DNF

On narrator side, specifically:

Bad choice. When you write a psychological thriller from a first person point of view, you are already taking a chance. When you move it to the audiobook, you absolutely have to have the right narrator. Someone who can handle all the characters, and with the right modulation to create proper levels of suspense/tension... emote spectrum of extreme reactions.

This was not the right choice, at all. She was completely flat. Nothing. No emotion, modulation, pacing, or fluency. Nothing
And all the voices (in tone, content efc) sound exactly alike.

Let me just say WOW! This was over the top. I never guessed what would happen at the end. All throughout, the book keeps you guessing. Then at the end I was blown away! Anna has so much going on in her life. She’s worked so hard on solving some big scientific mathematical problem with her student. One she had to work on as a kid to appease her mother. She is also up for a possible professorship. Things fall apart very quickly. As in one day pretty much. She doesn’t get the professorship and she finds out her husband may be cheating. But she isn’t sure. Meanwhile, her boss is a womanizing jerk. Instead of confronting her husband, she tries harder to be the wife she feels she should be. The book kept me guessing and there was never a dull moment. Something is always happening, even when you think it can’t get any worse. The very last few paragraphs about blew me mind. I felt so bad for all she had endured. Everyone was awful to her. Her mom was so horrible then she grows up to have such a bad boss.

I listened to the audiobook. The narrator was so amazing. She really brought the story to life. There were times I would get to work and actually be late because I would keep sitting there listening.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
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After Anna receives a devastating blow in her professional life, she goes to her husband’s studio for comfort. He is not there, but she finds clear evidence of an affair.
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She decides to act as though nothing is wrong, puts on her best self and is determined to make her husband fall back in love with her.
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Anna has secrets of her own .....
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I loved this book! It definitely fooled me. I thought I had it figured out, but nope! It is a tangled mess of secrets and lies. You won’t know who to trust.
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The narratation is great on this one! Thank you @dreamscape_media @netgalley for allowing me to review this audiobook

While this book is amazingly narrated by Emily Rankin. You are able to distinguish the difference when each person is talking within the story line.  I just had a hard time believing that this amazingly smart woman made all this horrible decision. As always there are plenty of twists and turns to the story. The ending was completely not what I expected. This is for sure one I was not able to see coming. Slow moving but don't give up on it.

Thank you  #DreamscapeMedia #NetGalley for allowing me to review Unfaithful by Natalie Barelli in return for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and Avon Books UK for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ingrid is a journalist and on the 25th anniversary of the death of a local girl whom she went to school with, she decides to write a piece about the girl. This stirs up trouble with the twin boys, now men, that found the body and the man that was convicted of the murder.

I thank the publisher for sending me a widget for the book but unfortunately this book was just ok for me. On the positive side, it was a quick read but ultimately I had trouble connecting with the characters and when the reveal of the girl's killer came, it was not the interesting because somehow I just wasn't engaged enough to get excited about the mystery being solved. Still, I have enjoyed other novels from this author more and will read more from her.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I thought of this book. At about 75% I considered not finishing it because there were a lot of pieces that I felt were so confusing. I am really glad that I did finish it because the ending blew me away. I was 100% not expecting that one. Also, the ending cleared up so much throughout the book. It answered all of my questions. The twist that the end of this book takes is something I love but I still wish there was some clarity throughout the book. But overall, I am glad all my questions were answered in the end. I can’t even give an overview of what this book is about without spoilers.

Synopsis copied:
When I arrive unannounced at my husband’s studio in need of a shoulder to cry on after hearing that my best student, Alex, has died, I see a pair of wine glasses drying by the sink, and my deepest fear is confirmed: my husband is having an affair. Most women would fall to their knees in tears and throw him out of the house–but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I go home and cook a healthy dinner for our children, walk the dog, and unload the dishwasher without complaint. I will make him see that I’m still the woman he married; attractive, successful, the glue that holds our perfect family together. I need this marriage to work to protect a terrible secret of my own, something that would destroy everything I’ve already sacrificed so much for. But when the police arrive at my door asking questions about Alex’s death that I can’t answer, and threatening text messages start appearing on my phone, I know that someone close has been watching me very carefully. The truth is, there are three people in my marriage, but only one of them is deadly…

Thank you to @netgalley and @dreamscapemedia for allowing me to review this audio copy for my honest review.

