JUST MY cuppa... What I love about Ms. Barelli's offerings is that her characters are everyday people - this author truly excels EVERY TIME (she is a very dependable author) with EVERY novel in the Domestic Thriller arena. It is very easy for the "average person" (NOT James - or Jane - Bond, not rich mavens in Beverly Hills) to relate to her characters, and equally as easy to forgive them when they encounter the unique challenges and temptations that Ms. Barelli puts in their path...

Natalie Barelli truly knocks the ball out of the park by skillfully setting up the story line, hinting at a bit of possible intrigue (but intrigue that could exist in ANY of our lives) and then watch out for double-bluffs because a skilled wordsmith, as you are distracted by her left hand's offering, she sneaks in with the right (which holds the true WHAMMO of a story line) and just like the greatest (Ali) she gracefully dances like a butterfly and stings like a bee. This author is truly gifted at introducing us to a typical family and as the story develops, carefully adding some shading here and a bit of lighting there, as our knowledge of each character (and all their flaws) deepens and the plot line (with all the secrets and grey areas exposed) is developed..

This offering will NOT disappoint Natalie Barelli fans - if you are new to Natalie Barelli and you enjoy domestic / psychological thrillers, you do NOT want to miss out on this very skilled author - she will keep your interest from the first intriguing sentence of this book to the last nail-biting word. Give this story a read (or a listen if that is what floats your boat - Ms Barelli is equally as skilled in choosing the perfect narrator for her novels - they always"fit" the story and the character very well and then only increase your pleasure with the story, rather than detract from it)..

So much suspense it was, exhilarating, is the word I use. Unpredictable is the best thing I can say about any book and with Unfaithful I did not know what to expect with all the red herrings. Loved it is so I can say without spoilers, Jump in as soon as you can.

These was a mess and amazing at the same time. A true rollercoaster ride of a thiller! Natalie Barelli will forever be on my radar!

Loved the narrator! 5 stars narration!
4 stars for this psychological thriller about Anna, a character I would never want to meet, much less be friends with, and her fairly screwed up home and family. She loves her family and husband so much. She makes sacrifices for them all of the time so everything stays just right in their world.

The thing is, her husband, Lewis, is having an affair. Maybe things at home are not so perfect. Anna has anger issues and drinks too much. She tells things to strangers she should keep to herself. She has an abusive background which becomes pretty important as you move forward in the story. Her career is on the verge of taking off because she has solved a pretty huge thing in the mathematical world, but, someone else is taking credit for it. As you read you keep waiting on the train wreck to come. And it does. The ending was a great twist and I love a good twist!

Many thanks to the publisher via NetGalley for allowing me an audiobook to read for review. Outstanding Narration!!!! Great author. I will look for more by her. Highly recommended!

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for allowing me to read this!

This book instantly drew me in, I really enjoyed this book and the plot. This author did amazing. I loved the writing style. I highly recommend picking this up!

This was such a great domestic thriller!! I highly recommend this one! It started off a little slow but then BAM! I couldn’t stop listening!!

Wow! What a rollercoaster ride! What this story lacks in believability (it requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief), it makes up for in fun. Yep, that's right, I said fun. Don't get me wrong, it is a thriller, and it does have that rising tension as things progress, but seriously, it's one entertaining read, or listen as the case may be. The story gives us an unreliable narrator in Anna who is an absolute hot mess. This woman's actions and decisions had me bouncing between feeling sorry for her and wanting to shake her until her teeth rattled - I'll admit that I spent more time in the latter frame of mind. I don't want to get too far into the details of the story, but I will say that what the blurb gives away is just the tip of the iceberg. This is one of those books that keeps you up way past bedtime because you just have to know what happens next. Emily Rankin voices Anna for this twisted tale, and she does an excellent job of capturing the chaos and tension surrounding Anna. In the end, I can't say that I liked Anna - honestly, I didn't care for a lot of the characters in Unfaithful, which is certainly a suitable title. So, don't expect to like or agree with our narrator, but do keep reading. The story may not be believable, and there are times when it's downright crazy, but it is definitely worth the read or listen.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I didn’t think I would like it but it was good. I’m not sure if I would ever read it again but I enjoyed it

Whoa. This was one I read of an author I haven’t read before! I really liked this and want to read more from her!!

