*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review*

A great thriller - I would recommend it!

This book was not for me. I almost stopped and DNFed at 50% because it felt so flat and pointless, but I chose to finish. The last 10% was way more entertaining, thrilling, and somewhat worth reading but by that point I didn't really care. The characters were so unlikable and this felt more like a story of just random moments in the main character's life.

This gave me gone girl vibes I will be recommending this to my followers who are obsessed with thrillers.

Have you ever heard of a book that can be both comical and a thriller? No, me either.

Let me introduce you to Birthday Girl.

I do not know how Niko Wolf, did it, but it has now been done.

This expertly crafted novel incorporates humor in an otherwise thrilling book.

These characters are multi-dimensional and "complicated" to say the least. This book is jam packed with twists and juicy secrets. I instantly fell in love.

One more chapter, turned into completely the entire book without even one bathroom break.

Wolf, knows how to tell a story. The pace was perfect. The chapters were fluid.

Buy the book, you can thank me later.

This literary mystery opens with writer Jonathan and his wife Maddie on her birthday. A few hours later, Jonathan is sitting with the police as he tries to explain why his wife would get into a car with a stranger and drive away. Twenty years later, Maddie is presumed dead and Jonathan is living his best life as a popular author of crime novels and getting ready to be married again. Then, one day, he sees catches a glimpse of Maddie in a crowd and his relatively solid life starts to crumble. He tries to explain what he saw to the people in his life, but they don't believe him. Jonathan is sure of what he saw, but if it was Maddie then why isn't she reaching out to him?

TW/CW: pregnancy, discussion of abortion, domestic abuse, child abuse, infidelity, drug use, alcohol use

I think the description of this book is way off and is not doing the book any favors. The description states this is a "propulsive thriller" for fans of Gone Girl. Based on that, I'm expecting to have some real moments of tension and building threats revolving around Maddie and her disappearance. This could not be further from the truth. This read 100% like a normal lit-fic book where the main character is going through a little bit of a mid-life crisis in regards to his upcoming wedding and career trajectory. I didn't find this to have nearly the tension, plotting, or pacing to be called a 'propulsive thriller'. I even hesitate to call this a mystery because, for the majority of the book, finding out what happened to Maddie is not even really a conversation. However, since we do, eventually, get around to questioning and finding out what happened, I'll let it slide.

The characters were a little hit and miss for me, but I did like the way their characterization was handled in the dual timeline. The story flip-flops between the 1990s and 2019 and we see most of the characters in both timelines. I really enjoyed how Wolf tweaked their relationship dynamics between the two timelines and it was interesting to imagine how these characters got from point A to point B over the course of 20ish years. I'd say the slight majority of the story is the 2019 timeline and I found the characters in that part to be really insufferable to read about. In 2019, Jonathan is a very successful author and all of the side characters are equally successful in their own fields. There is a little bit of interpersonal tension, but mostly it is these people going about their days being good at their jobs and having a pretty great life. I found the characters much more compelling in the past timeline because they were in the middle of building their lives and working to get where they wanted to be. Now, obviously, I would expect characters to have some sort of success within 20 years, but since they were all at a high level, it made the characters a bit boring to read from. It felt very much like the story revolved around 'rich people problems' that just weren't built up in a way that was interesting to me.

The pacing gets a little complicated. From a mystery/thriller perspective (which is what I thought this book was) it wasn't very good. It felt like the story had a lot of abrupt starts/stops/direction changes. For example, one conflict comes to a head suddenly when there's basically an intervention for one of the characters. And then during this meeting, we get a dump of information about a different plot line that basically has us ignoring the reason for the intervention and instead following this new information. As we get further along in the story, we increasingly have sections where it is just Jonathan thinking back over his life and career which really grind any sort of plot momentum to a halt. I think these moments are really what made it feel like a 'mid-life crisis' sort of book. All that being said, if I think about the pacing from a lit-fic sort of angle, then I feel like what we get on page much more closely aligns with what I would expect.

