I read this book in two days. Staying up late to finish it! It was so good. It really freaked you in from the start and doesn't let go. Everything you want in a good thriller. I thought I could see where it was going and then bam! It hot me with a twist. It even has quite a sweet ending which is unusual for a thriller but didn't take away from it at all. Amazing read!

I really enjoyed The Perfect Life by Nuala Ellwood. I found the story a little slow to start but it picked up the pace about half way through and I couldn't put it down!

Vanessa likes to pretend to be someone else by viewing properties she cannot afford. She wants the 'perfect life', but now a man who lives in one of the properties is dead, and Vanessa is the number one suspect!

The story is a brilliant psychological thriller which kept me guessing throughout. Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read and review.

I think this book was trying to be too many things. I was drawn in immediately with good writing and characters but I feel the book was two books in one and that this detracted from the overall message.

There is the story of Vanessa and Connor, which is a complex tale. Then there is the story of Vanessa and Angus, which seems to be a different book entirely.

Both stories would be brilliant as the main story of a book but together they don’t quite gel. I understand the rationale but I think this could have been two amazing thrillers instead of one mediocre one.

That said it was still an enjoyable read and I would definitely be interested in more from this author. The topics covered are important and well handled but I think this should have been two books.

The Perfect Life is an entertaining book with numerous twists and turns that leads you into dead ends as you try to work out who is right and who is wrong with not everything as it seems.

Recommended

Fabulous book with a great storyline ! Would read more from this author in the future! A good suspense book which is just whst you want from a thriller!

I’ve just read this in one go whilst sitting on beach in Cornwall. I really enjoyed the concept and the writing and felt a great deal of empathy with the main characters. Highly recommended.

This book had me gripped from the first page. We’ve all had moments of wanting to live the “perfect” life and being someone else however would you want it enough to murder? Full of twists and turns that will have you doubting every character...

I wanted to enjoy this book a lot more than I did. I found the middle quite repetitive although the last 25% or so did increase in pace. Some good plot points kept me engaged from start to finish.

The Perfect Life - Nuala Ellwood

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to NetGalley and Penguin and I am leaving this review voluntarily

Vanessa has always found it easy to pretend to be somebody different, somebody better. When things get tough in her real life, all she has to do is throw on some nicer clothes, adopt a new accent and she can escape.

That's how it started: looking round houses she couldn't possibly afford. Harmless fun really. Until it wasn't.

This book keeps changing timelines, from ‘then’ to ‘now’. I think I liked the idea of this book, but I struggled with how it was told and what the main focus was. I requested this book on the understanding that it was more of a thriller however I don’t think there was much focus on the investigation.

Overall, it wasn’t terrible, it was a quick and easy book to read but I feel that the plot just needed a little more depth.

Rating 3/5

This book is not Nuala Ellwood 's best! I thought the characters were horrible, the storyline unbelievable and I got tired of all the 'darlings'. I have previously enjoyed Nuala Ellwood's writing but found this book disappointing.

I quite enjoyed this book until the culprit was revealed and felt like I had been cheated in a way. I enjoyed the different timelines but didn’t really warm to any of the characters either.

Vanessa has always found it easy to pretend to be somebody different, somebody better. When things get tough in her real life, all she has to do is throw on some nicer clothes, adopt a new accent and she can escape. Her method of escape is to become a different character and go and view houses which are for sale – houses which she can’t afford. After all, we’ve all done it, gone for a nosey around a show home, it’s all harmless fun isn’t it? Well it is until Vanessa is seen running from a house viewing and the police find a dead body inside.

I loved this story to begin with, it was a real page turner and I quickly became involved in the story of Vanessa, the main character who is living under an umbrella of grief, having lost her mother tragically when she was a child. She was extremely vulnerable and when she got involved in a relationship with Connor I was rooting for her and really wanted things to work out.

Then about 80% of the way through the book it all changed for me – the twist felt like it had come out of no where and didn’t make sense, to the point where I had to re-read a big chunk because I thought I’d missed something.

The relationship between Vanessa’s sister Georgie and her brother-in-law Jack just felt like it was there for padding, rather than having any relevance or reason, and I still can’t understand why that was even in there.
This story is set across two different time lines “Now” and “Then” and occasionally a date was thrown in as well which at times I found quite confusing.

Sadly, it left me with a load of unanswered questions which I have found really frustrating!

This really is a fast paced psychological thriller told over two timelines. The present as Vanessa is suspected of murder, and the then as we get the back story over the last year as we learn who Vanessa is and how she got to now. I couldn’t put the book down after I got half way through and I think my heart rate was probably over about 100 for much of the last half as the suspense and story gathered pace. This is one of those stories where you find yourself shouting at the characters as you can see what is happening and you just want them to realise too! This book does deal with some complex issues which I think it manages to do sensitively.

The Need To Escape….
Vanessa often feels the need to escape, to be someone else, somewhere else. To pretend. Looking around other peoples houses, for instance, that she cannot possible afford. This is something that she’s good at, that she finds she slips into with ease, just harmless fun. Until, that is, things begin to go drastically wrong. It all begins with a dead body. Engaging domestic suspense with an intriguing premise and a credible cast of characters. Some difficult themes here which are dealt with empathy. A suspenseful read.