This book was a very fun read! The narrator does a great job of keeping you in the dark, lying, and making you love her all at once! This book makes you question everything you know and I couldn’t stop guessing only to find out I was wrong! This never happens! I had a hard time not devouring every page and in less than 24 hours I knew all the answers. Read it today!

Well I could not stop reading this. I couldn’t tell if I liked the protagonist or not but I needed to know what would happen. The actual plot was pretty different her familiar to other thriller type novels I’ve read. Anyway I will now be seeking out all of the authors’ other books.

The main character, Anna, in this book is involved a mysterious problem with her husband's affair. Anna tries to keep everything together for the sake of her children and her marriage to Lewis. Not only, does she have turmoil in her own home but at work as well. As a mentor, she teams up with her graduate student, Alex, to solve and present a solution to a mathematical problem. Alex soons dies and Anna has to pretend that she knows nothing about his death.
Meanwhile, her husband's lover dies and she is a suspect. Lewis and Anna are tangled in a big mess that you can't figure out until the very end of the book. Anna and Lewis have so many secrets that come out at the end of the story. Who is really the unfaithful one?

As an avid reader of thrillers, I will have to say this book was not one of my favorites. I feel it lacked the suspense that a thriller should contain in order to keep the reader interested through the whole book. I found the beginning and the end captivating. However, the middle was slow to me.

This one really takes you on a wild ride! Anna is a math professor and suspects her husband is having an affair. So many bad things happen to her you begin to think it's really bad luck, although she's no angel. I enjoyed this one so much! Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio version.

I almost didn’t finish this book. It was all over the place and kind of hard to follow. The only reason I finished was because I was invested enough to know what was going to happen though, so I did finish. The book was an overall flop for me.

This book was full of twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat. I enjoyed listening to this story as I never knew what to expect next. Natalie Barelli writes wonderful psycological thrillers. This is the second I've read of hers, and it definitely won't be the last!

R E V I E W 
Unfaithful by Natalie Barelli - 5 / 5 stars

 S U M M A R Y 
Anna Sanchez has an apparently perfect life, if you're on the outside looking in. A good job as a math professor, on track for a promotion, a loving husband and to wonderful children. But then her doctoral student, a seeming genius with major emotional problems, dies, it begins a spiral of events that set that perfection tumbling end upon end.

 O V E R A L L 
Okay, so I HAVE to skip to this section first and go out of order. Because WOW. I had no idea going into this that it was going to be such an amazing ride. I got serious anxiety from this book (at least, pretty sure it was the book!). It took me on SUCH a ride. Normally I'm pretty good at guessing things and all, but this had me not quite getting it until pretty much until the very last paragrah, to be honest. And not in a way that made me mad, coming out of the blue. NO, it was there, but I just didn't see it like that! Barelli did a freaking FANTASTIC job and had me on tenterhooks throughout. Excellent book, recommend to any lovers of thrillers, especially domestic thrillers.

 C H A R A C T E R S 
I have to say, Barelli is really, really good at handling characters. Like, I definitely didn't LIKE Anna all the time, and sometimes even wanted to shake her, but you were definitely all in her head and her point of view and working through her rather unreliable lens. The supporting cast seemed pretty fleshed out and real as well. 

 P L O T 
Honestly can't say too much without spoiling so many things, but let's just say it was fast, twisty, and quite a well-plotted whirlwind. I'm thinking more of riding a bull at a rodeo than a flat out race.

 N A R R A T I O N 
I don't think I've ever listened to Emily Rankin as a narrator before, but she also knocked my socks off. Excellent at putting emotion into voices and tension into the story.

This book is a race to the finish line from page 1. Anna receives a frantic phone call at 6am from one of her most brilliant students. Hearing how stressed out he is she agrees to see him. From that fateful phone call till the end of the book there is non-stop action while we watch Anna twist and turn trying to figure out what is happening to what she thought was a perfect life. There is a ton of emotion in this book and since its an audio book we really get to hear the stress. Emily Rankin does a great job of really making us believe that Anna is losing her mind as one thing after another unravels in Anna's perfect world.

