Michael and Natalie have been married for a while. Things had gotten a bit hard with raising two kids, both working full time, and maintaining their household. To anyone looking in it appears that all is well. It isn't and it really gets uglier when they go on a long weekend to New York and all of a sudden Natalie disappears with the kids. Michael knows she is afraid, but can he come to terms with why and find her in time to save their life and their marriage? It seems that his whole life has been a tangle of misunderstandings that have turned bad. Natalie has spent a month untangling his past and what she finds puts her on the run from the truth she must face to save herself and her family. The book is a tangled, high-energy, psychological thriller that will keep you reading all night to the surprising ending. 'My Wife is Missing' is full of complicated characters, misunderstood love, and one surprise after another. Really loved this book. It is a five-star book and a must-read for those who love twisty plots and surprises galore. Thanks to #NetGalley#MyWifeIsMissing for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I was provided a print and audio arc of this book via Netgalley. The audio narration was good, the narrator did a good job with the alternating perspectives and gave the different characters their own voices and personalities so you knew who was speaking when there was dialogue. I did think that the alternating timeline felt a bit disjointed, but if you have read any of my reviews before you know that I am not a fan of timeline jumping. This alternates between Michael and Natalie in the present, and jumps to Natalie in the past before she goes missing. It almost feels like there are 3 points of view instead of 2.

I've been a DJ Palmer fan for quite some time, and I was really looking forward to this book. I think I'm in the minority when I say this isn't my favorite of Palmer's works. It was a decent read, but I found it a little slow paced and repetitive for my taste. I never got that suspenseful feeling as if any single one of the characters was in peril of any sort. If anything Natalie was a danger to herself and the kids.

This follows Michael and his wife Natalie, a couple who are having issues stemming from Nat's insomnia. Anyone who has suffered from insomnia knows that it is miserable. It is so much more than "I didn't sleep well last night" Because of her insomnia and other life stress from work and the kids, Natalie and Michael have hit a rough patch in their marriage. Nat begins to suspect Michael of being unfaithful which only puts more distance between them. Determined to find proof of his affair to protect herself and her kids, Natalie begins her own investigation into her husband and finds more than she bargained for. She hatches a plan to run away and protect her kids while on vacation in NYC, but Michael loves his family and he wants to make sure they are safe. Natalie's insomnia itself almost becomes a suspect in this as she begins to hallucinate and is almost delusional at times. Michael is no angel either as he harbors secrets, making him a convenient suspect and easy target. All of the characters were unlikable, and they were all up to something. You could tell they all hiding something.

While I found some of this book to be formulaic and predictable, I certainly didn't see the final reveal coming. That was a nice twist. I love it when I don't see the ending coming! There were a few red herrings to mislead you and quite a few twists and turns along the way to keep you on your toes. While I didn't enjoy this one as much as I have enjoyed some of Palmer's other works, I would still recommend it. If you like car chases, and domestic thrillers in general I say check this out.

Michael Hart is taking his wife and kids on a much needed break in New York City. After the trip from Boston, he leaves his wife Natalie to get their kids settled in to the hotel room while he goes out to pick up some pizza for them all. And when he gets back, the room is empty.

He double checks the room number, but there is nothing in the room. His wife is gone, his daughter Addie is gone, and his son Bryce is gone. Only his suitcase is left in the closet, but Michael does find Bryce’s stuffed bear in the hallway. So not only were they taken (what other explanation could there be?), but Bryce is going through that without his favorite comfort animal.

Michael checks in with the hotel to make sure they didn’t change rooms, but they know nothing at the front desk. All of his texts and calls to his wife are unanswered. He asks for the manager, who tries to help but has no extra information. He suggests that Michael call the the police, which he does, but the detective who shows up can’t help him. The security footage shows Natalie and the kids leaving on their own, to a car that she had scheduled ahead of time. There were no menacing men with guns nearby. They all look safe and as if they are acting of their own volition, and since there is no custody order that Natalie is violating, she’s free to take the kids with her if she leaves him. There is no crime, so there is nothing the police can do.

Michael heads back home to try to figure out what’s happened, hoping for a call or text, and finally has to face the fact that Natalie has left him without a word, taking his kids somewhere that he doesn’t know about.

Natalie, meanwhile, has planned out an escape route to the home of an old friend. She hasn’t been in touch with her friend in many years, so she’s hoping that Michael won’t think to look for her there. And with what he’s done, she doesn’t care if he’s worried about the kids. She just wants to keep them safe. She wants to keep them safe from him and the secrets that he’s been keeping.

