I adored Teri's previous YA books and was looking forward to The Patient, but while the same wonderful characterisation was present the plot was slow and the characters alone couldn't keep it going for me. This is a personal feeling and I'm sure other readers will love the world and people Teri has created. Her writing was beautiful and emotive as always, and I look forward to reading her next book.

I didn’t love this story but I didn’t hate it either. The first 60% I found really slow and a bit boring. There was a lot of backstory for the characters which I just thought was a bit unnecessary and that it fell a bit flat. Even though I worked out the “twist” the last 40% felt like a completely different story, it was thrilling, exciting and fast paced and I did really enjoy that part of the story. I can see some people really enjoying this but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.

3 STARS 🌟💫
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Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for the opportunity to review this book.

I found this story to be confusing and somewhat dull. It was an awkward mix of medical drama, thriller, and fantasy/sci-fi with a rather predictable ending. The beginning was incredibly slow with far too much character backstory considering that the characters were ultimately flat and I didn't really care about what happened to them. This book was not for me.

Overall, The Patient was a decent read. I liked the premise of the story. There were some repetitive & slow parts. Most of the action took place towards the last third of the book. I did figure out the twist early on but the ending was solid. If you like family drama, secrets, crime, & a bit of medical mixed in - then you'd enjoy this book!

I'll look for more of Teri Terry's books in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publishers & the author for the ARC.

Saphy has a heart condition. Most days it's managable, but when she and her father both contract COVID, her condition worsens and she needs a heart transplant. She knows the odds of receiving the transplant are low, but one day she gets the call that there is a heart for her.

After the transplant, Saphy meets the family of her donor. But she also starts noticing some strange changes in her too. She is more impulsive, wears clothes she normally wouldn't, has a taste for things that used to disgust her. Could it be that she's becoming like her donor? On top of all of these changes, she learns that her donor was attacked and was declared brain dead. Could the person who attacked her be coming for her next?

This book is a little confusing to me. It felt like I was reading three different books. I loved the idea of the story and it was so easy to listen to, but the first 70% of the book read as a drama/literary fiction with strange nuances to a thriller. It didn't really make sense to me. The last 30% of the book was defintely a thriller, but having finished the book it doesn't really feel like the storylines go together to form a cohesive story.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this audiobook!

Narrator Sarah Durham
This is a brilliant psychological thriller with a good insight into organ donation and how it's harvested and donated.
The story is about Saffy the one who has received the donated heart and Fern, the deceased's sister. There are various stories going on, and it picks up pace in the final third part of the story, reaching a brilliant climax.
The book/storyline is really insightful and well written.
Sarah Durham the narrator is fantastic as always and alters her voice according to each character which makes it easy to listen too.
Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture Audio for allowing me to have early access to this fantastic book!

What an amazing idea - a heart transplant recipient becoming immersed in the donors life. A murdered donor at that. The recipe for some very interesting adventures. Saphy is an interesting character who has suffered from a lot of losses. This may be what makes her so keen on becoming part of Flora’s family. Fern willingly brings her into the fold, but I’m not sure if it’s out of a feeling of missing her sister, or not being able to save her. Flora’s family certainly fits in this type of book.
This was a very slow beginning, with a lot of character development up front. It would have been nice to if this could have been woven throughout the story more. Perhaps then the ending wouldn’t have been so abrupt either.

Wow! This book blew my mind.
I wanted to read it with a medical background I was interested in the transplant story, but this was far more than that.

I loved how the book switched between the two main characters and portrayed the story from their perspective.

Loved the characters and the glimpses of their lives and from the girl who died and resulted in the transplant.

There are hidden depths to this book and it keeps on giving more twists and turns of suspense.

And an ending that I never saw coming. Brilliantly written and throughly enjoyed. Such a great read. Fast paced and full of drama.

This was the first time I listened to this as an audiobook from Netgalley and had my headphones on all the time waiting to get to the end.

This was my first book by this author and I really liked it and for the narration worked really well it brought the story to life. So this wont be the last for either the author or the narrator.
The premise is really interesting and was explored really well. it kept me totally engaged.

I was given a free copy by netgalley and bookouture but the review is entirely my own.

