This is a fast paced thriller with enough clues to keep my mind busy trying to solve the puzzle, and plenty of twists to make me second guess. I also enjoyed the fixer upper shared beach house as a unique connecting point in the story.

Not sure what it was, but something was missing in this one for me. I stuck it out and didn't hate it, but the storyline just fell a little flat and wasn't a favorite for me.

DNF...
Did not finish. Writing was poor & did not find the characters to be likable at all. I tried to push through, but had no interest in continuing.

Lucy Taylor and her husband, Adam, enjoy hanging out with their best friends, Adam's college buddies Cora and Scott Waugh, until Lucy coincidently sees a photo of Scott romantically posed with another woman on the Maldives. So starts a chain of increasingly alarming discoveries Lucy makes about the past lives of Adam, Cora and Scott, filled with dark secrets, unexpected twists and turns, and life changing betrayals
Helen Cooper's writing style is unique and engaging. I found the ending to be a surprise, but with clues sprinkled throughout.
The Couple In the Photo was a very fast read that I found enjoyable and entertaining, with gripping suspense. Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This one was a wild ride! It was an interesting premise on how one photo can change the trajectory of life. I rounded down since the pacing was a little slow, but overall it was an interesting story and I would like to read more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wrote about this on The Storygraph and Goodreads. I posted about this on at least one social media site (bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Mastodon, X, Facebook, Raverly)

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6068134689

This was a solid thriller. It was a little slow at first and there was so much emphasis on photos, and there were so many photos being uncovered that it got a little redundant, but the final twists within the friend group pulled it all together.

This is definitely a great thriller for someone who isn't sure if they can handle the genre too because despite the murders, it was very light on violence and graphic details.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴛʜɪs ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ:
📷 domestic thrillers
📷 tight-knit college friends
📷 finding out your spouse is not who you married

I struggled to finish this one. Started off slow, so I put this book down to read something else, was not very anxious to get back to it. I think that speaks for itself.

Lucy feels like she hit the jackpot when she married her husband, Adam. They become best friends with two of his friends from college, Scott and Cora. The two couples are inseparable. Their children are close in age and they co own a fixer upper beach house together. All seems perfect until a coworker returns from her honeymoon and Lucy sees a picture of Scott in her vacation photos. A picture of Scott with another woman. A picture that was taken when Scott was allegedly on a business trip.
Lucy’s world quickly unwinds, and she learns new information about what happened when Scott, Cora and Adam were all in university together. The secrets quickly build, and it appears someone is working hard to cover up the past. Secrets so dark someone just might be a killer to keep them buried.

This book was fast paced and had well developed characters. It kept my mind racing and trying to solve the mystery. I especially loved the England setting.

How well do you know your closest friends and spouse? This book will have you questioning your relationships from the start.
Lucy and Adam, Cora and Scott. These two couples have been friends for a very long time. Adam, Scott and Cora have been friends since college.
They hang out together, cook together and even renovate a holiday cottage together. They are practically family to each other.
One day Lucy is looking at a co-workers honeymoon photos and spots something she can’t quit comprehend. , Lucy sees a photo of Scott on vacation with another woman. Lucy becomes obsessed with the photo and getting to the bottom of what happened. Why is Scott in the Maldives with another woman, when he’s supposed to be on a work trip to Japan?!
Days later the news reports are quickly coming in about the disappearance of the woman in the picture with Scott, Juliet.
Lucy starts to doubt everything. She digs up secrets she never expected to find…

This book was a crazy ride. It kept me entertained and had me not wanting to put it down. I'd give it a solid 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, Helen Cooper and the publisher, Penguin Group Putnam for the opportunity to read and review an advanced reader's copy of The Couple In The Photo.

I loved this book! It was fast paced book that kept me wanting more the whole time.

Scott, Cora, Adam and Lucy are best friends with lots of secrets. The more you read the more you learn about the 4 of them and how their individual stories come together.

I really loved the way to author set up this book. It made for a simple, quick read with lots of twists and turns along the way!

The Couple in the Photo is a twisted domestic thriller.

Two couples, the Waughs, Scott and Cora, and the Taylors, Adam and Lucy, are the best of friends. Lucy, Adam and Cora are having dinner together while they wait for Scott to come home after his trip to Japan. But Lucy is out of sorts trying to solve a question in her mind. Earlier in the day she had been looking at the honeymoon photos from a coworker when she spotted someone familiar in the background with another woman in Maldives. She tries to act natural, but it is a struggle.

The next day Lucy tries to reach out to Ruth to see if she can take a look at one of the photos again but is given the run around about having it deleted. Lucy becomes irrationally invested in trying to discover if Scott was the man in the photo. The news broadcasts the death of a woman in Maldives which only escalates Lucy's investigating if Scott was having an affair and then killed her.

The story delves into the past relationships of Scott, Adam and Cora while they were in college. Lucy comes later as the couples marry and have children. Lucy suspects that each of them is not telling the truth, which only makes her dig in to find the truth. But when Ruth is injured in an attack Lucy believes that someone close to her is willing to risk everything to keep their secrets.