Because Natalie knows about his affair. And when that affair ends suddenly, Natalie believes that Michael killed her. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the secrets that Michael has been keeping from her, so Natalie has no choice but to disappear.

But all this stress has been interfering with Natalie’s ability to sleep. One sleepless night after another is taking its toll. She’d been to her doctor and followed all the suggestions. Pills, teas, hot baths, reading, putting down screens, giving up caffeine—none of it helped her at all. Now she’s on the run and her exhaustion is making it increasingly hard to keep herself and the kids safe. She starts hearing things. And maybe she’s seeing things? But she knows the threat is real—the threat to her family, and the threat to her life.

Will she be able to outrun Michael and his deadly secrets, or will he come after her and make good on those threats?

My Wife Is Missing is the latest thriller from D.J. Palmer. This domestic chiller tells of the rift that can happen in a marriage when there are secrets. Add in the extreme stress of an illness like insomnia, and things get worse. And when you to the point where your insomnia makes you hallucinate, how can you know what’s true and what’s imagined? My Wife Is Missing takes a hard look at what it takes to keep a family together and what can rip it apart.

I have to admit that I struggled with this one. I found Michael hard to believe in. Even before he admitted to readers that he had secrets, I thought that he seemed disconnected with the rest of the family and lacked compassion toward his wife and what she was going through. I thought the premise of the book was good, the plotting was strong. I liked how it bounced around in time, offering up pieces of the puzzle from the past and the present. So for me, My Wife Is Missing is a good thriller, not a great one, but your mileage may vary.

Egalleys for My Wife Is Missing were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Thank you NetGalley, St Martin’s Press and DJ Palmer
As usual DJPalmer does not disappoint, another wonderful read, I was hooked from page 1 and could not put this book down.
I will pick up and read anything from this author.
Highly recommend
5 stars

Suspenseful and twisty, but pretty "meh" in my opinion. Looks like I'm in the minority on this one so it may just be a case of wrong book, wrong time. I was initially hooked and found the premise interesting. I am over the 'unreliable female narrator with mental issues' trope though. The lead in this one suffers from insomnia that produces hallucinations. As a mom, I just couldn't relate and found her actions to be eye-roll worthy. I enjoyed the twists at the end and it came together for me, but took awhile to get there.

I really liked this book but felt at first that the characters, especially Michael Hart was very difficult to understand. It is not until later in the book that readers get to see his depth and what drives him. There are other characters that really stand out to me, so the characters and their journey are what pushed this from a four star to a five star review. Well thought out plot and suspense...pacing was also good. There were plenty of plot twists and bumps to keep me reading too late at night (which is always a good sign that I am enjoying the book.)

Thank you to NetGalley, author D.J. Palmer, and St. Martin's Press for this digital copy for me to read and enjoy. As always, my reviews are voluntary and my opinions are my own.

4.5 Stars

This was a rollercoaster ride from the first page, and I couldn’t put it down! Michael and his family are vacationing in NYC. Michel goes out to get pizza and when he returns his wife and two children are missing.

This was such a good one! It was fast paced and full of suspense. The best part was you think you know what’s going on and who not to trust, and then you’re blindsided and you’re completely wrong. I went into this book with zero expectations and it turned out to be a great thriller! I highly recommend.

A huge thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

While on vacation, Michael Hart returns to the hotel room to find his wife, Natalie, and their children gone. Michael and Natalie have had some problems in their marriage recently, and Natalie’s insomnia hasn’t helped things. Even so, Michael assumes his family has been abducted, and enlists the help of the NYPD. When they look into the situation, it appears Natalie has fled with the children, but why?

This book started off with a bang! Michael arriving back at their hotel after getting pizza and finding his family gone was a great way to get me invested in the story. I did feel the pace slowed down a bit especially once Natalie is on the run. It felt repetitive to me at times, and I was excited once the pace picked up again and the twists began to happen.

Told in dual timelines with both Michael and Natalie’s present day perspectives as well as Natalie’s point of view leading up to the disappearance, I found both narrators unreliable. Throwing in Natalie’s insomnia didn’t help with knowing who or what to trust.

The ending of the book was full of twists and was really fast paced. I had an idea that one of the characters was involved, but not in the way the author took the story. The secrets and lies thrown into the story definitely held my interest and made me need to figure out exactly what was happening.

