

Wow! I didn’t see that coming....
This is a great read which had me hooked from the start.
I was intrigued to know what had happened to Jo’s husband Will and why he disappeared.
Jo still ‘sees’ Will and sometimes it’s a bit confusing whether something is a flashback or in her mind, but overall it works really well.
Louise persuades Jo to take a break so she takes a look at a house sitting website. Whilst looking through the properties she sees a photo of Will on the mantelpiece in one of the houses, so applies to go there.
Once there, Jo has to work out what link the house and owner have to Will and it was not what I expected...
I loved the way this story all came together and loved the ending.
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

It´s almost a year since Jo´s husband, Will, disappeared after 12 years of being together. So Jo´s has been carrying herself the best possible way she could, working in her own bridal shop and keeping her friends, Louise, her oldest friend, back in touch after a while and her husband and visiting her parents who remind her “I´ve told you he wasn´t good enough for you”.
Before Will disappeared, Jo was trying to get pregnant. Nor only she was having difficulties but she found out that her friend, Louise, was actually pregnant.
And then the days pass by, working and seeing Will all over the place, any time, any place, sleeping, dreaming, and talking to him, like talking aloud without realising. He keeps appearing wherever she is and she keeps talking to him which I found quite tiring and frustrating.
I always like husbands/wifes thrillers so after reading the blurb, the book felt like the right book for me.
I thought that the idea of seeing somebody who´s been missing for a long time in a photograph in someone else´s house in a house-sitting website is very original. I really liked that.
I did enjoy the mystery of guessing why the pictures were on the table in a completely random house, then you will learn that it´s not that random at all. And the final twists that you can´t imagine although the signals are there.
Overall I quite enjoyed this book, apart from Jo talking that much to Will. I enjoyed the quick pace, the twists and that I couldn´t imagine the end.
Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read a copy of The Happy Couple

Love psychological thrillers and was intrigued by premise. Didn’t understand why the main character didn’t call the police at any moment during the book though. I liked the device where she kept “seeing” her missing husband. I was very surprised by the twist at the end.

On the whole i really liked this book. It did take a while to get going properly but once it did, it gathered pace with each chapter! A great read.

I absolutely loved this book. His husband has vanished without a trace. When her best friend convinces her to do some house sitting to help take her mind off things she signs up to a web site to connect with people looking for a sitter. Imagine her surprise when she is viewing photos of the houses requiring a sitter and on the mantle she spies photos of her missing husband. She takes the job and starts her own investigation. Is Will dead? Did he leave her for this woman? Why are his photos here? Or is the answer much closer to home. This book is full of twists and turns and some pretty great characters!!

Jo and Will seem to have the perfect relationship. He is a stage actor and she is a seamstress who works on both theatre and bridal wear. They seem like a match made in heaven. Jo believes this to her core, until the day Will disappears, leaving her without a trace. A year later and Jo is still not back to normal. The uncertainty of whether her husband is dead or alive, with someone else or alone, tears her apart every single day. With some pushing from her best friend Lou, Jo decides to take a trip via a house sitting website. However, the house sit she chooses is not at random. She is convinced that the woman who owns this house knows where her husband is, and she's got the pictures to prove it.

The Happy Couple was such a wild ride! I really enjoyed the whole story from beginning to end. I really felt connected to Jo. While I have not personally experienced loss like hers, I feel like the depiction of her hallucinations of her husband were done very well and felt like something someone in Jo's position would actually be going through. The time jumping also worked very well in aiding the story, sort of reminding me of The Wife Before in a way.

I say bravo to Samantha Hayes with this read. A fantastic thrill ride from beginning to end!

I'm afraid I did not finish this one. I feel this book was just dragging on with a long wait for anything to happen, I finally gave up on it at 55% as life is too short to read a book you are not enjoying.
I have read much better by this author, so I will continue to read her books, this however, just did not do it for me.