Now since this is partly a mystery, we do get some reveals/revelations that I think were pretty effective. There was one reveal that sort of felt like a cheat where Jonathan - our POV character - finds out something that we think is a surprise to him. However, we find out later that him being completely surprised wasn't entirely accurate and it felt like Wolf held back that tidbit of information so it could be used as a second reveal. The actual plot implications of this reveal were very interesting and I liked where the story took it from there. However, I think if there was more build up and more tension leading up to these reveals then the payoff would have been really spectacular. There was one reveal that, when we get it, I was immediately more intrigued with the story than ever before. However, that reveal comes literally on the last page so obviously we don't see any on-page implications. If that ending reveal was the midpoint reveal - I really think that could have made this story more along the lines of what I was expecting. I finished the book the day before writing this review and I can't stop thinking about the implications of that final reveal and I want to see the version of this book that follows those next events.

Overall, I think this was a case of an issue with the description not matching the content of the book. This read much more like a literary fiction with a slight mystery element than the thriller/mystery the description made me expect. I'm not a fan of lit-fic types of stories, but I do think if you are then I would suggest picking this up. It did have some good twists in the end, but nothing that was built up enough for me to really feel satisfied.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mobius Books for the ARC

Expected publication date is June 9, 2022

Jonathan made a success of himself as a crime writer after his wife Maddie disappeared in 1996. Now, though, just as he's about to remarry, he sees her in a crowd- or does he? This moves back and forth in time and in Jonathan's mind to unravel the mystery of what happened the day that Maddie got into a stranger's car and rode away. It will be almost immediately obvious that Jonathan isn't the most reliable narrator but what's really happening isn't revealed until the very end. It's not propulsive but more of a slow burn and hits familiar themes well . Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Birthday Girl
by: Niko Wolf
Hachette Book Group, Hodder Studio
genre: Mystery & Thrillers
pub date: June 09, 2022

Birthday Girl is a well-paced thriller about the disappearance of main character Jonathan's wife Maddie. Those who savor mystery and intrigue will be drawn to this book. Questions and secrets are abundant as the suspense plays out.

Thank you to Net Galley and Hachette Book Group, Hodder Studio
for the advance reader's copy and opportunity to provide my unbiased review.
#NetGalley #BirthdayGirl

One of the descriptors for this book is a “propulsive thriller,” which I strongly disagree with. I would describe this as a slow burn psychological suspense novel. Jonathan’s wife Maddie disappeared on her birthday 20+ years ago &, despite achieving enormous success as a writer after Maddie’s death, Johnathan has never really recovered. There is very little action in this book, with most of the story taking place in Jonathan’s head. Most of the characters range from unlikeable to despicable. I almost DNF’d it when, 50% of my way through the book, nothing had really happened, but kept going because I thought surely it had to pick up at some point because of that “propulsive thriller” thing. In the end I’m glad I stuck with it, but it ended up being just a so-so read for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

How would you feel if you took a trip to the beach with a loved one (wife, husband, partner), they get into a car with a group of strangers and disappear from your life?
In this mystifying, clever read we come face to face with Jonathan’s devastation. We yearn to find the answers to many questions, we feel his pain and witness his grief. He takes his despair and pours it into writing a series of very successful novels.
Twenty years have passed, his life has moved on and he is learning to love again. On a crowded street amidst a stream of people, Jonathan sees his wife Maddie. Is it her? Has she come back? With his crime writer sense he is drawn to investigate but faces the disbelief and lack of support from friends. Who is at the core of this? Who is hiding something and why?
Moving from past to present, this is an attention grabbing, well plotted novel of twists and turns. It comes highly recommended with thanks to NetGalley, the author and Mobius Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, Hachette Book Group and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.


A bit slow moving it was interesting still. A decent mystery with a twist at the end.

I found this book to be very slow and hard to get into. I wasn't particularly engaged or invested in this. Maddie was a horrible person and annoying...which made Jonathan's yearning for her very confusing and irksome. The ending was awesome though I will say that. This just wasn't my cup of tea.

Involving, literary mystery. Each chapter brings you closer to the final twist which will cause you to re-think everything. I could not resist this from the synopsis. Recommended for lovers of literary mysteries and stories about authors. Don't miss this book! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Birthday Girl is a great book and full of mystery and intrigue.
This one took me a minute to get into but once I did I could not put it down.
I flew through the book and kept it down only once I reached the end.
The book was exceptionally well written, the characters were very well developed and I felt like I was right there in the book. I found them well drawn and believable.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Hachette Book Group|Mobius,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my platforms, blog, B&N and Waterstone closer to pub date.

This book started off well, with the disappearance of Maddie, but it seems to have gotten a bit lost along the way. The premise is good, but it doesn't fully work. It is a quick read, though.