Lauren and Sams parents were friends and they grew up together, then became a happy couple.

This is a story of twisted lies that link the families together.

Quite a slow paced book that picks up towards the middle. Twists and turns of the family drama kept me wanting to know what was going to happen next.

Enjoyable

This was my first Netgalley book so I had high hopes for it. The narrative was slow paced and I felt like there could have been alot of 'fluff' that could have been edited out to speed up the story as i did find myself constantly checking how much of the story I had left. There were twists and turns and I did not see the ending coming when we finally find out who killed her and why.

The protagonist (Georgie's) constant demonising and belittling of the women around her particularly to Sadie and Kate made me want to put the book down multiple times, it was insufferable. Also her blind belief in her son and her insistence that he couldn't have done it was infuriating, there seemed to be no doubt in her mind that her son could could have been Lauren's killer and that Lauren had to have done something wrong. The author does a great job at creating characters which you love to hate

The epilogue was a bit random but I guess its to show the transformation of Georgie's character into someone who speaks her mind rather than stay silent(maybe?).
Ultimately I'd recommend this if you're looking to read a murder mystery, but I'd warn you to prepare to be frustrated by it.

What lies beneath? This thriller delves into the secrets hidden beneath seemingly perfect marriages and perfect families. Newlywed childhood sweethearts Sam and Lauren have their future together shattered. The trauma uncovers a Web of dark and twisted lies and secrets that have bound the families together for decades. Once it starts unravelling, lives fall apart. Dartmoor's sinister, brooding atmosphere is the perfect setting for this tale of lies, deceit and control.

Childhood friends get married and all families involved are living their best lives together.

Until one day when everything changes. What appears to be an accident is proven by the police to be a murder, and everyone becomes wary of each other. I enjoyed many of the author's books in the past and this one was intriguing and fast-paced, as usual.

I can't say that I actually liked any of the characters, but those turns really caught up with me, especially after the last unpredictable twist when many other scenes made more sense than before.

Twisted and intriguing, this is another marvellous story by a favourite author.

This is an incredibly interesting and complex book which revolves around the family and friendship of two close families. Georgie is mum to Sam and she is great friends with Helen, Tom and their daughters Lauren and Katie. It is expected that Sam and Lauren will marry, which they do only to be followed shortly by the sudden death of Lauren.

The characters are really layered and the main narrator is Georgie. She envies her friends Helen and Tom their perfect marriage and when she finds herself isolated from them after her son is accused of murdering their daughter the dynamic changes and becomes far more dark.

Excellent twists and incidental characters and real darkness lurking and building to a great climax.

Thoroughly recommend this book and many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this suspenseful story. This is not my first book by this author but it is one of my favorites. This is a well written story where the characters pulled me in from the beginning. The characters are not only relateable but also kept the story engaging. They brought the twists and turns to a new level and kept me guessing. This is a story of a mother and her son's new wife and the secrets she keeps. Who is in more danger, the son or the mother? I enjoyed the growth of the plot and characters throughout the story. This is a fast paced story that was hard to put down which I reallly enjoyed. I highly recommend this book.

Georgie’s son, Sam, marries his childhood love, Lauren, and four months later she’s found dead. Lauren fell down a flight of stairs, and at once seemed like a horrible accident, it then became that her death is being investigated as a homicide, and Sam is their top suspect. Georgie is in a very difficult place since she wants to support her son, but also she was very close to Lauren’s parents, Tim and Helen, since the children were in nursery school.

This book had so many twists and turns it made me quite dizzy 😵‍💫. Right when you thought you knew who did it, something/ someone else came into play. I enjoyed the book, and felt for Georgie.

Thank you @netgalley , Sue Watson, and Bookouture for this ARC.

OHHHHH yesssss! This was so fantastic! Oh my goodness, honestly it was better than I thought it would be which makes me very happy. The writing was amazing and the characters were out of this world! Some of the pages I just flew through because I couldn't get enough!

The story was exciting as the basic plot line of murder mystery caused my investigative juices to flow. Life was a rollercoaster, the moments I spent with this book. Sue Watson did justice to her characters, making them evoke my emotions. The suspect list was not very long, but it surely felt justifiable to each name to it.

The Good
My protagonist Georgie was a good mother who ran pillar to post to try to get information to help her son. I liked her desperation and determination.

Fast-paced, it felt that all I could hear was the scrolling of the pages as the book reached the final ending.

The Bad
Ah, there were a few things, that kept pricking me. Georgie came across various information about Lauren’s family, but she refused to believe it. I understood her reasons for that. But in the book, she was a mother who was trying to prove her son’s innocence. IN such a scenario, a mother would use all weapons in her arsenal, wouldn’t she?

I could totally guess the perp. That’s not a bad thing, just my investigative talents or sheer good luck. Go figure.

The Conclusion
I would recommend this book for the murder mystery plot arc, so go for it.

This was a quick read that I got through in one sitting.

It's addictive from start to finish, and is very well written. I found this to be unpredictable at times, which always makes for a great story.

I want to read more of Sue Watson's novels because I really enjoy her writing style

Thank you to the publisher for providing me a copy of this ebook via Netgalley.

