Member Reviews

I would like to thank Netgalley and Pengiun UK - Michael Joseph for an advance copy of Exhibit Alexandra, a psychological thriller set in York.

Marc Southwood returns home one Thursday to find his wife Alexandra missing. This is very unlike her as she is a loving wife and a bit of a homebody. The police investigation gets nowhere but gradually a rather different picture of Alex emerges.

I would like to say I thoroughly enjoyed Exhibition Alexandra but I'm very divided about it and that is probably the point. The novel is told from Alex's point of view as she relates how Marc and her daughters react to her disappearance. Much of what she says is educated guesswork but it makes for a compelling, mostly third person narrative. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens to her as this plotline is intercut with interactions between her and her captor. To add to the interest the author also includes letters from Alexandra's college roommate, Amelia Heldt, now a famous but reclusive New York installation artist and events from Alexandra's past which coincide with the dates on the letters. Normally I don't like a switching timeline but in this novel every scrap of information adds to the reader's knowledge and builds the mystery and tension.

In direct contrast to the compulsive nature of the mystery of Alexandra are the discussions on modern art, its meaning and relevance. Alex is a frustrated artist who gave it all up willingly for love and marriage so now she lectures. She is so up herself on the subject that it's cringeworthy. The arguments are so irrelevant to my life that they barely registered with me and bored me rigid. Ditto for the middle class women who can't be satisfied with what they have and moan on about their husbands and the sacrifices they made for them. I still haven't worked out if Ms Bell is having a laugh with this but whichever it certainly provokes a response.

I am impressed by the way Ms Bell slowly unpeels Alex's life and personality as she slowly morphs from likeable and slightly anodyne into a very dislikeable character. it is cleverly done as the reader sees it all through Marc's eyes but in the knowledge that it is Alex doing the telling. It is an interesting approach and works extremely well. The ending, however, is a masterclass. I can't explain it further without ruining the rest of the read but it's worth waiting for.

Exhibit Alexandra is a very clever novel, quite unsettling in parts and thought provoking in others. I suspect it will be a love it or loathe it read for most readers with very few sitting on the fence so while I can't say I thoroughly enjoyed it I admire what Ms Bell is trying to do and have no hesitation in recommending it as a good read.

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This is a disturbing book but well written which keeps you guessing to the end.
Alexandra is missing. She hasn't returned home from work and her husband Marc is worried as are their two children. This book is narrated by Alexandra as she imagines what is happening to Marc and the children. Marc reports the disappearance and then he begins to find out certain things about his wife. Has she been living a lie or is she really missing believed murdered. Is her friend in America who she says she is and why has she been pretending her mother was still alive when she died several years ago. Marc never gives up hope of finding her but what he does find probably isn't what he wants.

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Unfathomable. Using performance art as the main theme much of this went completely over my head. Marc and Alexandra, on the face of it, are happily married with two lovely daughters. Then Alexandra disappears and the humdrum treadmill of time passed since her disappearance takes over, as the police try to establish what has happened. What has happened is almost undefineable. One line said it all for me: (Marc) shaking his head at such incomprehensible gobbledygook...

My thanks to Penguin UK-Michael Joseph and NetGalley for this ARC. It just wasn't for me.

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I was desperate to know what happened to Alex as I was so engaged with Marc and his daughters, therefore I read this over the course of a weekend. I had a vague idea halfway through the book of what the outcome would be and I was partially right, but I didn't have the full answer. It's a fast read that will get you thinking about a woman's place in the world.

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I am not sure what to think about this story. It was certainly dramatic and definitely controversial. Some parts were slow moving and some totally irrelevant then towards the end the dialogue heated up and it became difficult to put the book down. So a story of two parts but very readable. The characters were variable , some more attractive than others but hey were all believable and essential to the story.

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This is quite a difficult book to review without giving anything away .I found it quite slow at the beginning and quite hard to follow the story which is told mainly by Alex imagining what is happening to her family now she has disappeared .I am not into Art so I found the references went right over my head I am afraid .I didn't like the character of Alex what a selfish strange person I can't imagine how anyone would do what she did .I did guess the ending but this was still a book worth reading .

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Not reviewing. Publisher contacted with my reasons.

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What a fabulous book. It’s tricky to review without spoiling it for those yet to read it but I think it will be great for book club discussions. I was completely duped by the author and with the benefit of hindsight I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out sooner. Highly recommended.

