The story of 3 women
Best friends since university of are they
Secrets, lies infidelity and murder intertwine their lives

Definitely a page turned
told from their view points
enough to keep you gripped
enough to keep you guessing

Thank you netgalley, Araminta Hall, and Orion Group Publishing for allowing me to read and review this book

The three friends - Nancy, Eleanor and Mary - had met at university and stayed best friends throughout their lives. But when Nancy is found dead, presumably murdered, the remaining two friends start to examine their lives.
Hall tells the story from each of the friends viewpoints, but rather than jumping from one character to another, she examines each at a time.
The ending is a little predictable, but in a good way, as it still keeps you guessing throughout the novel.
This truly is a tale of secrets and lies, and what lies hidden in their pasts may not want to be uncovered. Delve in and start questioning yourself in turn.

Three women, whose lives have been linked through a strong friendship since university, find themselves tangled in their own lives - the good and the bad.
The women are all very different, the characters are so believable and you find yourself with them all the way.
This is so much - it is also a thriller with lots of twists and turns - a must-read!

Three friendships dating back to the first day at university. Two marriages a sorted children and economics. One life cut short, an affair but who was the killer? Wonderful twists and turns as the dynamics change due to the deceased one not in the mix. Missteps and misunderstandings, trying to make sense of the new relationships. Told from two perspectives. Only at the end do things become clear.

I really enjoyed this book. Nancy, Mary and Eleanor met at university and have stayed close through the years. Beautiful Nancy married Robert and seemingly has a perfect life. But she feels adrift and is now finding herself trying to end an affair that she doesn't even know why she started. Eleanor is unmarried and childless and has a successful career, while Mary has 3 children and is unhappily married to an older man who has been constantly unfaithful and controlling. When Nancy is found murdered and her 2 friends try to understand what happened, they realise that secrets have been kept and that nobody's lives are without complications. I loved the characters and the way the story is told from the 3 different viewpoints. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

The author takes us inside the lives of three women with razor-sharp insight.
Eleanor, Nancy and Mary met at University and have been close friends ever since. Life has not taken them quite where they expected to go. As the story unfolds the narrative crackles with tension.
The writing is tender and humane but also brave and shocking. A tour de force.

I was really looking forward to reading imperfect woman but unfortunately found it rather drawn out and tedious!
Nancy Eleanor and Mary have been best friends since university and thought they knew each other well, but how well do you actually know some one?? Secrets, infidelity, guilt and untruths are all rife in this book! Nancy is unexpectedly killed but by whom? Her lover who she wanted to end her affair with or the husband who had found out about it?? Mary and Eleanor are intrinsically linked and despite their grief are bound by deep dark secrets and the knowledge that they know very little about each other!
Thank you netgalley for this early read.

This book took me a while to get into but then I found it became long and drawn out and I just got bored with the story line.

Thank you to Netgalley and Orion Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. 3 women who had different paths all become entwined in a murder, an affair and lots of lies. Well told and ill be reading more from this author.

Imperfect Women is a wonderfully written character driven mystery novel that will change your life! I really wasn't expecting to like this novel as much as I did and will probably read it a second time. I hope it gets picked by a network as I can see it being developed into a show! Araminta Hall is definitely one to watch!

I’m not sure if I came to this book with false preconceptions however I was expecting a thriller but found myself reading a book about friendships and relationships with a side order of feminism, each told in long sections from the perspective of each woman. I found the first section, Eleanors, the easiest as she seemed the most likeable of the three women, Nancy was the hardest although her character is set up to be the most flawed and Mary was just very put upon. Little in this book came as a surprise to me, no shocks or twists in Nancy’s story. Taken as a book about friendship and the treatment and perception of women it’s a fairly solid read, I think I would have preferred if their stories were intertwined through the book rather than the long section each however each story was very relevant in its own right and it did finish on an appropriate note.