I loved this book. I listened to the audiobook thru NetGalley.
I was hooked by the first chapter. The book takes place in the UK so the narrative voice had an English accent which to me added to the story.
The story hooks you in with the story starting with the voice of the murder victim.
This story is told form the point of view from the sister of the victim and the organ recipient of the victims.
So thought provoking with the conflict of both sides. The two women meet and the recipient wanting to find the person responsible for the victims death. Also the recipient deals with the emotional impact of having someone else’s organs in your body and how much they change you.
There are some twists I saw coming and one I truly didn’t.
The narration was well read with the range of emotions that are needed for this story. I truly enjoyed listening to her read.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a mystery.

**please note due to low rating I will not be leaving a public review for this book as I have not paid for it.**

Narrated by Sarah Durham ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Story by Teri Terry ⭐⭐

The narrator was fantastic! I absolutely loved her voice and could easily listen to her on future audiobooks.

But.... Unfortunately I really did not enjoy this particular story. The blurb sounded really good but the delivery was really quite dull. I found myself really not caring at all about Flora's life, so by the time this story did start to pick up I was already thinking about my next read.

This is the first time I've ever heard of this author and even though I did not enjoy this one I would definitely try another of her books.

Very enjoyable, fast-paced thriller made all the more exciting with the narration by Sarah Durham. "The Patient" by Teri Terry has twists you do not see coming and will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Thank you to Bookouture Audio and Netgelley for an advanced reader's copy of this audio book in exchange for my honest review.

Everything about this audiobook seems to be right: the narration is very nice and draws you into the story, the theme is promising and I have become a big fan of Bookouture's audiobooks. And yet, I do have some reservations about The Patient as an audiobook.
Overall, I don't think the theme of the story lends itself very well as an audiobook. I found it to have a lot of dialogue and unfortunately the narrator also does the male voice in the story and I am personally not a fan of that.

I particularly liked the theme: a young woman receives a heart from a woman who has been declared brain-dead. Gradually, she changes, begins to like other things and almost seems to take on the identity of the deceased.
I wish the author had stayed with this story and developed it further, adding more depth and thriller-like elements to the story.
I found the concept of changing one's identity with a new heart fascinating. The heart is the seat of passion and emotion, hence proverbs like heartless or heart cry, while the brain is the seat of reason and consciousness.

The moment Saphy starts looking for her biological mother, I lost interest in the book.
Saphy is an adopted child, and she needs family and meaning to get a sense of her place in this world. Taking this back to the heart as the seat of feelings and emotions, I can understand what she is going through. Besides all the moral issues surrounding transplantation, there is also the issue of adoption. I would have liked to have kept it to the transplant issue, but besides that, themes about family, adoption and finding your place in the world come into play. I also found Saphy's behaviour towards Flora's family morbid and borderline. It seems she has dependency issues that she needs to work on.

I also learned something from this book: I am a donor myself - everyone in the Netherlands automatically is unless they object - but I did not know that it is common for the donor's next of kin to have contact with the recipient.
In this book, Flora’ s family is still in deep mourning and trying to come to terms with their loss - and lo and behold, there is Saphy on their doorstep.

This is a novel with a subject that actually lends itself better to a reading group - and, in my opinion, is less suitable as an audiobook.
One might ask, for example, can someone in a coma also serve as a donor? When is someone 'deceased'? Is it cardiac arrest or brain death?
And should the 'guardian of the heart' lead the life the donor has been denied? Is she allowed to drink, bungee jump, do dangerous things? Or, on the contrary, should she live extra carefully because she has been given a chance? Is she allowed to drink?
Many moral and ethical questions are raised. I think this could be good material for a reading group discussion.
I loved the voice of the reader, but unfortunately the narrator did not quite manage to save the story. My advice is to read this as a book and possibly have a reading group discussion with a book kit.

"The Patient" is an intricately woven family drama thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat with its numerous secrets and twists.

The story follows Saphy, who develops an obsession with her organ donor after receiving a life-saving organ donation. What starts as a chance encounter with the donor's family evolves into friendships with them and their friends. While it's common knowledge that a transplant recipient might experience changes in their preferences, the novel takes this aspect further with its unique and unexpected plot twists.

The book's suspenseful narrative is genuinely impressive, with the author expertly revealing secrets and clues bit by bit, keeping the reader guessing until the end. The story's pacing is fast and intense, with the excitement increasing as we approach the finale, making it an absolute page-turner.

