Hooked from the first chapter! This thriller novel was amazing! I stayed up super late to finish it & just could not put it down.

The story is centered around Maddy, the main character and a ghostwriter for a cosmetic surgeon, Angela. Writing a memoir for her ends up being super difficult as Angela gives nothings about herself away and there’s nothing about her online. She’s secretive in a way that makes the reader suspicious. While writing, Maddy lives in Angela’s house with Angela’s coworker, Scott, who she grows close with. But just like Angela, Scott’s keeping secrets. Eventually, the book is finished and Maddy is back to London, but her story is far from over…. now go read this novel to find out what happens ;)

I genuinely didn’t know where this book was gonna go, and i LOVED that about it. the authors writing style was beautiful and im obsessed!!!

thank u for the arc!!

Interesting story, average character work. I still really enjoyed it. It was a bit unbelievable at times, but the surprises and twists made up for it.

This was a good, enjoyable read if you are able to suspend disbelief for the sake of a story. The protagonist, while likable, is very naive, and everything seems to just go over her head. Things that I had put together immediately, she was blind to until the end. She also falls in love and becomes seemingly obsessed with a man within days of meeting him. Then the ending just kind of happens, and that's it, making the feel of this read kind of like a plateau. That said, if you can look past all of that, then you will end up enjoying this for what it was, a solid mystery about vanity and how it can alter a person's perception of how they view the world, themselves, and their experiences. This had a solid foundation and overall point to it, I did enjoy it, and I just felt it was an okay story.

Thank you Netgalley and Gallery Books, for this ARC.

Eye of the Beholder Review

Stumbled upon this book while scrolling through NetGalley and the description caught my attention. Who doesn’t love a good mystery?

The layers within this book took a bit to begin pulling back. We’re introduced to Angela and Scott through our main character, Maddy, a ghost writer from London. Maddy finds herself with a job opportunity she couldn’t refuse and is thrown into the nestled acres of Angela’s home in the Scottish moorland, surrounded by the loch and sloping hills. Visually, Bamford paints an amazing pictures of dense wilderness and chilly weather - I wanted to reach for a sweater several times while reading, I could feel the damp fog around me during Maddy’s long morning walks.

This slow burn of a mystery begins coming to a piping hot boil about 40% in, a tad dragged out compared to most stories, but it did not detour me from my investment in the story and characters. Each turn of the page, I was hungry for any clue as to what was going on with our two side characters and the secrets they hold. The book takes a while to get there - with some twists I had anticipated early on, others were a pleasant surprise as the reader.

This book is perfect for anyone who loves a non-spooky mystery and is drawn to stories that are a slow burn, the end crashing into you with wave after wave of information. Anyone who enjoyed Mean Streak would love this book.

4/5 stars

Maddy Wight is a ghostwriter hired by a wealthy and famous cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Angela Reynolds. Maddy believes this could be the big opportunity she has been waiting for, despite all the inconsistencies and secrets about the job. This book about the beauty industry is said to be inspired by Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and it certainly is. Maddy is sent by helicopter out to Angela’s Scotland estate to write, however she is subsequently repeatedly blocked by Angela keeping secrets and misleading her. Angela’s business partner Scott arrives to stay there and he behaves strangely. Artwork disappears and a young girl seems to be watching them. Still Maddy and Scott develop a relationship. At the book launch party back in London Maddy learns that Scott has committed suicide and jumped off the cliff at the place in Scotland. This is where the story really takes off as Maddy spirals and believes she has seen Scott in London. Is he really alive? It was difficult for me to fully accept that they had a strong bond in Scotland, as well as Maddy’s reactions and behavior. Still the atmosphere of the story was intense, thrilling, and full of twists. The landscape was beautifully described. With thanks to Netgalley and Gallery Books for this ARC. My opinions are my own.

I was borrowed this book by NetGalley to read and review, so thank you! Eye of the Beholder is a mindfuck of a book, let me tell you that! Twists upon twists upon twists…I suggest you bring your annotating tabs and your highlighters to keep track of them all! I definitely had to re-read parts at times to keep everything straight, but when the entirety of the plot came into focus it was all worth it. This book has romance, it has deception, it has thrills and suspense, the only thing it doesn’t have is a glass of wine to calm your nerves for the last 100 pages! Congrats to Bamford for another hit, and know I could TOTALLY see this as a good movie!