This wasn't quite what I was hoping for but I still enjoyed it. After reading the blurb I was expecting more of a thriller. This was a bit slower than expected and was written only in 3 parts. Each part featured one of the 3 friends, Eleanor, Mary and Nancy.
Nancy was killed right at the start and I think I expected more of an investigation into her death.
Most of the focus was on the 3 friends, who had met at university. In each chapter it focused on just one particular friend. This focused a lot on their past as well as the present and I found it rather drawn out at times.
There was a point in the book where immediately I thought "I know who was responsible for her murder" but obviously the big reveal wasn't until right near the end.
The book dealt well with the relationships of the 3 friends. I didn't warm to either husband of Mary or Nancy but thought the topic of mental abuse within a marriage was well addressed.
All in all, I enjoyed the story but as I said, it wasn't what I was hoping for.
Thank you to netgalley, the author and publisher for an arc and the opportunity to read this.

Murder mystery? Family saga? Psychological drama? Relationship explorer.? This book is all of those, and overall manages to keep a hold on each of the strands well. It’s a little bit long-winded at times but is otherwise compelling and engaging, with enough twists and turns to keep every reader turning the pages. It begins with the death of one of three close female friends and draws in their partners and families, with some really excellent characterisations and plotting, and more than one villain in the frame for the murder. I guessed ‘whodunnit’ quite early on, but this didn’t matter as the storyline was much more about the why? and the how? and that built with convincing tension throughout the book. A very satisfying ending too, leaving the reader with the feeling that everyone got their just deserts, and those left could move on with hope in the future.

I’ve only ever read one other book by this author, and I was blown away, so I was expecting the same from this one. However, even though it is a good book, and I read it at a steady pace, it didn’t have the wow factor that I was expecting.
We are following three women, Eleanor, Nancy and Mary. There are only three chapters in the entire book, one for each woman. With the formatting not having been complete when I read this, I didn’t know this and kept skipping ahead to see if the end of the chapter would appear, it didn’t. Eleanor’s section lasts 40%! Luckily there are big paragraph breaks so you can easily define where you have left off when you pick it back up.
I kept expecting more from each woman’s story and more revelations than we got. Again, not knowing the format I was expecting other character’s voices but didn’t get them. I would have liked to know one in particular’s side to the story as I felt that was left unfinished slightly.
Even though it wasn’t a mind-blowing and noteworthy book; it was still an excellent solid four-star read. There is enough suspense to keep you reading and trying to guess the outcome.

First of all thank you to Netgalley, Orion and Araminta Hall for giving me this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

The story of Imperfect Women concerns three best friends, Eleanor, Nancy and Mary. When Nancy is murdered, their worlds are shaken as they desperately try to uncover what has happened to their friends while uncovering bitter truths. The title is incredibly fitting, the women are indeed imperfect as are literally all of the characters in this book (except maybe Irena- who seems to just be used for plot).

I was very intrigued by the plot, the blurb had me so excited but unfortunately I didn’t like the story as much as I would have wished. Don’t get me wrong the plot was intriguing and incredibly compelling, however, I didn’t connect with any of the characters and the plot was exactly what I’d predicted it would be very early on, including the supposed twists.

When I first started reading it I was jarred that we dived straight into the murder and disappearance of Nancy’s character and it felt strange to me as normally I’d expect a certain amount of preamble in which you get to know and understand the characters and what is considered normal for them. The plot follows on very quickly, especially in Eleanor’s chapter with it feeling as if there is one thing after another.

However, this understanding of the characters and their context does come later, especially in Nancy’s perspective when she recounts what her marriage and friendships were like before, however it almost feels too late and too forced with the flashback memories. Another thing that I found really disappointing was the lack of description, in imagery and more importantly how the characters were feeling and what I mean here is that we were told repeatedly what characters were feeling but not shown it through their facial expressions or body language, but rather just told “she was angry” or similar, maybe accompanied with exaggerated shows of emotion.

However, towards the end of the book I was a lot more engaged with it. Specifically, in Mary’s chapter. I think personally I found Mary’s character the most likeable of the three main female characters, and her chapter was in my opinion written the best, with more imagery and description. I also really liked that the author attempted to bring some discussions about greater societal truths i.e. the tragedy of death and who’s deaths we consider tragic, however, I did feel that this particular example was a little forced as it didn’t appear a natural conversation or scene to me.

One thing I also really liked, was how grief was dealt with and described. As someone who is studying grief, some aspects of this felt very real, although others less so, and I was happy to see how the different characters grieved, and the processes seemed well researched.