Things that went through my mind while reading this book:
"This woman is a little off."
"This isn't going to be another unreliable narrarator, is it? That's so over done."
"Is he dead?"
"Did she kill him?"
"Did he even exist at all?"
"Are his visits figments of her imagination?"
"Were they even married or is it all just in her head?"
"She mentioned the cleaning product removed blood. She had to have killed him!"
"OK, housesitting - who is setting her up?"
"This can't be real."
"OMG! I thought...maybe...but no...Really???"
"No! Nooooooo."
If you can't tell, I really enjoyed this book! Definitely kept me guessing and I was totally absorbed in the story. Until the ending. I just didn't like it. Without giving too much away and spoiling for others, I didn't feel it fit with the rest of the story. Not to mention, if she chose to do it, that other person would be in her life forever. Not good. For anyone. Just not realistic. Which is why the 4-star rating instead of 5. But I did enjoy the characters and the story, which Ms. Hayes did a wonderful job developing and plotting. I haven't read a Samantha Hayes book yet that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed!

I went into reading this book, remembering how I felt at the end of ‘Date Night’. That left me whiplashed from the twists and turns at the end. So I started reading this thinking nothing will be as it seems as it appeared to be the writer’s style.
The book is gripping enough to make you keep wanting to read, and I did keep expecting some big revelation. However, the ending fell a little flat for me. The ‘twists’ were a bit too obvious. If I hadn’t have been expecting something to knock me off my feet, what happened would have been what I predicted. So I felt a little letdown, it didn’t wow me the way ‘Date Night’ had.
As other reviewers have said the voice of Jo is very annoying, she often just blurts out what she is thinking and sets up a confused response from whoever is present. It was cringy, to begin with, but then as time went on and it kept happening, it just became frustrating. Her lack of drive was also baffling. She had the key for the spare room for ages yet took days to enter, scared of what she might find. However, she was in the house, to begin with, to get answers and then dillydallied about getting them. Chunks of time just seemed to pass by and then all of a sudden she’d be spurred into action again. She made me feel lethargic. So not a likeable character.
I can cope with ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ chapters, especially when they are clearly marked for you as they are in this book. However, the ‘then’ started to be interspersed in the the ‘now’ chapters leaving you wondering what was going on and playing catch up on the story. I understand that it was Jo daydreaming and most of the time it was relevant to what was happening or about to happen but then what was the point of the separated ‘Then’ chapters? It just made the flow of the story jarring and confusing.
So, overall I was gripped as I was expecting big things and wanted to know how the story would end. However, I was disappointed and not as enamoured as I had been when reading the previous book by this author. That book is what prompted me to read more by Samantha Hayes, and now I’m wondering whether to bother on her back catalogue.

I liked this book but it wasn’t my favorite one that Samantha Hayes has written. It was good, but it was a bit of an odd story with quirky characters. It kept me reading but okay times I wasn’t sure where it was going. There were plenty of twists and turns though! I give this one 3.5 stars.

Jo is a seamstress married to Will, a theatre actor and schoolteacher. One day, Will mysteriously disappears after leaving behind his phone and other possessions at his workplace. A year goes by and a grieving Jo is in no way over her husband, constantly wondering what happened to him and everyday in her head she goes over the events leading to his disappearance. She decides to apply for a house-sitting job and while perusing the website, she comes across a house with Will’s pictures on the mantelpiece. Jo is obviously floored by this and goes on to apply to house-sit the place and conduct her own investigation.

I’ve read a couple books by Samantha Hayes and let me just say she really knows how to throw her readers off! Every time you think you may have some sort of inkling as to what the past holds, she throws a curve ball and everything is convoluted again. The protagonist, Jo, annoyed me often because to me she sounded weak and obsessed, but I put that aside to really enjoy the overall storytelling and thickening of the plot.

The ending was a bit strange, and you will see what I mean if you pick up this book and read it too. It’s hard to explain without giving it away. This was an enjoyable read for me, and I actually picked up Date Night by the same author and finished that within a couple of days as well. I definitely without a doubt have a book hangover, and may find something lighter to read next.

I DEVOURED this book. I finished with my mouth hanging wide open. What did I just read? There were so many twists that you just couldn't even keep up at times. It was a thrilling rollercoaster ride, and albeit some of it was a bit far-fetched, I still found it too entertaining to put down and read it entirely in one sitting. I had a few issues with some unrealistic elements, but ultimately the fact that I just couldn't stop reading means I recommend this book, definitely.

Thank you to Samantha Hayes, Bookouture and NetGalley for this ARC.

I enjoyed this book, but it didn't wow me. It was a good story, with a definite surprise ending that I never would've predicted. Jo's character was a bit meh, and her inner monologues and little blurt outs was kind of annoying. I did enjoy the ending.