Heart pounding thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Definitely one of the best books this year.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for the eARC.
Part 1 of this book was fantastic: a ghostwriter whisked to a remote Scottish hideaway by a world renowned cosmetic surgeon to help create a book, an enormous salary and the chance to give her career a boost. The surgeon's business partner ends up staying too and an interesting
dynamic between them forms.
Part 2 wasn't as good, it was full of lies, disappointments and strange doings, sometimes quite confusing. However, I still couldn't put it down and loved and really enjoyed the heck of it overall,

Entertaining and immersive. A recommended purchase for collections where crime and thrillers are popular.

Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for this ARC of Emma Bamford's 'Eye of the Beholder.'

In Part 1, a ghostwriter is sequestered in a remote house in Scotland to speed ghostwrite the memoir of a secretive cosmetic surgery titan. Thwarted at every turn by her subject she's further put upon when her employer's business partner shows up unannounced. This is a very solid and intriguing setup.

What follows in Part 2, though, is a slow, labyrinthine tale of lies, deceit, abandonment, and death which, for me, doesn't deliver the way the first half does.

I haven't seen Vertigo so wasn't clued into the setup or themes but what felt very promisingly like heading down the gothic horror route and into 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' territory kinda fizzled out and became a fairly conventional thriller with a less and less believable plotline.

I felt there was a lot of unfulfilled potential here.

A genuine phycological thriller!!
Maddy is hired to ghostwrite the bio of famous plastic surgeon Sr Angelea Reynolds: a fairly straight forward
job with a great salary. Recommended by her successful previous ghost-writing experience, Maddy expects this to be similar in experience.
She could not have been more wrong.
A great story that builds continually and takes you along for the strange, and a times, nerve wracking ride of a tale.
Angela's assistant Scott, sharing the house space with Maddy when Angela unexpendedly takes off leaving communications via face time only, Maddy forges a semi close relationship with Scott.
Or does she?
Nothing is as it really seems.
Great story - good character foundations that draw you right int to them.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Eye of the Beholder.

Maddy Wight is a ghostwriter who has been tasked to pen the memoir of a famous cosmetic surgeon.

She's remanded to the doctor's exclusive estate in Scotland to pen a draft during a tight deadline and while on this isolated retreat, she meets the doctor's business partner, Scott, who she falls almost instantly for.

When Scott dies of an apparent suicide, Maddy is convinced he would never take his own life and sets out to prove herself right. But, she soon discovers the good doctor isn't who she appears to be. And neither was Scott.

Maddy is a very unlikable character; in fact, she's a typical trope in these genre novels.

She's lonely and alone, an only child of a single parent who is deceased.

She lacks confidence and self esteem, and has only one friend.

She's so pathetic she considers her mother's death from cancer an abandonment. Sheesh!

No wonder she gloms onto Scott like the Second Coming. She barely knows the dude and clings onto him for dear life.

When she meets a new dude Connor, she treats him like Jimmy Stewart does to Kim Novak in Vertigo. Not healthy at all.

I'm not sure why Maddy's obsessed with Scott; because she needs a man in her life or...just someone?

OK, that's enough about why Maddy makes for a less than interesting character.

Now on to the narrative, which is not much better.

It's neither suspenseful or exciting, thrilling or dramatic. It's full of filler, lots of filler about cosmetic procedures and the doctor's dogs and taking walks on the island, blah blah blah.

Stuff doesn't really happen until the last 50 pages and they're a doozy.

Prepare to suspend disbelief.

If you can, then the rest of the novel is no sweat, but I had serious issues.

I couldn't believe all this was happening, I knew the doctor was shady, fine, I'll roll with it with some eye rolls here and there, but the cherry on top was when Maddy sees everything going down in a recording! Sigh.

The writing was good, but a dull character and lackluster plot made this a long, slow slog of a read.

I have been searching for a good thriller-suspense novel for a while now and let me tell you this book DID NOT disappoint in any way. I personally have never seen Vertigo so honestly had no idea what I was in for but I started this book on a Friday and finished on a Monday spending all my free moments with my head down in this book. While it was slightly evident that the author was from the UK and some of the terms in the book were clearly from the dialect it was easy enough to pick up. The twists and turns in the book kept me guessing and even though I was able to guess some of what happened in this book ( I really don't want to give away any spoilers so I am trying to keep this vague) I didn't fully guess anything and of course when it was revealed it was a shock. The story gives you a somewhat eerie vibe and the whole time I kept wondering what the heck was going to happen to Maddy, what really happened to Scott, who the heck Angela actually was and what kind of secrets she was hiding, and where this strange woman in the woods came from and who she was. At first I hated her and feared she was going to hurt Maddy. This book was truly the suspense novel I had been craving and I am so thankful to have been given an advance copy to read and review!