A point which is more technical, is that I didn’t like the lack of differentiation between chapters (although I admit this may just be an advanced copy issue), they felt really long because all that separated them was an asterisk. Although I’m sure this will be fixed upon publication.

A gripping novel about love and betrayal, punishment and guilt, chronic illness and emotional abuse but also the compromises we all make in order to protect our families. It is so raw that I often found myself stopping, closing my eyes and breathing heavily, thinking what would I have done in any of these women’s shoes? They are friends since forever, they think they know each other best but the reality is, they don’t. Every woman has a deep dark secret, every woman has done some terrible things and she is never completely understood.
None of the women are likable from the beginning but let’s not forget about those absolute a…holes of men who should be slapped and shamed for their attitude towards their wives. As I sank deeper and deeper into the story I understood many of their actions and agreed with what they have done.
I know not everyone had a good taste after this book but I took out the truth behind the story, I tried to think of just how women in general are abused, put down by men and betrayed by their so called best friends and I loved just how they find the strength to move on, how they pick themselves up and become a better version learning to let go of the past (obviously, I left out the murder part while thinking of all these but you get my point).

This is easily one of the best books I've read this year, if not the best, and I read every spare minute I have. The main characters, , Laura, Nancy and Mary, including Howard, Robert, Irena and Marcus were portrayed brilliantly, I found it a very hard book to put down and sat up in the early hours to just read another chapter and another and another. The only very small criticism would be that the physical description of the three women wasn't really revealed to us until quite a way into the book if not in the final chapters. So by this time I had already pictured them myself, so I had to to do a complete turn about for them to fit the author's images of them. The separate stories were laid out to perfection, each giving us a diffrent view point of the same series of events leading to the horrendous tragedy. i highly recommend this book, it's utterly fantastic. If I ever thought that I could become an author, I would only have to think about Imperfect Women to realise that I could never, ever produce anything remotely close to this.

My thanks to Orion Publishing for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Imperfect Women’ by Araminta Hall in exchange for an honest review. It is due to be published on 4 August in ebook and audiobook editions with the hardback released on 20 August.

‘Imperfect Women’ is a domestic drama/suspense that focuses on the interwoven lives of three women: Eleanor, Nancy, and Mary. They had become friends at university and continue to be close. Eleanor has never married and instead focused on her career running a small relief charity, Nancy married her college sweetheart, and Mary had an affair with her married professor becoming his second wife after falling pregnant.

What makes this a work of suspense rather than a straight-forward relationship drama is that in the opening chapter Eleanor is called in the early morning by Nancy’s husband, Robert, worried that Nancy hadn’t come home the night before. Eleanor knows that her friend has been having an affair and that she had been trying to finish it as her lover had become increasingly obsessive. Then the police turn up with news that Nancy’s body had been found!

The novel is split into three sections. The first is told from Eleanor’s point of view. The second section moves back in time and presents Nancy’s story right up to the point of her death. The final section focuses upon Mary and resolves the mystery.

There isn’t much of a police presence in the novel, which was a little surprising given the circumstances of Nancy’s death. Still, the focus throughout was mainly upon the complex dynamics between these three women. It was also a reminder dear that not every crime is solved quickly.

Overall, I felt that this was an engaging story that proved a strong blend of suspense and women’s fiction. Yes, a murder is involved but the narrative is more complex than the usual whodunnit. Araminta Hall has avoided the flashier aspects of the psychological thriller sub-genre to create a more reflective novel that explored these long standing friendships between women as well as the often complex choices faced by women as time passes.

Eleanor, Nancy, and Mary may be imperfect women but they emerged from this novel as very human and relatable characters.

I loved Hall’s previous novel for its slow burn and devastating conclusion. This one is perhaps less raw than the last, but shares its uncompromising depiction of the compromises made by women. Each of her characters is quietly devastating and, like the previous novel, linger in the mind. Another superior page-turn.

This was such a haunting psychological thriller, brilliantly written and unsettling from the outset. This was a harrowing account of mental and physical domestic abuse and I felt a lot of compassion for these characters. I loved how this story gave the perspectives of 3 middle-aged women, all flawed in their own way and with completely different versions of their truth.