Once you think you have everything figured out there is another twist and wow the ending is one I did not see coming. This is an edge of your seat thrill ride from start to finish, I felt myself getting anxiety right along with Anna. I don't want to reveal too much or there would be spoilers so I will leave you with this, if thrillers are your style and you can handle the stressful ride this is a must read. Without a doubt one of the best I've read this year. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for supplying me an audio version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not really sure why I keep reviewing thrillers/mystery books. It isn’t because I don’t like them because I do. I absolutely LIVE for that head canon that comes when the entire script is flipped and, as a reader, you feel exhilarated and betrayed and thrilled and… a zillion other things. No, my issues don’t stem from reading these amazing books, my issue is the review. There are so many little nuanced details that I don’t want to giveaway and ruin the experience, but I also desperately need to gush over the brilliance.

That said, let’s see what I can do to adequately gush enough to appease my readerly soul and also keep the mystery alive for those who read.

And let me tell you… read you should.

Full disclosure: This is told in first person present tense which is NOT my cup of tea and, at times, I did find annoying.

In some ways, Unfaithful is… a slightly misleading title. Is adultery a pretty important plot point? Yes. However… that is far from being the only one and there are several major points that actually vie for top billing.

Anna’s life is… a picture perfect disaster. She is an assistant professor at a small Ohio university. Everything in her life that seems so idyllic from the outside is slowly (and sometimes rapidly) crumbling.

Her career: Alex, the student that was going to write a thesis with her name attached that would give her major notoriety died. After informing her that he was removing her from the paper. Anna was then passed over for a full professorship and also works under a department chair that redefines misogynistic and employs countless abusive tactics to bully and manipulate her.

Her coworkers/friends: I’m going to be honest… I had reservations about June. I thought she was just a bit too sweet, a little too much of a perfect best friend, and just a touch too there for Anna in all respects. I was waiting for June to pull off the proverbial mask and prove that she was secretly behind all the disasters happening in Anna’s life.

Her parents: Her dad is dead and her mom is an abusive and manipulative woman who set her 12 year old daughter out to solve an impossible math problem as a means of earning her the privilege of… having friends.

And, finally, her family: Her husband is, as the title and blurb say, having an affair. Who the other woman is is revealed fairly early on in the story and not a huge shock. It makes complete sense. How this “problem” is resolved is… definitely not an ending I saw coming.

All in all, I loved my read of Unfaithful (or listen since I had the audiobook version). It kept me guessing and wondering exactly as a good psychological thriller should. So if I loved it so much it should be an easy 5 star for me, right? Unfortunately… no.

Most of the ending was wrapped up perfectly and believably and I was more than satisfied with it. But (you knew there had to be a but right?) the entire story line revolving around Alex was ended in… an unbelievable way. If his motives were what was stated in the book for choosing to end his life… why call Anna over to announce he was taking her name off the paper? And even my suspension of disbelief is tested by the explanation of the conjecture solution. Just… no. That was far, far, far too convenient for me to believe and after the excellent thrill ride that was the entire story leading up to that point? I was very disappointed in how that particular plot was wrapped up.

The only other thing that is keeping me from giving a full five stars is… language. This is going to sound incredibly nitpicky of me, and perhaps this stood out more because I was listening to the audio version rather than reading the written story, but the author is not an American writing an American story, which is cool. However when there is language and verbiage used that is clearly not American, it takes me a bit out of the story and confuses me, wondering if I missed something along the way. For example a Band-Aid is called a plaster in the story and several characters say, “Search me” when asked about something they don’t know rather than “Beats me” which would be a more typical American saying. I know that sounds like SUCH a ridiculous complaint to have, but it did affect my read and my ability to stay immersed in the story.

Since this is an audio book, I want to comment on the narrator as well and that will be a simple review. She is excellent and I love her. Honestly her inflections, her voice changes for different characters, and her cadence were all just so exceptionally perfect. I was impressed and a huge fan of her read.

