I loved this book. At first I was skeptical because of the way in which it was being told, having a dead character tell part of the story, but this helped to carry the story along. There were so many twists and I didn’t see them coming. I was happily surprised.

An interesting dual viewpoint look at how relationships evolve over time. The readers journeys through the "then" and "now" from two different character's points of view--Pippa and Amanda. Both women are married to troubled men and only required one thing from their union, loyalty and fidelity respectively. The book opens with Amanda's apparent suicide and the chapters that follow show how she got to that point and how Pippa and her husband are linked to this event.

I tend to enjoy dual viewpoint, short chapter thrillers as they keep me drawn in. While I did not love the omniscient "now" viewpoint of Amanda, the book flew by for me.

4.5 STARS

The house on the cliff........

Literally on a cliff, known as "The Drop" near Melbourne. It's Gabe and Pippa's dream house, but who moves that close to a cliff with two young daughters? It made my nerves shred just thinking about the ledge! I admit to having a bit of acrophobia so I was on pins and needles everytime the cliff was mentioned (which is a lot). EEK!!

Just a regular family of four living close to a known "spot" that attracts jumpers who want to end their lives. Gabe has made a name for himself since they've moved in, he has saved seven, talking them down. He is sometimes referred to as an "angel".

Everything was hunky dory, until that day.

The woman, the ledge, his outstretched arms...

I'm not giving anything away! One thing leads to another. "I'm going to fix it.", I may have shouted, Noooo.....

I really enjoyed reading this book. Was kept involved and wanted to keep reading to know what happened. Hard to put down.

3.75 🌟
The Soulmate was a suspenseful dual POV with “mini-reveals” throughout the chapters. I enjoyed the short past and present chapters, they framed the characters well and aided the slow feed of plot points as to not reveal the story beats too quickly. A quick read that was ultimately sad but satisfying.

The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

If I could have read this in one sitting I would have done so but I needed to sleep and life can't stop just because I don't want to put a book down. The mostly short chapters each had me wanting to keep on going to the next one. It was a bit of a brain twister as I tried to put the characters at the right place in time during the chapters taking place in the past but this is one book where I kind of enjoyed the challenge. The various times in the past mixed with the present day added to the mystery in a way that I didn't find frustrating.

Gabe and Pippa Gerard have two young daughters and now live in a cottage on a cliff located in a sleepy coastal town outside Melbourne. They've lived in a lot of houses during their short marriage and Gabe's had a lot of jobs since Pippa has known him. Now lawyer Pippa is supporting the family and Gabe is the primary child minder in the family. Things seem to be going well for them, especially since Gabe seems to have found his calling. Their cliff is known as a jump off place for those who don't want to live anymore and since they've lived in this cottage, Gabe has talked seven people out of jumping. He's in the papers and the townspeople know him for being a hero who saves lives.

Then a woman shows up on the cliff, Gage tries talk her down and she goes over the cliff. At least that is what Pippa hopes really happened but she's not sure. Something is not right with what she saw and Gabe is acting strange. Hopefully the police will rule the woman's death a suicide, it was a suicide wasn't it?

We have two narrators, Pippa and the dead woman and we see the events of this story through their eyes, now and in the past. Both woman love their husbands, faults and all. Fidelity and loyalty play a part in this story. Can these women trust their husbands? Can their husbands trust their wives. This is very much a character study and with a huge focus on marriage and partnership. How strong are the bonds within each relationship? Just how much can each partner take?

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

“The Soulmate” by Sally Hepworth was a mystery centered around Gabe and Pippa, a married couple with a checkered past that slowly is revealed after Gabe watches a woman jump from the cliff in their backyard.
There were so many twists and turns that the reader is liable to get whiplash. I enjoyed reading it, but the ending lost me a bit.

