The Couple by Sarah Mitchell
Published by Bookouture
Publication Date:5 February 2019
Genre: Psychological Thriller
303 pages
My thanks to Bookouture for the opportunity to read this title ahead of publication as part of the blog tour, thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.
My thanks to Bookouture for the opportunity to read this title ahead of publication as part of the blog tour, thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.
Book Description:
Whatever you think you know… you’re wrong.
Following a whirlwind four-month romance, lawyer Claire and hotel entrepreneur Angus are engaged to be married. Happy and successful, and ready to start their new life together, Claire and Angus find what they believe to be the perfect home.
But when Claire meets Mark, the man selling them the house, he looks eerily familiar. He looks exactly like the man she loved five years ago, the man she couldn’t bear to lose.
Following a whirlwind four-month romance, lawyer Claire and hotel entrepreneur Angus are engaged to be married. Happy and successful, and ready to start their new life together, Claire and Angus find what they believe to be the perfect home.
But when Claire meets Mark, the man selling them the house, he looks eerily familiar. He looks exactly like the man she loved five years ago, the man she couldn’t bear to lose.
As Claire finds herself irresistibly drawn to Mark and crosses lines she never thought she’d cross, Angus’ behaviour becomes increasingly suspicious. Soon Claire doesn’t know whether she can trust Mark, Angus… or even herself.
Buy your copy here: The Couple available here via Amazon UK
The Couple available via Apple Books
My Review:
I was totally seduced by the tag-line for this book: Whatever you think you know, you're wrong. Wow! This book could go anywhere plotline-wise with a premise like that. So, what are we led to believe which we could misunderstand so badly?
Claire and Angus are newly engaged, setting up their together home and making plans for their wedding. Personally I found Angus to be rather overbearing, quite pompous and controlling and couldn't see what Claire saw about him as being attractive - especially as it is hinted that things ended badly with her previous 'significant other' and it took her a while to be ready for a new relationship. The only reason for her falling for him that I could see was that he would offer her financial security. It didn't seem enough for her to marry him in my opinion - or maybe I am getting older and more cynical?
There are regular flashbacks to Claire's previous relationship with Daniel, her ex boyfriend when she was at uni in Cambridge, which dripfeed snippets of history into the mix which kind of explain certain aspects of Claire's current behaviour and this is where that wonderful tag-line comes into play. You make lots of assumptions as to what transpired at this time and make links to her current situation but still I didn't feel entirely comfortable that she would make the decisions she did based on the information I had about her. The writing is very clever in leading you to jump to conclusions and make up your own ideas as to the facts when the reality is brilliantly cloaked in non-disclosure.
I have to admit that I tied myself in knots at one point in the book and even when I had read the final pages I was still a little confused about some parts of the story which left me feeling unsettled, and thinking about the characters long after I had put the book down. I didn't find any of the characters at all likeable (a fact which I love - I'm always drawn to a book full of nasty people), and despite her initial squeaky clean image Claire certainly has a hidden side to her which will have you rethinking the whole tale by the time you've finished. Nothing and nobody is what they seem in this one.
This is one of those books which I say to people that they need to read for themselves to form their own opinion, because even now I'm still not sure what I think - other than what a great bit of writing! Grab yourself a copy and climb right on in - I'm pretty sure you'll soon be as engrossed as I was.
Claire and Angus are newly engaged, setting up their together home and making plans for their wedding. Personally I found Angus to be rather overbearing, quite pompous and controlling and couldn't see what Claire saw about him as being attractive - especially as it is hinted that things ended badly with her previous 'significant other' and it took her a while to be ready for a new relationship. The only reason for her falling for him that I could see was that he would offer her financial security. It didn't seem enough for her to marry him in my opinion - or maybe I am getting older and more cynical?
There are regular flashbacks to Claire's previous relationship with Daniel, her ex boyfriend when she was at uni in Cambridge, which dripfeed snippets of history into the mix which kind of explain certain aspects of Claire's current behaviour and this is where that wonderful tag-line comes into play. You make lots of assumptions as to what transpired at this time and make links to her current situation but still I didn't feel entirely comfortable that she would make the decisions she did based on the information I had about her. The writing is very clever in leading you to jump to conclusions and make up your own ideas as to the facts when the reality is brilliantly cloaked in non-disclosure.
I have to admit that I tied myself in knots at one point in the book and even when I had read the final pages I was still a little confused about some parts of the story which left me feeling unsettled, and thinking about the characters long after I had put the book down. I didn't find any of the characters at all likeable (a fact which I love - I'm always drawn to a book full of nasty people), and despite her initial squeaky clean image Claire certainly has a hidden side to her which will have you rethinking the whole tale by the time you've finished. Nothing and nobody is what they seem in this one.
This is one of those books which I say to people that they need to read for themselves to form their own opinion, because even now I'm still not sure what I think - other than what a great bit of writing! Grab yourself a copy and climb right on in - I'm pretty sure you'll soon be as engrossed as I was.
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