Thank you Net Galley for this review copy audiobook of Unfaithful by Natalie Bareli. I loved the twists the author wrote. I did not see the ending coming, which was so well done. Emily Rankin was wonderful performing the book. She added to my enjoyment. Her inner musings of Anna Sanchez were fantastic. I will definitely listen to more books by this author and narrator.

An adrenaline pumper! Truly a masterpiece! This audio book, UNFAITHFUL, took off with a suspenseful, intriguing plot that rushed me through a revolving door so fast to another place, and another time, I barely had enough time to catch my breath. With every event, right before something was about to happen, I could hear and feel the tension in the narrator's voice as she made the character, Anna, seem to leap into action with each thought process Anna had. Anna was great in this story. So were Louis and Jean. I waited with anticipation as the story developed and the plot thickened chapter by fast-paced chapter. An impressive scene! Each foot-step echoed, then faded in the hall as Anna gasped, then held her breath. This scene seemed to move in a slow motion action, then sped up. I felt the tension rise as she stepped into the hall and practically ran. Then suddenly she felt a little fear when she met someone in the stairwell, spoke in a whisper, then walked on with her head down until she got outside, then nearly sprinted to her car. Excitement bloomed right there. I felt her nervous apprehension. In my opinion, what could possibly have helped that scene a little more, maybe, and caused more nail-biting experience, perhaps some music to show anticipation or excitement right before the echoing of the foot-steps in the hallway. I loved that scene! It made my heart beat a little faster as I listened intently.
Anna's fear kept mounting as the days went by. Could that fear cause her to imagine and react differently to what was actually happening? Or, in other words, could her imagination be running wild?
Then there was another scene toward the end of the book that made my eyes go wide as I listened, and made me gasp suddenly. That scene was shocking because it surprised me so much when I found out who did what! I love it when they take me right to the very end that way. Throughout this audio book things kept happening to certain people. Why? That is the real question. Were these accidents? Suicides? Or murder? Suspense right up until the very end! The characters played their parts very well. If you listen to one audio book this year, I recommend, UNFAITHFUL. Natalie Barelli really out did herself with this one. I loved this audio book! It was more than great, it was impressive!

Thank you, NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing the audiobook of Unfaithful by Natalie Barelli in exchange for my honest review.

Um, WOW. This one started a little slow for me. In fact, at one point, I almost gave up, but I’m glad I kept going. Holy twists Batman! The narration was wonderful!

We start by meeting Anna, a happily married mother of two, who is a math professor at a small university. Her world is perfect. Her husband is an artist who supports her busy schedule, while she works with a needy student who is attempting to solve and publish a mathematical proof. When her student suddenly dies right before her eyes, her world quickly begins to unravel and it becomes very apparent that Anna is an unreliable narrator with a drinking problem. I can’t decide if you’re supposed to feel bad for Anna, but most of the time I wanted to punch her or walk away. She’s in denial about her life and it’s obvious she needs help.

If you can get past the frustrating beginning of the book, I promise the payoff is great. AND the reason I bumped my 3 rating to 4. I thought I had this one figured out until all hell broke loose. I couldn’t put the last 20-25% of the book down. I was reading so fast, that I had to go back and check that I was reading things correctly.

This one is full of horrible characters, just BAD people, except for the kids, the adorable dog, and June! Thank you Barelli for JUNE. June brings light into this dark, messed-up world. I don’t know if I’d like this as much without June. That said, if you enjoy tense, dark, twisty, and chaotic stories, give Unfaithful a go. The sucker punch twist is worth the mediocre start.

What an emotional ride!!! I absolutely loved this book. I did not want to put this down. The author had me invested in the story and there were lots of twists and turns. There was one part in the book that made my heart jump! I am now a fan of Natalie Barelli.
Thank you #NetGalley #DreamscapeMedia for allowing me to get an advanced audiobook copy of #unfaithful by #NatalieBarelli

This book was so exciting it never got dull for me at all! Anna’s character really surprised me. And that ending was not expected. Loved all the twist and turns it took!