Although the premise of having the missing character narrate some of the story had a certain interest, I couldn't engage with the story, and eventually gave up.

This is a fascinating, intelligent and twisted psychological thriller debut from Natasha Bell, with echoes reminiscent of aspects of Gone Girl. Alexandra Southwood is an academic, living in York with her husband, Marc and her two children. She is happily married until the day she disappears. Bell ventures into the world of art, referencing a number of actual performance artists, the relationship between art and life, concept art and identity. A fraught Marc refuses to believe that his wife is dead as others do after some time and armed with his determination embarks on a quest to find his wife. The narrative paints a picture of Alexandra, psychological, her memories, her history and her life amidst the meaning of art and its relevance for her. Included are the letters of Amelia Heldt, Alexandra's college room mate. Amelia is a well known New York installation artist.

It is made clear from the start that Alexandra's account of what is happening within her family after her disappearance is a piece of fiction, as she is being held by her captor in a room. For a while it is possible to discern precisely where the story is going with the morally ambiguous Alexandra. Marc is a man who comes to understand that he barely knows his wife. The ending, however, is wonderful. This is an unsettling read that provides food for thought such as how stultifying some women find marriage and raising children compared to what they feel is their real calling, and ethics within art. A great entertaining read that, whilst feeling uneven in places, I very much enjoyed. Many thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for an ARC.

There is an air of mystery surrounding the whole book.  We hear Alexandra’s thoughts on how it all began; what she believes her husband's movements were - did he eat takeout?  Did he worry straight away where she was?  Alexandra then talks a little about where she is now, but she never goes into much detail.  What she is going to do it take comfort in telling us the details of where it all started, which is how the story begins...

Natasha has a real flair for building up a tale with hidden depths.  She works her characters into the story well, each having their own importance and I loved the way Alexandra began with a huge likability factor, although my opinion of her changed as things  moved along.

I adored the moments Alexandra and Marc share with the reader of their past.  Of how they met, young and carefree.  It adds real emphasis to the story, of how much in love they were.  How has it all gone so wrong?

There are letters from Alexandra’s past slipped into the story.  Who is this person obsessively writing to her?  I was on tenterhooks waiting to find out what the link was.

I enjoyed the whole central theme of modern art twisted through the storyline.  You really get a sense for what sort of person Alexandra is, and what her passions are.  Surely there is more to her as a character... well it was certainly interesting finding out.

I loved the way things progressed slowly and that issues and lies started coming out of the woodwork.  We all know that sometimes things aren’t quite what they seem!  As for the ending, well, I was a little surprised but kind of had an inkling as to where that was where the story was heading.  It didn't make it any the less interesting though!

This is a really unusual novel about the disappearance of a happily married woman, living in York with her lecturer husband and two children. A former Art student in Chicago, Alex gave everything up on an impulse to marry Marc and has since been juggling domesticity with part-time teaching. When she goes missing, the police find clues to suggest that she has been abducted, and this does appear to be the case. We only learn of how Marc, Alex’s daughters and her friends react in the following months by what Alex surmises as she is held captive by an unnamed cruel jailer. Through her understanding of her family’s and friends’ personalities, Alex imagines what happens as they all react to her disappearance and Natasha Bell’s depiction of character, place and mood is so well crafted that the reader is drawn into the unfolding story and can easily forget that the narrator is not necessarily reliable!
However, this novel is neither another straightforward detective story nor thriller and the reader begins to understand this through Alex’s ruminations on Art, motherhood, and gender politics as well as love, betrayal and compromise. It is not difficult to make the necessary links between Alexandra and her great friend, the celebrated American artist Amelia Heldt, in order to solve part of the mystery but that’s not really all that this story is about. Perhaps the biggest surprise is revealed through Marc’s behaviour at the end of the novel. I couldn’t help but be impressed by how he finally cracks – the punishment fits the crime!
Whilst there is much about Alex’s situation in York that we can sympathise with, Natasha Bell is far too nuanced a writer to present her readers with a mere black and white feminist rant. This novel works on many different levels and is all the better for doing so. I predict a huge fan base as a result of ‘Exhibit Alexandra’. This is an original, convincing and thought-provoking read and I am sure that it will prove a very popular read.
My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK for a copy of this text in exchange for a fair review.

I thought this book was very enjoyable. It is a story full of suspense and it tells of a wife who has gone missing leaving her husband and two small children. The book was full of twists and turns, as it turns into a murder investigation. It was difficult to predict an ending, although at times I felt teased into thinking, 'it's obvious. Throughout the book there was an edge and some nail biting moments, yet somehow it misses any sickening graphics. A perfect book for people like me, that dont enjoy too much horror. but like mystery and suspense. I like the way the book develops, it is an unusual plot. Once started you will want to get to the end quickly.