I always enjoy her books, and this one was no different. Half of the ending was a complete surprise, which was great, and even the predictable part of the ending tied up the whole story satisfactorily. I burned through this book in a day since it was so compelling and fast.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Gabe and Pippa have moved into their dream home, but this magical place has one big draw back, it's located across from an infamous site called "The Drop" where people go to commit suicide off of the ledge. Gabe has taken it upon himself to talk to everyone he sees who is considering ending it all, and has successfully talked them all out of jumping. When Pippa sees Gabe intensely talking to a woman she is shocked when the woman disappears over the cliff's edge but did she jump or did Gabe push her? Pippa becomes more suspicious when she learns the woman was Amanda, the wife of Gabe's former boss.
I am a fan of Sally Hepworth's previous work and she has created another twisty novel that keeps the reader on their toes. The story is told from the POV of Pippa and Amanda both before and after the fall. At first I thought it was odd to have the story told from the perspective of the dead woman but as it unfolded I really liked it. There are a lot of twist and connections with the characters while no one was my favorite they all kept me intrigued. Hepworth sheds a light on a form of mental illness and how it effects marriages and relationships. Overall I enjoyed this mystery and look forward to more work from her in the future.

I wasn't sure what I was in the mood to read while looking through my arcs. Even though this doesn't come out until spring 2023, it's what jumped out to me. I flew through the book, so it must have been exactly what I wanted.

The Soulmate has two voices and two time periods. We get Pippa then and now and Amanda then and now. The story slowly starts to pull together as the book goes on. Pippa is married to Gabe and they have two little girls. Pippa adores her husband and thinks he makes her whole. They move to a cliff house which is dangerous. So much so that people come there to end their lives. Gabe got a reputation for saving everyone that came there since they moved in. But when a woman shows up, she doesn't leave alive. Pippa was watching, but she couldn't see clearly. It looked like Gabe and this woman were arguing. She then saw his hands up and the woman was gone. Gabe says she jumped and he seemed devastated by it. But Pippa isn't sure that's what she saw. She wants more than anything to believe her husband. After all, she's stayed with him through a lot already and she can't imagine her life without him.

Amanda is married to Max. Theirs was a marriage of convenience and rules. The one Amanda demanded was that Max stayed faithful. He was very rich and didn't come home until late most nights. Amanda was sure she would never love him. They enjoyed each other, but she saw too much infidelity with her own father. He destroyed her mother and she wouldn't be that way. After being married for so long, Max stopped working so much. They spent more time together and traveled. Everything seemed good. So why would Amanda jump?

The book weaves the story together going back and forth from now to then to now again. There were some pretty big twists and the pacing was good. I read 70% in one sitting.

I gave this book 4 1/2 stars rounded up to 5 on Goodreads.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my earc.

I am now looking at Sally Hepworth as a must read author. The Soulmate was excellent and I am going to get all my friends to read it when it comes out. Such a great thriller and as always she kept me guessing until the end. Thank you to netgalley for the advance copy.

Pippa recently moved with her husband and daughters to a cliffside cottage overlooking the ocean near Melbourne. It seems like it’s going to be a fresh start, until a stranger jumps off the cliff near their home while Gabe is out with her, trying to talk her down. But as details start to emerge, Pippa learns that Gabe kept some details from her about the woman who jumped. As she starts searching for the truth, other secrets and connections come to light, causing their tenuous peace to unravel and dark secrets to be revealed.

I really enjoyed this domestic suspense. The author did an excellent job at weaving multiple subplots together in unexpected ways – there were several instances where I was sure I knew what was going to happen but kept changing my mind. I enjoyed that the story was told from a dual POV, both Pippa’s and Amanda’s, and that the chapters were either situated in “before” or “now,” which was a great way to reveal information throughout the book.

The exploration of mental health, misdiagnoses, and how different trauma can show up as various issues was fascinating and incorporated seamlessly into the plot. The examination of relationships, the lies and deceit, and the concept of soulmates were also incorporated well throughout the story. The characters were well written and felt like real people, which made this thriller even more enjoyable to read.

I recommend this work to folks interested in domestic suspense and I’ll be reading more from this author. My thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for allowing me to read and review this work, which is expected to be published 4 April 2023.