What a rollercoaster! Kept me guessing til the very end which is difficult to do. Great story, very well written and clever. Very much enjoyed it. Thank you netgalley and publisher for this arc in exchange of an honest review.

When Sam Moore married his childhood sweetheart Lauren Jackson at a beautiful ceremony on a glorious day in May, he had no idea that in three months time she would be dead and he would be under suspicion for her murder.

Sam and Lauren met on the first day of nursery when Sam took the hand of the crying little girl clinging to her mother and led her off to play. Since then they had been inseparable through school and university and both families could not be more pleased that they were getting married and planning their lives together. Although Sam’s family consisted only of his single mother Georgie, who divorced her abusive husband when Sam was young, they had both long since been adopted as part of Lauren’s extended family. Lauren’s parents Tim and Helen were warm and welcoming and together with Lauren, her younger sister Kate and often her best friend Sadie, they would celebrate family events and even all go on vacation together.

After studying environmental science at university Sam found his dream job as an environmental officer for Dartmoor National Park, while Lauren is a junior doctor who has never lost her love of social life and parties. Sam is less outgoing and prefers a quieter life, saving his money to pay the mortgage of a cottage on the edge of Dartmoor. Although it had always been Sam’s dream to live near the moor, where he could be totally surrounded by nature, Georgie was concerned that Lauren would find the peace and isolation of the cottage too lonely, and soon get tired of the forty five minute drive to work.

This slow burn of a psychological suspense will keep you guessing, as your suspicions of who killed Lauren switch from one person to another. Georgie is the narrator and since she is convinced that Sam would never have killed Lauren, she plays amateur detective, snooping around their cottage and questioning their friends and family members. However, as all the events and characters seen through her eyes are coloured by her feelings and perceptions. Georgie might think that she has had decades to get to know Lauren and her family really well, but everyone has flaws and secrets they have kept hidden and some relationships are not what they seem.

The location of the cottage on the edge of a dark and lonely moor makes for an atmospheric location and adds to the tension as twists, red herrings and startling revelations ramp up the suspense. The ending is totally unexpected and guaranteed to surprise you, unless you picked up the few tiny hints along the way. A perfectly paced addictive read that will find a place on many a crime shelf.

3 minus.

Three months after Georgie's son Sam marries his childhood sweetheart, Lauren, Georgie gets a panicked call from him. Lauren is dead. He has come home to find her dead at the bottom of the staircase in their new home. The police determine that there are signs of a struggle and that the death is suspicious. From thereon out the story twists and turns, throwing suspicions this way and that as new clues are discovered.The story is told from Georgie's perspective, and she quickly learns that the people in her life are not what they seem.

This was honestly a bit of a weird one for me. There's definitely a story here, a pretty good one even, but the way it was told didn't really work, IMO.

Firstly, in the beginning there's way too much dwelling on seeing Lauren at the bottom of the stairs and how sad it is and how all their lives are ruined. While this is true, I've had no time to get to know any of these characters, so - don't call me cold-hearted - but I honestly don't really care. I just want to get on with the story.

Also, I feel like the book could have done with more editing. And I'm not just talking about the previously mentioned faux pas of looking at nursery schools online 23 years ago. It has the potential to be an exciting page-turner, with an underlying sense of menace, but it really only gets there in one scene. And even though that was exciting, it was also clear that there would still be twists and revelations to come, that this was not "it". It's written too much as a summing up of events, a retelling, rather than being present in the action itself. It felt simultaneously like not enough happened and that it was too convoluted - nobody ever telling the truth about anything. But the writing style just didn't do the twists of the story justice. And I found the very ending to be kind of weird and unnecessary. It felt sort of out of keeping with the rest of the book.

Though I will say that when I picked it up I felt compelled to keep reading, and up to a certain point I was invested in finding out the mystery.

Wow! Total nail biter. I was really happy to get this book after reading “The Sister In-Law,” and it did not disappoint. Extremely fast paced story about two families merging after their children get married. The problem is one family has many secrets that do not stay hidden for long. Lauren and Sam have known each other since preschool, and according to their families they have loved each other ever since. But marriage is harder than they thought, with a new isolated home that Lauren isn’t thrilled with and long hours for both of them, marriage is proving harder than they thought. Just a short time after the wedding the unthinkable happens to Lauren throwing both families into a tailspin. Fast paced, excellent psychological thriller. Highly recommend.

I really enjoyed this dark thriller from Sue Watson but at times I found the mother a little insensitive when it came to Lauren’s family and maybe should have realised how the other party would have been feeling a bit more. Her so after all did nothing to help himself but I loved the story and was kept guessing until the end. This is a book where you can trust no one and just shows no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bookouture for the electronic copy.

What A Story! Now this is one psychological thriller which I found truly unputdownable, with an ending that comes down like a sledgehammer, smashing away all the reader's opinions on where the storyline was heading, as well as judgments made along the way concerning the characters - because people only see what they want to see - right?