I would like to thank Penguin Michael Joseph and Netgalley for a copy of this book. I find this story really hard to review as for its uniqueness.
Alexandra Southwood is a mother and academic and also an artist. She goes missing one day. But, her husband Marc and her family and friends don’t give up searching for her. The story is narrated by Alexandra herself and it tells of how Marc and herself met, and the lives of their friends and family and how they are all coping with her disappearance. The police are not helping much with the search. Also copies of letter that have been written to Alexandra in her past. There is a lot of references of the art world in this book which for me personally found quite boring, that I started skipping through the book and I thought the author went completely away from the subject of this book that some of the things written was unnecessary. Sorry this book wasn’t for me.

Exhibit Alexandra really pushed my limits of acceptance and understanding. It was captivating and very well written. I haven't read anything quite like this before. It kept me on my toes, kept me wanting to know what happens next. A real page-turner with a killer twist. I did have my suspicions about the ending and I actually got some of them right. Didn't stop me from sobbing during the final chapters though, as I was reading this on the plane on my way home. Having to assure other passengers around me that I was fine and it was just a really good book sure made it even more memorable.

Thank you for allowing me to read this book. It is a book which people will either love or hate. In places I found it a bit long-winded, hence why only four stars. But if suspense/thriller is what you enjoy, give this a go. It is different but worth a read.

This wasn't quite what I expected; I feel like the synopsis reads more as a thriller/ mystery (and did really make me excited to read this, to be fair) but in reality is more of a slow burning analysis of Alexandra and her family/ relationships from when she met her husband Marc in college to the present day. I don't want to give anything away so I'll keep this brief, but we find out a lot more about Alexandra and the book is sort of a psychological evaluation of her at times. We see how her family is coping and there is always that mystery of what has actually happened to her; this is what kept me reading on, as I found a lot of the chapters about their past a little long and uninteresting.

This is definitely not your average psychological thriller, and if you're a little bored of the same kind of  book in this genre over and over again then this will definitely provide a different kind of read. I unfortunately struggled to keep attention until the end part, which I really enjoyed! Once I'd got to the end, I flicked back and looked over the parts which I hadn't picked up on at the time but which now made more sense, and I love it when a book makes me want to do that. It's definitely clever and I liked some of the themes and theories it puts forward, particularly around how art and life mix - it made me really think.

Overall, this is something a little different which I appreciate, but the first 2/3 of the book just didn't hold my attention properly. I would, however, recommend if you like your thrillers a little slower but still rather clever.

An unusual and implausible plot made this a difficult book for me to enjoy. Alexandra narrating Marc's thoughts and actions did not work and I found a lot of the art references tedious. Not one for me I am afraid.

Readable nonsense, but if you don't work out the twist 5% in, you need to turn in your detetctive badge! I persisted because I wanted to find out the 'why' once I figured out the what and the who. There are some pacing problems here - a very, very long mid-section and an ending that suddenly falls of a cliff in its hurry to get finished!
I can't say I would seek this author out again but it filled in a couple of snowy days :) Oh and also worth reading to see if you have EVER met a protagonist you have hated more!

I suspect this could be a kind of 'marmite' book. You'll either love it or hate it. I'm afraid, for me, although it is quite original and different, I didn't really enjoy it (although I did read right to the end).

Alexandra Southwood is a part time Art History lecturer, happily married to Marc and the mother of their two daughters.

One day she doesn't come home from work. It's completely out of character. The Police are called in to investigate her disappearance. It doesn't look great when some of her belongings are found beside a river along with bloodstains and the Police believe she Alexandra may have come to harm. It's not long before the case is reclassified from a missing person case to a murder investigation.

The reader knows of course that she is not dead as the story is narrated by Alexandra who is apparently being held in a locked room. She actually tells us that much of the story is what she imagined would have happened, as she wasn't actually there to see events unfold. Sometimes however I forgot the story was really the product of Alexandra's imagination.

What follows is the story of their lives before Alexandra's disappearance and the effect on Marc and the family after she disappeared. It's all very strange and Marc begins to discover things about Alexandra that she had kept hidden from him. He starts to suspect (or is it hope?) that she might not be dead and sets out to try to contact some of the people from her past.

I really hoped I would like this book. It wasn't quite what I expected and I never really connected with the principal characters. I thought I had kind of worked it out but I was completely wrong. Oh yes... and the ending is quite shocking.

Enjoyed this to a point - I fairly quickly worked out what was going on. The description of the family life it compelling and the little girls are beautifully described. The husband is a kind, gentle soul who breaks your heart when you realise what is going on.

The self reports are misleading but not for long. I’m not sure that it’s the best book I ever read but there is enough to get me to look at the next book by this author. I was delighted to be asked by Net Galley to read this book. The views are my own

I am sorry to say that the book seemed rubbish to me. I have never read such a silly plot in all my life. I found the whole thing disjointed and hard to follow. There was no distinction between "her" voice and the narrative which made it even more difficult.