Pippa and Gabe appear to live a charmed life, in a beautiful house atop a seaside cliff, with two gorgeous daughters supported by their stay-at-home father. But when a woman enters their backyard and commits suicide by jumping off the cliff, Pippa's and Gabes' lives are forever changed. The story is told through alternating perspectives of Pipp and the recently deceased Amanda, flipping back and forth between "now" and "then." The Soulmate unwinds the connection between these two women, and the secrets of the men they love. To me, this book was pretty middle of the road. I didn't dislike it, but also didn't feel that it ever got quite the momentum I was looking for. I'd categorize this as "thriller light"--there is drama and suspense, but it wasn't enough to keep me up all night.
Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC of this title in exchange for my honest feedback.

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𝐁 𝐎 𝐎 𝐊 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐈 𝐄 𝐖

4.1/5⭐️ The Soulmate- Sally Hepworth (pub date 4/4/23)

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒:

Gabe and Pippa Gerard have just moved into their dream house: a cliffside cottage in a sleepy coastal town outside Melbourne. It’s a fresh start to their marriage, and the perfect place to raise their two young daughters.

But the house’s perfect façade hides something more sinister: The Spot, where the tall cliffs have become a popular place for those wishing to end their lives. After talking someone down from the ledge, Gabe becomes a local hero, saving person after person… until one night, he doesn’t. And Pippa sees Gabe the moment after it happened, standing alone at the cliff’s edge, arms outstretched, palms facing out.

The death is ruled a suicide— Gabe said it was a stranger devastated over her husband’s infidelity. But when Pippa discovers that Gabe knew the victim, she has more questions than answers.

As Pippa works to uncover the truth, the foundations of the life they’ve built begin to crack and their deepest secrets start to unravel.


𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒:

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this ARC!

A domestic thriller about toxic and dysfunctional marriages, with short chapters from multiple POV and timelines- definitely keeps you invested in the story. Some twists were expected and some were not.


Fast-paced, mysterious, and intriguing. Also very easy to read- this book made me want to read more from this author. Definitely keep your eye out for this one (April 2023)! I know I will be adding this author to my list.


Food for thought: This is my first book by this author but I love all the covers I’ve seen of her books- they make me want to pick them up (do you judge books by their covers?)

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book. Go ahead and clear your day when you start The Soulmate. This is my first Sally Hepworth novel and I WILL definitely be back for more. Buckle up for the twist and turns. Words do describe this book well, READ IT!

I just can not get into this authors writing style unfortunately. It was a did not finish for me. I tried it on audio as well and just could not get into it.

This one was interesting, but didn’t hook me as much as I had hoped. The setting was amazing, but the characters fell a little flat for me.

Sally Hepworth is one of the queens of domestic suspense, and she’s a must-read author for me, so I was really excited to receive this ARC. The Soulmate grabbed me from the very first page. The Gerard’s large house overlooking The Drop, a massive cliff, was a phenomenal setting, and it added to the suspenseful atmosphere. It’s told from the two main female protagonists points of view in a “now”, “then”, “before” and “after” format, but I didn’t find it at all confusing. Although it is very suspenseful, ultimately, it’s a story about family, love, marriage, secrets, lies and loyalty. The storyline surprises and plot twists were mostly unexpected and some were jaw-dropping. Just a warning: The author had sensitivity readers who helped her navigate through topics like adultery, family pressures, workplace stress, child rearing, mental health, depression, grief and suicide. These are very sensitive topics, so please use caution if you find them triggering.

Sally is amazing! I have read every book by her and I am always excited when I can be able to early read for her! This was another edge of your seat book! Can’t wait for others to read it!

The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth was a proper Hepworth novel, but with a warm ending (which was odd).

I actually read the acknowledgements at the end of the novel, and got a kick out of the origin of the book. "Murder and marriage," originated from a pandemic lockdown.

The chapters of the book were well labeled, but I did find myself having to go back to see whose perspective and at what point in time certain chapters were taking place. I think Hepworth handled the concept of mental illness very well.

All in all, this was a great book, and a true testament to why Sally Hepworth is one of my favorite authors.