Unfaithful

First, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
Anna is a math professor, married, has 2 children and a perfect life. Until it starts to unravel before her eyes. The student she is working with in a paper does before her eyes. She finds out her husband is having an affair & she is passed up for a promotion.

In my opinion, Anna starts making horrible decisions about everything in her life and things start to twist and turn.

I enjoyed listening to this story & appreciate the opportunity to listen.

Amazing thriller. I wanted to shake Anna 99% of the time but the ending really make up for it. Love the cliff hangers and twist. Grateful for the opportunity to read an advanced copy

The family this book revolves around appears perfect, but appearances can be deceiving. Kiddos to the author and narrator who brought this book to life. I became too involved and has to stop reading a little over halfway through. I was having serious anxiety as the character just kept making bad choices! In the end, I stopped reading to alleviate the stress! Those of you who are thriller fans will probably really enjoy the twists this novel has to offer! I wish I knew how it turned out! Maybe I’ll revisit it when there is less stress in my life!

As usual Natalie Barelli kept me on my toes and guessing all the way to the end of this book! Math professor Anna Sanchez has it all, a career, a loving husband and two beautiful children. She and her research student, Alex, have been working together to solve a very complex mathematical problem called the Penti-Stone Conjecture when suddenly Alex commits suicide and Anna's life begins to unravel. She becomes convinced that her husband is having an affair and this wild ride of a book continues to throw curve balls at the reader. I was not prepared for the ending as it wasn't what I expected, but this is the kind of writer Barelli is. She never disappoints! Unfaithful is an intense and engrossing thriller and I highly recommend. Thank you to NetGally and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my review.

On the surface, this story appears to be another typical marriage on the rocks cheating spouse story. The main character is Anna, a university professor who is working with one of her students on a paper to solve a complex math problem that will award a substantial prize to the winner. Unfortunately, things go horribly wrong for Anna when the student dies and her life starts to unravel in nearly every area. She learns her husband is having an affair and instead of confronting him and dealing with it, she buries her head in the sand.

Without giving away the extent her bizarre behavior affects her and the road she ends up on, I will say that she compounds her problems by making so many bad decisions and choices. The lines between right and wrong became so blurry, I had a difficult time keeping it straight. Several moments in this book had me wondering if she were the actual villain of the story or just a participant in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of that, I didn’t feel a lot of empathy for this character and several times felt she was a few sandwiches short of a picnic and we all would do well to run in the opposite direction.

Anna has many secrets of her own and her marriage appears to be the only good thing in her life. This story had me wondering how far she would go to hold on to it. Most people would argue that if your spouse is cheating on you, it’s not a good marriage and you should cut your losses and run but Anna is determined, almost obsessed, with keeping her marriage intact.

My Final Verdict: In spite of not liking the character or agreeing with her choices and decisions, this story was riveting and hard to put down. I had to know what was going to happen next. Who would come out on top? This story kept me on the edge of my seat totally unprepared for the outcome, which blew me away. I recommend this story to readers who enjoy complex characters that don’t have to be likable or stories that captivate the reader so much, the reader forgets what a train wreck the characters are.

Who here has ever had a really bad day. Hands please!🙋🏻‍♀️. Maybe you had a flat tire and ended up late for work. Maybe your significant other forgot about the dinner plans that have been on the calendar for weeks. Perhaps your child just sprung a huge class project on you that is due in the morning and hasn’t even started.

But poor Anna has seen her life crumble to pieces before her very eyes! Anna is happily (so she thinks) married with 2 children. She works as a math professor at a nearby University. When her student suddenly dies as they are closing in on a mathematical discovery that will make them famous…at least in the math world. When she runs to her husband for support she quickly realizes that there is a very good chance he is having an affair. Oh, wait! Did I mention that Anna was also passed over for the promotion she thought she had in the bag!

Yup! A bad day all around!

This was a fun twisty read that kept me guessing all the way through. Anna was the proverbial hot mess. She is the type of character you find yourself screaming at and want to shake some sense into.