In conclusion, I highly recommend "The Patient" to anyone who enjoys thrillers and mysteries that keep them guessing. Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me an advanced copy of this gem, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

There's a lot going on here, so it's not likely you'll guess the ending, nor will you get bored (as I did with The Cliff House). Safi gets a heart transplant at the beginning of the book and quite quickly meets her donor's family and friends. They all appear to be lovely, but there are a few odd encounters.

Then things start to go wrong and Safi could be in danger.

By now the waters are so muddy that any grudge or secret could be the cause of the sinister attacks. It's not an easy one to guess ...

Narration was excellent.

Medical thriller that flies along.

3.5 stars.

I have loved Terry's YA work, and chose this on that basis. The audio version moved along quickly but I wasn't keen on the female voice taking on the male parts, a little jarring and they didn't sound right to my ear, not every narrator pulls off both genders well.

Still, a good premise, with young adult Saphy sped through the process of a heart transplant when one becomes available after (who she suspects of being) her donor is attacked and later dies in hospital. The reader knows that this is in fact the case, with Flora attacked by, supposedly, a man who loved her.

Saphy gets little time to enjoy her renewed vigour and life. The donor's family get in touch, wanting to meet her. And to ask her to both get to know them and to help in their quest to quash the worries about the organ donation that has cropped up since their daughter/sister's death and organ removal.

Then Saphy learns of the attacks of another of Flora's organ recipients. And that the possible attacker who allowed her own new heart to be given to her may not have been Flora's killer after all...

I guessed the 'real' identify of the nefarious party very early on, and did find some elements of the book a little silly - Saphy feeling she was turning into her donor. The part I DID like - debate over organ donation, didn't go anywhere in particular, which I thought was a shame.

The narration was split between Saphy and Flora's sister, which kept the story flowing and different perspectives giving us further clues and insight along the way, and the several storylines did move well together and eventually join.

But this for me wasn't hugely memorable, though I did enjoy the listen. Fairly standard for the genre, with a fairly rushed ending and female voice unsuited to male characters.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample audio copy.

This was nothing like Terry’s fast paced and addictive YA dystopian novels. This was slow. So slow. The ending was cliché and predictable, the motives both boring and unbelievable, and I had to speed up the audiobook to 3x speed for the first 80% just to get through the drudgery. I went into this ARC expecting to adore it and I am *so* disappointed.

Everyone was a little too interlinked. We start out with two separate groups of people in the beginning of this book. By the end of it everyone is interlinked and there is no separation. It is interesting how interweaved Teri managed to make everyone, but it just feels a little over the top.

The discussion on organ donation was an interesting and important one. But the ending undoes all of the good that was present. It negates all of the positive messaging regarding organ donation because of actions that were taken which are unforgivable.

The sections around SA and rape are done well, handled with tact and care, although these will still be triggering content warnings for some.

Like I said this one is slow. If you enjoy that. Enjoy slowly getting to know these two groups of people, before having the rush of the final 20% where everything finally starts to happen, then this will be a book for you. But I prefer a bit more of an even pacing throughout my reads, and I had been expecting that from Teri's previous work. Meaning that I was left disappointed by this one. I'll still pick up more from Terry in the future, I just hope that her future novels will be more for me.

I really enjoyed this! We follow Sapphy, a girl who has recently had a heart transplant and her journey post this operation. Another point of view is that of Fern, Flora's sister. Flora has recently passed away after someone attempted to strangle and kill her, this cutting off the oxygen supply to her brain, making her slip into a coma. It is soon revealed that Flora is Sapphy's donor. As the story progresses, someone starts attacking all the recipients of Flora's organs and Sapphy starts fearing for her life.

I really liked the alternate chapters from Sapphy and Fern; this made it quite fast-paced and kept my attention. The story was quite well-written and enjoyable. The ending, while it was unexpected, wasn't my favourite. All in all, I'm excited to see what this author has to offer in the future.

A rollercoaster of twists and turns from start to finish. I love a thriller that keeps me guessing, and The Patient did just that.

A girl who gets a heart transplant, murders, adoptions, family secrets revealed. Sounds like a great book, one that I could love, but there was just too much going on and I could not keep up with it all. I am one who loves a good, fast paced thriller, but this one was difficult for me, at times it seemed to be all over the place and did not flow well for me. I gave it three stars, because I did like the story, it just was hard for me to keep up with at times. With that being said the ending got me!

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for the audio arc in exchange of The Patient