TW: Language, cancer, death of parent, child abandonment, addiction, depression, anxiety

<b><big>*****SPOILERS*****</b></big>
<b>About the book:</b>
When Maddy Wight is hired to ghostwrite the memoir of world-renowned cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds, she thinks it might just be her chance to get her career back on track. She travels to Angela’s remote estate in the Scottish Highlands to hunker down and learn everything she can. But the deeper she digs, the more elusive the doctor becomes. Is there more hidden beneath the surface of the kaleidoscopic beauty industry than Angela wants to reveal?

Sharing the estate is Angela’s enigmatic business partner, Scott, whose mercurial moods change as quickly as the conditions on the darkening moors outside. Confined to the glass-walled house, Maddy can’t shake the feeling of being watched. As objects go missing, handprints appear on the windows, and a stranger lurks in the grounds, she finds herself drawn ever closer to Scott. Returning to London once the book is finished, Maddy is excited for their future together. But her dreams are shattered at the book launch when Angela learns that Scott has leapt to his death from the Scottish cliffs.

Which is why, months later and lost in a fog of grief, Maddy is completely blindsided when she sees Scott entering the Tube station just in front of her. It can’t be him, can it? After all, Scott is dead...or is he?
<b>Release Date:</b> August 6th, 2024
<b>Genre:</b> Thriller
<b>Pages:</b> 320
<b>Rating:</b> ⭐

<b>What I Liked:</b>
1. Very atmospheric
2. Enjoyed the authors writing

<b>What I Didn't Like:</b>
1. Instalove between Maddy and scott
2. I hate the way depression/mental health is dealt with in this book
3. Book is padded with things that don't matter
4. Too many romances
5. All the instaloves

<b>Overall Thoughts:</b>
How has it taken Maddy a few days to realize there isn't a TV?

About 20% into the book we have a lot of inner monolog. Maddy turns into now researching Scott. She goes through all his work history. It slowed down the pacing of the book for me. Plus you get a lot of into about how to feed the dogs treats and what the dogs are like. I did not care.

Maddy drove me crazy. She is handed a list of everything that Dr. Reynolds wanted in her book - Dr. Reynolds even snaps at her for asking more questions and things she didn't want in the book, but she continues to search for more information even emailing old classmates. Dr. Reynolds would clearly see the first draft of the book and that it has things in it she doesn't want. Maddy is going out of her way to make things harder. Just write from what you have and get paid.

I didn't understand the point of Maddy having to be isolated at the island and why she stayed. She could work elsewhere since she was just video chatting with Dr. Reynolds anyways. By the second call I wondered if she even really left the island. I guess I found it odd that Maddy didn't even inquire about this and just accepted it. It would bother me that she said she'd be there then she leaves. She says I'm alone but then a man is staying with me. Maddy doesn't even ask why he's there. She asks none of the questions that matter but insists on prying on questions that don't matter.

We learn that Scott is at the house because he's going through a depression and needed to getaway.

Angela calls this time from "South Africa" but has a filter on the background. Yeah, because she is in the same location.

Maddy finding Scott, this man she knows nothing about digging through the alcohol and then being so mean to her and now denying it happening. I'd be out. It's too weird. Plus he's a addict but she doesn't even know what his addiction even is. But then she sees him on the beach and they have this moment where he points out the birds to her and suddenly she's forgiven him. Oh and then she just dismisses it like she's being crazy.

This book spends way too much time talking about the dogs. Ruby has a seizure and they rush her to the vet and then we get so much talk about taking care of the dog(s).

So, Scott isn't the real Scott. She has no idea what the real Scott looks like and that's why he didn't come out when people that know the real Scott have been there.

I can't understand what Maddys obsession with Scott is. He has horrible mood swings. One minute he's so nice to her and the next he's complete trash, but for some reason she gets closer to him. Why??? She suspects that alcohol is his addiction but then continues to drink with him. It's all so weird.

I love the misrepresentation of depression in this book.

Maddy saying with 100% certainty that Scott didn't kill himself. She's known him for two weeks and that doesn't mean that he couldn't kill himself because people are married to people for years, even decades and people still kill themselves.