It’s always been preferential for Vanessa to pretend to be someone else, someone with more panache, more confidence and more get up and go. For Vanessa, it’s a way to escape her life, the one where her parents are gone – for different reasons – and she relies heavily on her sister, her best friend and previously, her boyfriend. Her pastime is finding dream properties and making viewing appointments, knowing that she won’t be buying. It’s all harmless, right? Well, until someone in one of the houses she visits is found dead, and there are plenty to feel she is to blame. There are plenty of uncomfortable scenes in this novel, but handled sensitively, and you really feel for Vanessa and her circumstances. The writing is such that you question pretty much everything you read, as the tension neatly builds up to the conclusion.

Vanessa has a good job, enjoys life and lives with her best friend Lottie.
Then she meet Connor. She moves in with him and then her life starts to unravel.
She finds that the way to deal with everything is to retreat into a fantasy world. She arranges viewings of amazing properties under different names. But then someone is found dead after she has had a viewing.
And she is a suspect..

Just an ok read and not as gripping as I had hoped. Unlikeable main character. The story written between two timelines and is not always credible. Implausible at times.. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review it.

Vanessa is the main character & the story is told in the first person, from her perspective. Early in the book, she meets Connor & this relationship puts a wedge between her & her best friend/flat mate. She holds down an important job, as does Connor & all seems right with the world.
Gradually, there is a shift in Vanessa’s feelings, she can’t quite put her finger on it but she needs something just for her. This turns out to be viewing houses for sale, that she couldn’t possibly afford, but not as herself. She goes in character - not just a false name, but clothing, accent & a complete backstory.
It is important to know that the timeline is split between now & then. Now is where Vanessa’s world has fallen apart & she is living with her older sister, Georgie, & her husband,Jack. Then is her time with Connor, when all seemed perfect; well, initially.

This was a good read, particularly the beginning & middle but I felt the end was rushed & slightly clichéd. It was an easy read despite some sensitive subject matter, which was well described.

(Va)Nessa lost her mother when she was ten, and her apparently austere father barley features in her life, either before or since. Older sister Georgie becomes a surrogate parent, but Nessa’s life thereafter is centred around two things: memories of her mother – in the kitchen, baking, listening to Terry Wogan, loving her – and The Holly Maze House fantasy books – in which she is immersion to the extent that she writes letters to the main character, Angus, and had attended a children’s party at the eponymous house, the home of the author. But now she is approaching her thirty-second birthday, flat sharing with her university friend, Lottie, and seemingly enjoying her life. Then she meets Connor at an Arthouse play, falls madly in love and moves out of the flat, alienating Lottie who then seems to have ‘ghosted’ her.
So far, so chic-lit, so rom-com; so why does this reviewer (older and male) keep with it? Partly its because the book is very well written and enjoyable simply as prose, but mainly because Nessa is not what she seems. In her secret life she assumes the personae of various rich young women, with a desperate need to view expensive properties. A harmless hobby, although not harmless since Estate Agents have a living to make and time wasters are costly.
Realising that Connor is actually an abusive and controlling person, she flees back to the comfort of Georgie’s home, but is now being stalked and psychologically harassed; ‘gaslighted’ in the modern terminology. She can’t really explain everything to Georgie and Lottie, her only hope for succour, is untraceable.
And then something goes wrong at one of her ’houses’ and the police want to interview her as a person of interest.
Through clever use of flashbacks, clever plotting of events and well-drawn characters, the reader is enmeshed in the writer’s net. The resolution when it comes is totally consistent with the information you have read but it is still gloriously surprising. As psychological thrillers go, this one has a gentle but inexorable pull.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

This review will go live on 5 August:

Hi and welcome to my review of The Perfect Life!

I’ve been a fan of Nuala Ellwood’s writing for quite some time now so I was thrilled to be invited to read The Perfect Life. I know I can always rely on Ms Ellwood to help me escape reality by means of an engrossing psychological thriller, and The Perfect Life was no exception.

The Perfect Life alternates between a present and a past timeline, both told from the perspective of Vanessa Adams. Only about a year apart, yet the contrast between Nessa’s life then and her life now is steep. In 2017, she’s an accomplished, confident woman. She’s happy in her job and as we witness her falling madly in love, we see a really happy Vanessa, despite the troubles with her best friend/roommate who feels somewhat abandoned. In 2018, on the other hand, we see a rather distraught Vanessa brought in for questioning by the police, a murder suspect, and from the manner in which she is questioned, she appears to be a woman who has recently gone off the deep end. What happened? That is the question that plagued my mind almost from the onset, what the hell happened to Vanessa?

Soon I had my suspicions, and a while later my suspicions came true. There is little I can say about that cos spoilers, but holy crap I got angry again! It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to strangle a literary character, but I sure as hell wanted to strangle… they-who-shall-not-be-named. I love feeling all the feels, though, negative or positive, doesn’t even matter, so I really enjoyed that about The Perfect Life.

As things go from bad to worse, there’s this feeling of claustrophobia, which is something this author is really good at, creating a tension, making you feel like you’re right there in the thick of it. However, at one point, it sort of lost me a little bit. Again, I can’t explain why I felt that way cos spoilers, but what felt like a plausible story suddenly gained momentum through a reveal I found quite unbelievable and I struggled to suspend disbelief, mostly, I think, because of the contrast in plausibility: as opposed to what came before it just didn’t make a lot of sense to me and it sort of yanked me out of the story for a minute there.

Despite having that (poorly explained) niggle, overall I did have a great time with The Perfect Life. It’s a suspenseful psychological thriller, addictive and easy to read. If you’re looking to add to your psychological thriller collection, do check out The Perfect Life.

The Perfect Life is out now in ebook, paperback and audiobook.

Thanks to Viking Books and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are still my own.