Exhibit Alexandra is an original and thought provoking novel. I stayed awake thinking about it long after I had read the last page. Not an easy book to review because it raises quite a few disturbing questions, not least of which is whether women can really have both what they need and what they want. Whether conformity suppresses who we are and strips us of our liberty.

Alex was a young woman studying art when she met Marc Southwood. Studying at the School of Art Institute in Chicago, but temporarily at home in the UK, she is both a photographer and a practitioner of performance art; a contemporary of some of the greatest performance artists in the 21st Century.

But when she meets Marc she knows that she has to spend the rest of her life with him. They are right together, two halves making one marvellous whole, and she makes the decision to put her career on the back burner and come back to the UK to be with him.

Thirteen years later they are still together; still very much in love and with two children, Lizzie and Charlotte whom they both dote on. They have a close circle of friends, both are in work and their home life is both harmonious and fun.

Then one day Alex simply doesn’t come home. Marc is beside himself with worry. The police take the case seriously, especially when Alex’s belongings are found by the river, together with evidence that she has suffered severe blood loss. The case is now classified as possible attempted murder and or abduction.

But we know Alex is alive because we have her voice throughout the book telling us what is happening to her; how she is being held in a bare room by someone who wants her to know just how badly her family is suffering and who demands that she tell him every aspect of her life and marriage.

As the months roll on and there is still no sign of Alex, the police feel they can do no more. They have found some anomalies in Marc’s account of Alex’s life and her travels, but nothing that helps lead them to her. Marc is bewildered by some of what the police now know; it makes no sense to him.

He discovers a box of letters in the attic between Alex and her long time artist friend Amelia in NYC. This sheds light on the depth of their female relationship but still leaves him searching for an ungraspable underlying truth about who Alex really is and why she has been economical with the truth.

As Marc finally decides to pursue Alex’s friendship with Amelia – the one part of her life he knows nothing about, his search for Amelia will lead him to an end he never saw coming.

It is Alex and Marc’s recounting of their daily lives, of the minutiae that make up their partnership that adds to the questioning that lies at the heart of this book. That does make it slow going sometimes. I worked out what was happening half way through the book, but that did not diminish the need to understand what was going on and what lay beneath the actions of these characters.

Is this a profound book? I’m not sure. But I do know that the questions it has raised in my mind, about feminism, art and the compromises women make in relationships are ones I will be thinking about long after this book has been published.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

though i have to say i found it rather long winded and did suspect what i later found to be true near the end...though the twist at the end was unexpected...hence why i will give it 3 stars for that alone...just not my type of book, though i was intrigued enough to want to find out what happened...

Exhibit Alexandra is a suspense-mystery.

Alex Southwood is a junior academic, based in York, happily married to Marc and mother of two children. One day she leaves home but never returns. This is the story she narrates from captivity somewhere, imagining how her family would have dealt with the aftermath of her disappearance. Alex imagines the initial missing person report; the growing replacement of hope with grief; the police suspicions.

Alex imagines Marc finding letters from Amelia Haldt, an American performance artist to whom Alex had been close. These, stored away with Alex’s passport offering the only clue to a life outside the family unit.

Gradually, with the passage of time, Alex imagines Marc becoming less and less sure that their marriage had been built on strong foundations, but nevertheless determined to discover the truth.

There are signs early on that all might not be quite right. Alex claims to have heard the recordings of the police interviews with Marc. How could that be? How would her captor have obtained those recordings? Why would her captor keep her for so long without any obvious motive?

Slowly – oh so slowly – the story unfolds. As it does, the lines between Alex’s imaginings and Marc’s reality start to blur. Timelines get more jumbled, and actual narrative is replaced by interminable philosophising. This rather lets the tension unwind and ruins the pacing. The tension, after all, in in Marc’s quest for the truth. Amelia and her artistic endeavours are an unwelcome distraction.

The ending is unsatisfactory and probably undermines the internal logic of everything that has come before. And the end of the ending is maddeningly improbable.

Overall, this felt like a promising premise, some initially interesting characterisation and unfolding of emotion. But by the halfway point it has already begun to drag, and the second half was a bit of a struggle. The characters seemed to lose their third dimension and become just line drawings. Maybe that was the point. It really didn’t work for me, but I guess others will enjoy its quirkiness.

This book was something different. I ploughed through this compelling read convinced I knew what the outcome was going to be. I was so wrong.. A great mystery read which draws you in from the start. Yet all is not what it seems!

I did not finish this book, publisher been notified with my reasons.

It is difficult to review this book without giving too much away. An interesting book that I found at times to be quite slow moving. By the time it got going I had a good idea about where the story was going and how it ended. I was not far out.