It drove me insane how obsessed Maddy became with Scott. It's been 6 months. She's still pretending that they were in this years long relationship. She barely knew him. He was a different person with her st times. I don't love insta-love plotlines.

Wtf and Maddy calling the police over and over to tell them that it was a murder and not a suicide. She has a notebook that details the location of the house and what could have happened.

I am 200 pages into this book and I am so bored. I feel like nothing has happened. There is SO much padding in this book and things that happen that don't even matter. They are now going to a wedding and I just want it to be over now.

Someone please stop Maddy! This guy she thinks is Scott but is Conner she chases down into a club, sneaks in, and gets thrown out of club. Conner follows her and the bouncer outside to put her in a cab and send her home. Of course now Maddy can't let it go that he paid got her cab and she just has to chase him down to pay him back because - I don't even know why. He ignored her calls and texts but she reads on the back of the receipt he gave the cab driver with his number that it's from a café, so she decides to stalk the café for him. She's stalking him. This is absolutely insanity. She sits there morning to afternoon and he comes in but cue the shock because he works there... A million dollars says he owns the café (EDIT he owns part of it)

Wtf! She asks him out and he says okay. Get me out of this book please. She has zero to with what the book said it was about. She sat all day at the café waiting for him.

Her and Conner are on date 4 when she decides she's going to make him try on an expensive sweater. He clearly is uncomfortable but it reminds her of the one Scott wore so yeah she's definitely still insane. She returns the next day to buy him trousers, the sweater, and shoes. How lucky she can flash back and remember he wears a size 12. In the book Conner tells her when he's dragged into this store that he likes his look.

Omg have I mentioned I hate Maddy?? I do. She mentions that she doesn't like his beard because it makes her face red. She even puts on this production of putting on stuff on her face to make it less red. They pass a barbershop and they get dragged in while she tells thd barber he does need a haircut. While she mentions that she "jokes" that he should get the beard shaved off. She continues to press the issue pushing him to cut it off. Of course Conner is a sand human who gets upset that she does this plus the clothes that he had mentioned he didn't want - he leaves get in the street. But does Maddy understand what happened? Nope why would she. Am I supposed to be rooting for her because she's absolutely terrible. She's now known Conner longer than Scott but she's still trying to make this dude into him.

Does Maddy have a magic vagina that all these dudes fall in love with her in like 2 weeks.

Don't worry Conner forgives her. I mean she even called him Scott's name that doesn't matter. She comes clean about the man from before. You know what Conner does? He shaves. He shaves his beard for this woman who embarrassed him and then tells him she is pretty much chasing after her exs image. But weirdly enough before that Conner says he's wortied he won't be enough for her so this is what he does..... What is this book? And then he let's her shave his face.

Of course sex after he shaves.

Sigh. We then find out that Conner is actually Scott's younger brother. What are the fucking chances that she would find him? Not only that he has zero issues with making himself look like his brother so he can sleep with his brothers "ex." plus he feels for her so strongly and is in love with her. Omg just burn these two together. Ohhh and Conner was pretending to be Scott while he was on a bender. I told you he wasn't the real Scott!!!

The reveal makes no sense. Why wouldn't Angela had just said that Scott was working at the house when he was in rehab. Why did

Maddy finds out of Conners secrets. She's so mad and can't forgive him (yet) but it's okay she was secretly trying to change Conner into being the person she thought she knew as Scott.

Oh look Angela isn't who said she was. Just shocked. Or not

<b>Final Thoughts:</b>
Definitely can see the elements of Vertigo in this book.

Oh well I dnfed this book at page 288 because I didn't care. I don't care. I hate them all. Ending seemed straightforward.

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<font face="times new roman" size="12pt"><i><b>Thanks to Netgalley and Gallery books for this gifted copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

⭐️ rating: 4

This book had me hooked from the start! I have not seen Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock, so I went into the story with no prior expectations. Bamford’s plot is intriguing to me especially as an optometrist because it’s regarding visual attention and interpretation - your reality is what you see, but can you always trust the version of reality you are seeing?