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This is a superb psychological thriller and should not be missed by avid readers of this type of book. I loved the approach taken on narrative - using Alex as the primary narrator even though she is not directly involved for many of the chapters. The book takes a fairly standard format i.e. alternating chapters between now and in the past - intermixed with 'Letters from America'. I never quite knew what had happened although the options were few. Very clever with suspense built in several places. I didn't give this 5 stars for 2 reasons - a) I found the book slow to progress with too much detail in the first half and b) I found it hard to believe that Alex would have had the time and the opportunity to do everything ( omitting any spoiler I hope!). I lack artistic qualities being a computer professional from Yorkshire with the belief that 'why use a paragraph when a sentence is enough) so as I progressed through the book I decided this would turn out to be a feminist version of The Truman Story. This proved to be sort of right but whether it was artistic or simply pointless reality TV depends on the reader. A book you will not forget!

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This is a provocative thriller, and the subject matter puts it a cut above similar books in the genre. As much a book about life imitating art imitating life, the book deals with the age old dilemma faced by women, can we really have it all? Most of the women in the book are complex characters, even those right on the periphery (such as the artist daughter of one of Alex's friends) and questions are raised about how much partners really understand what goes on in each others mind. The book is also full of little references to existing performance artists, some I was familiar with and others I enjoyed researching to learn more about them.
Alex herself is fascinating, as narrator she is morally ambiguous and delightfully unreliable. Even though I had guessed at the twist fairly early on in the book, the journey to the end was so intriguing and the sheer audacity of some of Amelia's actions so gasp inducing that I couldn't put the book down.
Thanks go to the publishers and net galley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review. I will post a review on Amazon when the book is released.

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This is an unusual thought provoking book, impressive for a first novel.
It’s difficult to comment without revealing the twist in the plot, but it was a gripping story that I read in one sitting. My one criticism would be there was too much descriptive prose on art and feminism for my liking.

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Normally when a novel is promoted as ‘gripping’, it doesn’t grip me any more than the next one, but this one did....unputdownable (if that’s a word), it totally drew me in. The twist in the plot completely blew me away, and left my head spinning. Easily worthy of a big fat five stars!

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This was a very original book that I felt was fairly slow to start but a very interesting and worthwhile read so I am glad I stuck with it. It tells the story of Alexandra - artist, mother of 2 and wife to the lovely Marc. Alex disappears without trace and we discover that she is being held hostage whilst her frantic family attempt to find her. Eventually everyone around him believes that Alex is dead but Marc is adamant that she is still alive and attempts to find her through his own investigation, discovering along the way that his wife is not all she seems to be. Although the story is told from Alexandra's point of view she does narrate what is happening back home and how her children and husband are coping which I did find confusing and challenging in the early part of the book but I quickly became used this style.
Overall an interesting and unusual read but only 4 stars from me. I enjoyed the originality and being challenged but I am not an art lover so found the art background and references not to my taste.
Thanks to Netgalley UK and Michael Joseph for the advance review copy.

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Exhibit Alexandra by Natasha Bell
Marc's wife Alexandra has gone missing leaving him with two young children to look after and determined to find his wife. This novel is written from Alexandra's point of view as she tries to imagine how her disappearance is affecting her family. There are a few twist and turns in this story. I found the story confusing especially at the beginning and this affected my enjoyment of this book. I would like to thank NetGalley and Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

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The writing style here was sadly off-putting and a little too fanciful for my taste, so sadly I was quickly deterred. This will no doubt appeal to some, but it wasn't for me.

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What to make of this book ? Well it was certainly different, maybe too different for me. I found it to be quite hard to follow for me it was just too disjointed, going back and fro to the past and present and then to two different points of view, and with the wife anticipating what her husband would be doing, I got quite confused.I did try to focus but found it hard . I think the writer has a good imagination, and not every book is a perfect fit , I hope and fully expect others to enjoy the writing style more than I did and will chalk this one up to making the wrong choice.I honestly hope other do like it and I am sorry I didn't. Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC.

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This was a funny read as I got to the end and couldn't decide on whether I liked it or not! I had worked out the basis to the plot about two thirds of the way in however there were still some things that I hadn't recognised would happen which was good.
The writing style needed my attention as it flitted a lot from person to time as well so it needed some understanding of who/when the story was from.
The plot was pretty screwed up and Natasha Bell is either very out there or screwed up but it works!

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I'm not going to lie, this book did take me a little while to get into and there were a few moments within the first few chapters where I questioned whether I really wanted to finish it or whether I'd just give up and take the loss but I kept reading and I'm so glad I did. The investigation of Marc's missing wife Alex took some unexpected twists and turns and the final twist is one I never saw coming! I pride myself on being able to guess a lot of plots and endings of books and this was one I didn't suspect in the slightest!

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This book is well written and quite a read. I had worked it out quite early on but it was a scarily brilliant plan.

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Although I felt this explored some fascinating ideas which I have been thinking about it since i finished it, I found the pacing very slow for a thriller and didn't really care very much about any of the characters. Overall I was a little disappointed as the premise sounded great and I never felt truly gripped.

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