I really liked this story. It was an intense and riveting mystery. The story is told mostly from Lucy's point of view with a mystery person trying to keep the secrets. I suspected who the mystery person was but kept changing to a different character with the clues leading elsewhere until the final reveal. Fantastic story.

This was such a great, suspenseful thriller! I couldn't put this book down and I would love to read more by this author. You'll never guess the twist at the end!

This turned out to be pretty darn good, if a little predictable. Lucy and Adam and Scott and Cora are two couples who have been friends for a long time. Lucy finds a photo of Scott with another woman, and he has a different name. That woman disappears. Lucy becomes determined to get to the bottom of it all and save her friend. All is not as it seems. I read a lot of books like this and it's pretty hard to surprise me. I saw a lot of it coming, but not everything and the characters and their friendships and the intricacies of their relationships were well written. Overall. well done. I would read more from this author!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Helen Cooper and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I will post my review to Amazon, Instagram and other retail and social media sites upon publication.

This book made me a little mad at the beginning. Social media allows us to know too much about everyone and people put too much on social media. But when you see something like your bestie's husband in another woman's photo, how you handle that is a difficult decision.

At times I wanted Lucy to just mind her own business. At other times, I couldn't understand how she could be so oblivious. I'm not super fond of Lucy in general and I think that impacted my feelings about the book overall.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for a review copy of this book.

I was instantly interested in this book from the first page. It is a domestic thriller so right away I began looking for the "who done it" person.
The writing is great and it was easy to follow who was who. I liked the way she let there be suspicion with each of the characters.
In this story we follow two couples that are friends. Three of the four went to university together and have a very special bond. Both couples have a couple kids so they are growing up like family. That part of the story is very sweet. However, as the story unfolds you begin to see how that close knit friend group is also packed full of twisty lies.
I was able to figure out quite early on who I thought the killer was but because of the twists and turns we take it is also evident that there is more than meets the eye.
There were a few moments when I felt it went on a little more than needed but that just added to the suspense. There is use of the F word on many occasions but no other swearing so it begs the question is it necessary? It seems a bit out of character to only have that one word thrown out in fits of anger.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I like a good twist and turn thriller.

Read Completed 12/15/23 | 3 stars
Sadly, after a certain point, I was just kind of waiting for this one to end. It felt a little sloppy and disconnected. It was a fine story but also one that I've read many times before in other books so this didn't feel like it was anything new and exciting.

Part of the problem was that I didn't like or feel connected to any of the characters. I didn't like Lucy, even though she wasn't wrong for pushing things all the time, and I didn't like anyone else. I just feel like there wasn't enough development for me to really FEEL like these characters were anything more than people in a book.

The pacing also had me struggling. The beginning is REALLY slow. I was super impatient to get on with it and Lucy just kept repeating the same things over and over while panicking. It was really tiresome and then maybe about halfway through things started to get interesting but it all felt a little choppy.

I loved Helen Cooper's debut but I haven't been clicking with her subsequent books. This was kind of a miss for me. Not bad, but not what I expected or was hoping for.

Adam, Scott, and Cora have been good friends since college. When Adam married Lucy, the trio became a quartet. Along with their children, they spend much of their free time together – even renovating a cabin the families will enjoy on their vacations. But, their friendship harbors many secrets that eventually explode., changing their lives forever.

While this book had a good premise, I’m afraid it missed the mark for me. I didn’t find any of the characters appealing or sympathetic (with the possible exception of Lucy and only sometimes) and the lack of accountability was stupefying. For the most part the book was well-written but the story seemed to drag and it took longer for me to finish it than it should have. I’ll give The Couple in the Photo three stars but I think I’m being a bit generous. NetGalley provided an advance copy.

When Lucy sees a coworker’s photo, she is shocked to see her friend Scott with a woman that is definitely not his wife. She is even more shocked when that woman turns up dead soon after. Lucy’s desire to find the truth sets off a series of chain reactions that will change her life forever.

I kept waiting for this one to take off but it never did. It was really dialogue heavy and I think that took away from the suspense. I do think there were some good twists at the end but it just took too long to get there. I think Cooper could have broken up the twists and spread them out more to keep building up the suspense. Also if Lucy had done some more digging independent of conversations, it could have broken up a lot of the dialogue.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Couple In The Photo by Helen Cooper is a domestic thriller that focuses on two best friend couples. On the surface, Cora and Scott are relationship goals, while Adam and Lucy are also blissfully married. These two couples & their little ones do everything together! Vacations, week night meals, and are renovating a beach house together. Then Lucy sees a picture that rocks their group to the core and threatens the life that they have all built together.

This read is full of twists and lies. I was shocked by the end. I recommend if you love a twisty domestic suspense novel!

Thank you @putnambooks for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

(This review was posted on the Barnes & Noble website as well)