The main character is a writer (why am I not surprised that this is such a common trope?), specifically a ghostwriter, who gets a gig with great pay from the secretive but successful Dr. Angela Reynolds. Maddy is put up in one of Dr. Reynolds properties in the remote Scottish Highlands in order to finish the book with a looming deadline. With no warning, Maddy is shocked to learn that Dr. Reynolds’ business partner Scott De Luca is also staying at the house. While writing the book, Maddy is swept up in a short-lived romance with Scott which ends with Maddy hearing that Scott has died by suicide at the foggy moor. After months of grieving, Maddy swears she sees Scott: cue look-alike, Connor. I am going to have to check out Bamfords other novels!

I received a copy of this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. #NetGalley #LilReads

"Eye of the Beholder" by Emma Bamford is a sinister novel inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, Vertigo. The story revolves around Maddy Wight, a ghostwriter hired to pen the memoir of Dr. Angela Reynolds, a world-renowned cosmetic surgeon. Maddy sees this opportunity as a chance to revive her career and travels to Angela's remote estate in the Scottish Highlands.

As Maddy delves into the world of the beauty industry and tries to uncover the secrets behind Angela's success, she realizes that the doctor is elusive and guarded. The estate is also shared with Angela’s mysterious business partner, Scott, whose changing moods mirror the conditions on the darkening moors outside. Strange occurrences in the glass-walled house intensify Maddy's feeling of being watched, and as she forms a connection with Scott, her life takes a dark turn.

Tragedy strikes when Scott allegedly jumps to his death from the Scottish cliffs. Devastated, Maddy returns to London, but her grief takes an unexpected turn when she spots Scott entering the Tube station months later. Confused and in disbelief, Maddy grapples with the question: Is Scott truly alive, or is there a more sinister explanation?

"Eye of the Beholder" explores themes of beauty, perception, and the power of the female gaze. The novel pays homage to Hitchcock's Vertigo, offering a psychological thriller that challenges the boundaries between reality and illusion and questions how much one can trust what they see.

Eye of the Beholder is my favorite format of thriller — the kind of book where there isn't necessarily a clear mystery, but rather a protagonist trying to unravel something that feels off. I love the winding discovery and how the suspense builds, both of which Emma Bamford did really well here. The ending seemed really dragged out to the point that it was a little hard to follow, but otherwise this was such a solid read.

Firstly, thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing me an eARC of "Eye of the Beholder" for an honest review! Right off the bat, I have to say that I read almost the entire book in a single day, pausing only because I had to sleep. This book is tripping in all the best ways, and the definition of a 'page turner.' The slow and creeping tension crescendos beautifully as the book progresses, and the author's ability to capture the feelings of environments and people make this book absolutely riveting. I also greatly admire the way that her environments so well mirror the characters that inhabit them. If I had any criticism, I would say that a few of the characters could use a bit more fleshing out to just create more of a solid feeling to the world and that while the clues are all well placed, a few of them do make the conclusion a bit easy to gather early on. All in all, it is very clear that Emma Bamford knows how to write a great mystery, one that capitalizes on the uneasiness that secrets can create.

Thank you netgalley for the arc of this book!

I love a good thriller. I love a good suspense with an iron plot. This was good, but the plot was not as tight as I hoped. Also, there were some points that seemed a little hard to believe? Was it just me?

Maddy Wight, freelance ghostwriter, accepts a job offer to write Dr. Angela Reynolds memoir. Her first client that will allow her joint credit, finally a chance for recognition. Choppered off to Angela’s Scotland home for the project, her sanctuary that is cleverly out of view from the sky, Maddy lands in secluded Varaig. Soon she is intensely aware that Angela is dismissing most of her questions, each void raising more questions. Something is off, why is she making her answers so unattainable?

Left alone in the secluded house with picturesque views of the moorland, Maddy is surprised to discover Scott, Angela’s business partner, arrive to quietly co-exist & delve into his work in peace. Scott becomes more than unexpected support as odd occurrences happen within the silence: unidentified footsteps in the house, the Manikin repositioned again, evidence of a face-print on the glass walls from the outside.

Back in London, Maddy is anxiously waiting to reunite with Scott at the book launch, only to crumble when she hears Scott had jumped off the cliff in Varaig. Devastated, alone and refusing to believe Scott took his own life, she spirals into what others tell her is mad behavior. Is she mad when she looks up at the Tube station and Scott, a dead man, is standing in front of her? If beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, how much can you trust what you see?

This book was a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo. I’d have to say, I found this an exceptional homage. This was an entertaining mystery that was well written. I would definitely read another book from this author.

Thank you Gallery/Scott Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.