This is my third read by Natalie Barelli. And I’ve enjoyed them all. Luckily I have a few more of her books sitting on my shelf waiting for me. Once again she delivers a thrilling read that will keep you engaged and leave you white-knuckling your kindle as you reach the end.

I listened to the audio version and the narrator Emily Rankin did an amazing job bringing Anna to life.

A buddy 🎧 with Susanne

Posted to: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend...

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an 🎧 to listen to.

Review also published on blog: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend.com/

Outlier Alert!

Just call me disappointed. I'm sorry to say that the wholly convoluted premise of “Unfaithful” was also extremely far-fetched, which, unfortunately, doesn’t work well for me. Furthermore, Anna, the main character may have made the worst decisions of almost any fictional character in the history of fictional characters. (Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a tad, however, all I can say is WOWZA.). Every single decision she made in this book made me want to shake and/or slap her. (Sorry, I try not to judge but REALLY?!? I mean REALLY?! Thinking about the ramifications of your actions before taking them, might have helped you out a great deal here Anna!).

So what, pray tell is the book about?

Anna Sanchez is a Math Professor at a University. Everything is going fairly well, Anna is happily married, working on a proof with her Ph.D., student Alex, that will earn them both kudos, when he completes suicide in front of her. Head spinning from what has happened, Anna seeks refuge in her husband only to later discover that he is having an affair and that it has been going on for months. Yet she does not confront him. Instead, she does everything she can to win him back and after all of her efforts, is almost sure that she has. Almost. Then she finds that the promotion she was up for was given to a much younger version of herself.

Spiraling out of control, Anna takes action that no sane person would. Time and again, Anna does things that boggle the mind and therefore made me want to slap her.

I am hardly ever able to suspend disbelief unless I love the characters and the writing is brilliantly captivating and unfortunately that simply wasn’t the case here for me. I disliked everything about Anna and had no sympathy for her because she got herself into every mess she found herself in.

That said, was this book salacious? Yes! Was it entertaining? Yes! Were my armchair detective skills on point? I’m afraid not! I thought I guessed right in the end and I was so, so wrong and for that, I must give the author, Natalie Barelli, kudos. You got me! Well done!

While this book wasn’t for me, simply because I felt like there was too much going on and I’m not a fan of far-fetched plots, I think that readers who can suspend disbelief will love this.

A Buddy Listen with Ms. Kaceey!

Thank you to Dreamscape Media, NetGalley, and Natalie Barelli for the alc.

Published on Goodreads, Twitter, and Instagram.

WOW. That my thoughts as I traversed this audio. .I would again say WOW when it was all over. This so could be a made for tv maybe even big screen movie. Chilling, mind boggling, nail biting. Having to know what was coming next or where it could go to from here.

I have really mixed feelings about this one. I really liked the premise and a lot of the plotlines. There were plenty of twists that kept me guessing. The part I had a problem with was Anna. I really couldn't stand her. I honestly almost gave up on a book I was mostly enjoying because she irritated me so much. She was always making stupid decisions and doing stupid things. I wanted to smack her most of the time. I should have felt bad for her considering all that was going wrong in her life but I really didn't care. This would have been a 4-5 star book for me if Anna hadn't been so irritating to me.

I listened to the audio version and I really enjoyed the the narrator.

4.5 *
Wow! I listened to the audio in 2 days. The narrator is excellent and really brings Anna to life so vividly! This story is very well written and developed!

I mostly went in blind for this one and I think that's the way to go. Anna Sanchez seems to lead a perfect life. She has a loving husband and two children. She is a Mathematician and Professor at a leading college. Life looks good! Then things quickly change. She is passed over for a promotion, one of her students commits suicide and she finds out her husband has been having an affair. This story is told through Anna's eyes. You quickly come to realize things are not what they seem. Her life is complex and chaotic. What is really going on?

There were so many twists and turns and I could not figure out what was really happening. Now that is the testament of a good psychological thriller! Loved the ending!

This was truly a very entertaining read/listen!

I'd like to kindly thank NetGalley and Dreamscape Media with granting me access to this Advanced Audio Recording.

I really loved this book!! It had so many twists and turns. It kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next!! This was my first book by this Author, and it won’t be the last!! Quick read!! Highly recommended!! You won’t be disappointed!!