Read this book if you like cat and mouse chase type thrillers with lots of twists and red herrings thrown in. Thank you to the author, D.J. Palmer, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for advanced copies in exchange for my honest review.

A husband goes in pursuit of his missing wife in this domestic thriller.

When Natalie Hart and her two children leave the hotel room they've reserved for a family vacation in New York, husband Michael goes full on super detective to find them. Why did Natalie escape and what is Michael hiding. Lots of secrets and lies in this crazy drama.

Told in alternating points of view between Natalie and Michael, there's a lot to unpack. First of all, Natalie has been trying to deal with crippling insomnia and the lack of sleep has impaired her thinking to the point that she's apparently having hallucinations and memory problems. I did not think either of those was contagious, but in his storytelling, Michael also seems to have some issues. Neither is reliable as a narrator, and I found that I didn't care for either of the pair. In fact, none of the characters in the book are likeable and the reader has no clue of who has done what to whom. The tale of Michael chasing Natalie across the USA with an NYPD detective in cahoots was a bit of a hard buy in and somewhat ludicrous. A great deal of suspension of disbelief was required.

I found this more irritating than exciting and between Natalie being almost delusional and the reader led to think that Michael is gaslighting her (is this in all the books now) the story just becomes one long slog as I raced to the conclusion to finally get some sort of truth. Even then, the last couple of chapters bordered on complete ridiculousness. I guess if people were open and honest all the time, we'd have no domestic thrillers dealing with husbands and wives. Basically this was a long, drawn out ride with an ending that fell short of my expectations. So 2.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this e-book ARC to read and review.

Clever, twisty, and well written!

My Wife is Missing is an intricate, perfectly paced thriller that takes us into the life of Michael Hart, a husband and father of two who finds his life turned upside down when he returns from picking up a pizza for dinner only to find his wife and children missing from the hotel and only his son’s beloved bear left behind as evidence that they were ever even there.

The writing is smooth and fluid. The characters are astute, devious, and committed. And the plot unravels briskly into a sinister tale full of twists, turns, manipulation, deception, desperation, jealousy, red herrings, familial drama, marital strife, tragedy, and murder.

Overall, My Wife is Missing is an intricate, crafty, addictive read by Palmer that captivated, satisfied, and highly entertained me and was a good reminder that things are never quite what they seem, and behind closed doors nobody really knows what happens.

I always enjoy D.J. Palmer books, and My Wife Is Missing is no exception.
Michael finds his wife Natalie has goon missing, along with the two children. We’re they kidnapped? Or did they leave willingly?
Michael and the police really want to know what happened, but maybe Michael has reasons to hope they don’t reappear?

I thought this one was a little long, but I enjoyed the cat and mouse chase and unreliable narrators during this domestic suspense.

A family vacation that is plotted for another reason unknown to the husband, the wife disappearing with their two children, and twists you won't see coming. This is my new favorite book from D. J. Palmer. The story is so intense you will have trouble putting it down. Buckle in because you are in for a ride!

For me, this is a hard book to review. It’s a domestic thriller with an extremely convoluted plot.

The wife thinks the husband is unfaithful. Consequently, wife has insomnia. Husband tries to convince wife that she is delusional because of insomnia. This triggers a series of events which get darker as the story goes along.

This is my second novel by DJ Palmer. This man is an expert at weaving a complicated plot. As in the other book, The
Perfect Daughter, there are many twists and turns. I can never figure out whether to root for the husband or the wife. Every time I decide that it is a predictable plot, it turns out to be not so.

All through the book, there are innuendos of something terrible, which sometimes are hard to pick up. When I thought I recognized one, I turned it around in my mind and decided against it. It’s as if the author is playing with the reader's mind. Well played!

And, add into the mix an unreliable narrator, though it is in the third person. Who does the reader believe? I guess you have to go right to the end of the book to find out!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an Advance Readers Copy of this book.

**4.5-stars**

On the first day of their NYC-vacation, Michael and Natalie Hart split up for what is expected to be a brief period of time. While Michael runs out to pick up take-out pizza for the family, Natalie stays back at the hotel with their two children, Addie and Bryce, to get settled in.

When he returns, Michael spots Bryce's teddy bear just outside the door to their room. That's certainly strange as the young boy is beyond attached to the stuffed toy. Entering the room, Michael is surprised his family isn't there. Surprise turns to confusion when he notices the only bag in the room is his own. Where is his family?

