‘The Missing Wife’, by Sam Carrington: Book Review

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Star Rating: ★★★✰✰

The Missing Wife explores what happens when the past you’ve tried to forget collides with the future you’re trying to build.

Plot:

Louisa has just become a mother for the second time to son Noah. She is sleep deprived and exhausted and, even though her 40th birthday is looming, all she wants is a night alone to get some rest.

But her husband Brian and best friend Tiff have other plans, surprising her with a party filled with guests they invited from her Facebook page. Guests that she hasn’t seen since college and doesn’t really want to see now.

But there’s one guest in particular that she wants to see the least. Oliver Dunmore. Her ex-boyfriend who left her broken-hearted years ago and who has turned up at her party with his new wife Melissa.

When Oliver turns up at Louisa’s door the next day to say that Melissa has gone missing, she finds that she can’t remember actually seeing her at the party at all. Was she just too drunk, or is there more to Oliver’s reappearance than he is letting on.

A thriller is a thriller.

Anyone who’s read my blog before knows that I love a thriller. Being kept on the edge of my seat, always asking if the characters are trustworthy. I love it. Even a not-so-great thriller is still enjoyable to me, and that’s sort of where I am with this book.

I know from the fact that I didn’t feel the need to stop reading at any point that I enjoyed this book. I gave it 3 stars, and I always give my star ratings soon after finishing a book so it’s all still fresh in my head and the feeling I have when I finish is the feeling that dictates the rating. So I thought it was an average book. Not bad, not great.

But I have to admit I’m struggling to come up with anything really good to say about it.

The pacing is interesting, as it’s slow at times then fast at others, so there isn’t a consistent pace. But that works for a thriller so I suppose that’s good.

It was a little bit predictable at times, which disappointed me. I like to be kept guessing at what a character is going to do, or who they really are, but I thought parts if this book, especially Oliver, were obvious. And I’m not saying that to make myself seem smart or anything. I think everyone will figure out the truth about Oliver before it’s revealed.

Louisa isn’t a bad character …

… but I was torn as to whether or not I actually liked her for a lot of the book.

She’s a bit whiney. But then again she has just had a surprise baby at 40, who wouldn’t be whiney?

I didn’t understand a lot of her motivations or why she made the choices she did. I don’t know why she didn’t just ask Brian and Tiff what they were texting about and save herself a lot of mental anguish. And I didn’t understand why she didn’t tell Oliver to go and shite when he was manipulating her with his whole ‘you owe me’ nonsense. She let the other characters treat her like crap and I just didn’t get why. I suppose I’m coming at it from the angle of someone who knows something is off about the whole situation so I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but still. Cop on, love.

She’s not the best at the whole ‘being a mother’ thing either. I was half expecting the book to turn into a kidnapping mystery every time she left Noah alone somewhere while she went off to have a snoop or a lie-down.

But despite all of that, I couldn’t help but have a soft spot for Louisa. All she wanted for her birthday was a good night’s sleep and her daft best friend and clueless husband couldn’t even let her have that, instead, she gets messed up in a whole heap of crap from her college days. No one needs that.

The ending was … something

I was disappointed with the end of the book. I read most of it with this look on my face:

I found it all a bit far-fetched and unbelievable. But then again, most thrillers do require a little suspension of disbelief, so maybe I’m just being too picky.

I did enjoy this book, despite the negativity in the review. I’m just not sure why I enjoyed it, or how to put it into words. Maybe you’ll just have to read it yourself and see if you can explain it.

Let me know what you thought of it.