Georgie is single mum to Sam and best friends with Jim (a DCI) and Helen and their two daughters Kate and Lauren. Sam and Lauren were childhood sweethearts; he became an environmental conservationist; she became a doctor, and they married, moving into an isolated cottage on the edge of Dartmoor. Jim and Helen are, compared to Georgie, well-off, and Georgie thinks herself lucky to have such friends who included her and Sam in all their family gatherings and holidays. Since her high school days Lauren has been close friends with Sadie but seemed an unlikely friendship with Sadie apparently in constant trouble, but Jim and Helen understood Sadie's poor background and supported her into university with Lauren.

The story is told from Georgie's point of view. Following the wedding where she meets James, the couple's former headteacher, hints given by Sam to his mother suggests that not everything is OK between himself and Lauren. Georgie begins to wonder if Sadie is playing a role in that - she spends time at the cottage and alone with Sam.
Then, one evening, Sam returns home to find Lauren at the bottom of their marble spiral staircase - quite dead. Did she slip? Was it an accident?
Naturally Sam is subsequently arrested and although Tim is a DCI there is little he can do.

That's when all the cracks begin to show in what seemed like a solid friendship.

Gradually the surface layers are peeled away to show the true picture.

I really liked the way the characters are portrayed - you certainly feel in the beginning you know who the nice/not so nice are, but be prepared to have everything turned on its head as the mist of mis-direction begins to lift amongst the twists and turns of this gripping psychological domestic thriller.

Great book by a new for me author!

If an author could plug in more twists and turns, this book would be a roller coaster of a thriller. Fortunately, I enjoy a good roller coaster almost as much as a good book.

Sue Watson has revealed herself to be a crafty and skillful writer leading you first down one path toward a conclusion and then pulling the rug out from under your feet.

I loved her character creation! Georgie, Tim, Helen all strong leads. The surprise, for me, was a strange pair of personalities. Trying to decide to love or hate Kate and Sadie kept me thinking about each of their roles in Laureen’s life and maybe her death.

I’m glad to have had a free afternoon to read this one. It was a true page-turner. Thank you Net Galley.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed all of Sue Watson's previous books, I was looking forward to reading this one. Wow, I wasn't disappointed. Once I got started I just couldn't put this down and read it quickly.

I was quickly drawn into the story and really enjoyed how the book was paced as the story developed. I thought I had the story worked out and that I knew what had happened but the twists and turns completely wrong footed me and kept me guessing right to the end.

Beautifully written characters who you can easily empathise with, eerie location set in the wilds of Dartmoor and fantastic storyline, this book has it all. I read alot of psychological thrillers and they often fizzle out towards the end, but not this one - I found the ending shocked me which was brilliant.

I can't wait to read the next book from Sue. Highly recommended - I would give this more than 5 stars if I could.

Omg, for someone who had such a tragic backstory, our main character and narrator of this gripping,twisty thriller Georgie had one hell of a blinkered view on her life and the people around her. She spent the vast majority of the story stumbling around viewing the world through rose tinted glasses and I had a sneaky suspicion that she had Sunshine And Lolipops stored somewhere on her phone. To Georgie, everything in her life was picture perfect and the icing on the cake had been the marriage of her son Sam to his childhood sweetheart Lauren who was the daughter of Georgie's best friends Helen and Tim Jackson.

The only blemish in the picture of perfection was Lauren's best friend Sadie, someone Georgie neither liked or trusted and struggled to understand Helen and Ian's kindness and generosity over the years towards the young woman whose demeanour and behaviour was the complete opposite to Lauren's.

After Lauren's body is discovered in the isolated cottage situated on Dartmoor that she and Sam had moved into after the wedding, Georgie's life is shattered as swiftly as a dropped champagne flute. Caught up in a web of secrets, lies and betrayals, Georgie is about to discover that a picture of perfection can be the perfect cover for dark truths and deception.

Oh boy, what a bunch of untrustworthy individuals this diverse cast of characters were and that included Georgie who I struggled to like at times due to her blinkered, everything is awesome and judgemental attitude. I didn't like how she based her judgement of Sadie on her underprivileged background and wild child reputation. Many people are not who they appear to be and conceal their true nature behind various masks and there was a number of characters who could have been Lauren's killer but who would want to harm the apparently innocent newlywed and why? Why was Georgie so certain that Sam was not being completely honest with her and why was Helen equally certain that Sam was involved in Lauren's death? The character who I felt the most sympathy for was young Kate who found herself caught up in the cross fire of all the drama that was unfolding around her. But was she as blissfully unaware as the adults thought she was or was she also one of the character's who were harbouring dark secrets?

The New Wife is a fast paced,gripping,addictive thriller that had me hooked in from the first page, had a number of unexpected plot twists and turns and kept me guessing and glued to my kindle. It's extremely well written, has a plot which covers a number of relatable issues and many of the chapters ended in a way that gave me a very bad case of just one more chapter syndrome. A captivating and enthralling read and very very highly recommended.

What an absolute rollercoaster of a book
Did not where were it was leading
Secrets and lies galore
Read well into the night
If you want a good domestic thriller
This is highly recommended

Thank you netgalley, Sue Watson and Bookouture