Michael raises the alarm to hotel staff and then the police. As he is unable to reach Natalie by phone and has no other explanation, Michael fears they've been kidnapped. After viewing hotel camera footage though, it appears Natalie left quite willing, of her own volition; just her and the kids. Michael is so confused, why would she do this?

These opening scenes set the tone for the entire novel. It's intense and fast paced. Through alternating perspectives, as well as past and present timelines, the full depth of Michael and Natalie's relationship is revealed. It's clear that the couple were having problems prior to their ill-fated trip to NYC. Natalie doesn't trust her husband at all and Michael, well, he has his issues.

Due to stress and struggles within their relationship, Natalie has been suffering severe insomnia. Michael uses that fact against her, claiming she is not in her right mind. Frankly, it's not entirely clear if she is or not. I love an unreliable narrator and I would say that Natalie falls into that category. In spite of her insomnia though, it's really through Natalie's perspective that the truth of this story begins to be revealed.

I really enjoyed my time reading My Wife is Missing. Palmer has a signature over-the-top style. His books are always a wild ride, never failing to keep me engaged.

I loved how quickly this one kicked off and it really never let up. Towards the end I was flying through, I had to know what the conclusion was going to be. It turned into this sort of intense cat and mouse scenario, although at times it was hard to determine who was the cat and who was the mouse.

I have read all of Palmer's novels, in order, as they've been released and in my opinion each one has been stronger than the last. We love to see that sort of upward trajectory with an author's work. He always keeps me guessing, that's for sure. I can't wait to see what sort of insanity he throws at us next!!

Thank you so much to the publisher, St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I appreciate it so much!!

My wife is missing is a fast paced psychological thriller I couldn't put down. I kept needing one more chapter and just when I thought I had it all figured out the story gets more twisted. Natalie and Michael are on a vacation with their children when Natalie and the kids come up missing. In a rushed daze to find his family Michael has to face his past.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this digital arc. All opinions are my own.

I finished this book a few days ago and had to sit on it before writing a review. For starters, it was fantastic! The perfect mix of lies, betrayal, paranoia, and suspense. I was on the edge of my seat until the very end! But I didn’t feel I could put into words why this perfect mix worked so well for this story without giving away too much, so I’ll do my best to keep the important details under wraps.

The book begins with Michael taking a trip to NYC with his wife Natalie and their two children, but we only get Michael’s POV initially and soon discover that his wife and children are missing from their hotel room. After viewing security footage, it appears that she left willingly and in a hurry with their kids. But why? The story then progresses with scenes from the past and present, and the reader gets more insight into their marriage problems and Natalie’s struggle with insomnia, which could very well been a source of delusions. But the real question in all of this is: who is telling the truth?

Overall, I thought this was a page-turning suspenseful read and the ending caught me completely off guard. Highly recommend!

*I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4710364079

My Wife is Missing by DJ. Palmer was one of the best thrillers I have read this year.

A family vacation falls apart after Natalie, the insomniac, and her 2 kids disappear while her husband, Michael, goes out to get the pizza. (I am keeping this a simple synopsis because writing anything else will give away spoilers.)

What I loved:
🧸 This fast, paced thriller had me wanting to finish it in one sitting!
🧸The twists and turns were so unpredictable!
🧸 I loved the character development. I was 100% team Natalie during this entire book!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫(4.75)/5

This may have been my first DJ Palmer book, but it won’t be my last.

This is my third book by this author and I think it’s my favourite. Michael and his family arrive in NYC for a vacation. When Michael returns to the hotel after picking up pizza he discovers his family is missing. He initially believes they have been kidnapped. Natalie, his wife, is suffering from severe insomnia and because of this she is having trouble making decisions and knowing what is factual. It turns out Natalie is on the run from Michael. Is there a valid reason for this? This is a great story with many twists and turns. The book is told by Natalie and Michael in alternating chapters and gives the back story of their lives as well as the present story. Overall this is a twisty wild ride and I loved it. If you are looking for a great suspense story this is it!!

Natalie has terrible insomnia as she starts to question her spouse, Michael and thinks about all the problems in her marriage. Things get so bad that she needs to plan an escape to protect their two children. Not only has Michael had an affair but he killed one of her co-workers! She has to get away and get somewhere safe so she can finally call the police safely. As Michael tries to find his wife, as reluctant as he is, he accepts the help of a policeman to track down his wife and his children. This was an intriguing audiobook with an ending that surprised and delighted me because of course, I knew exactly what happended. This is my favorite so far by D.J. Palmer. May 2022 Pub Date