This book was given to me by Netgalley as an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Freya’s husband has a car accident on the night that she’s planning to leave him and it wipes out the memory of their two year marriage, can she forget their life together so easily though?

This book started out a little bit slow for me, it took me quite a few chapters to really get into it but once I did and the pace picked up it was definitely worth sticking with. I liked how the chapters jumped back and forth between Freya and Phil, the author has a great way of letting you view things through that characters eyes and it does make the whole story shift a bit. I found myself having completely different views on what might be happening all the time through the book. The ending wasn’t necessarily as shocking as some books but it was a highly enjoyable read!

When Freya first met Phil, she thought he was the man of her dreams. He bought her roses and showed her affection like she’d never experienced before. But over time the dream had become a violent nightmare.

Finally, when Freya decides it’s time she escaped their increasingly broken marriage, she gets a visit from the police. Phil’s been in a horrific car crash and when he regains conscious, he remembers nothing since their blissful honeymoon two years before, back when their relationship was perfect. All he wants is to be happily married again.

Freya knows giving him another chance could be dangerous but Phil needs her. Can they start over again?

This is a suspenseful read with a few twists in the plot.

It was interesting concept which gets you thinking about Phil’s changed personality and memory loss after the accident. Coming to Freya’s predicament, on one hand she needs to be there for Phil as his wife especially since he remembers only the good memories but on the other hand, she can’t actually forget nor forgive his past actions because there is no guarantee that it won’t happen again in the future. Personally, I felt that she should have just gone ahead and left him because he seemed as quite a shady character right from the start.

The plot was well narrated through the viewpoints of both Freya and Phil. Even though the reveal at the end was good, the overall conclusion was slightly rushed. While it was an easy read, it wasn’t as exciting or thrilling as I had hoped it would be.

Thank You NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!

The Stranger in My Bed is a domestic psychological thriller revolving around married couple Freya and Paul. As the result of a bad car accident, Paul has lost his memories from the past 2 years - his and Freya's entire married life. The last thing he remembers is them coming back from their honeymoon. Paul thinks he and Freya must have a great marriage since, as far as he remembers, they were head over heels in love with each other. Freya, however, knows the truth of the past two years. Living every day afraid of Paul's sudden bursts of anger and him lashing out at her for the smallest reasons. With his memories gone, Paul is the man Freya fell in love with and the question she must ask herself is: should she give him another chance?

The first thing I want to mention is a trigger warning for domestic violence. There are multiple scenes, both in the present story as well as in flashbacks, where the domestic violence is on the page and we are experiencing it right alongside Freya. It ranges from emotional, verbal, to physical abuse. I've never been in a domestic violence situation, but I didn't find the scenes to be overly gratuitous with the descriptions. I didn't get the feeling that the scenes were included for shock value or anything like that. The scenes really built up the tension in the story and were the cause of a lot of the internal tension in Freya. From what I know from reading other real-accounts from domestic abuse survivors is that the infractions often start out small, and the perpetrator of the violence will then shower the other person with apologies, love, promises to never do it again - all of which are included in this book. The book is split perspective mostly between Freya and Paul and the violence scenes were all from Freya's point of view so I never felt sympathy for Paul because we didn't hear his internal rationalizations for why he was doing these things to Freya. And when Paul was apologizing to Freya, we could hear her internal thoughts about how conflicted she was about accepting his apology. I think this book is a very powerful look at the cycle of domestic violence and how it can affect relationships of all kinds. I really wanted to mention this right at the beginning because the description of the book really doesn't do justice, I feel, to how much on the page abuse the reader will encounter.

I think the strongest part of this novel was, by far, the writing. It was very clean and concise which is exactly how I like my thriller prose to be. The split POV was also really well handled, each character had their own voice and there were some times where I would be reading along, a new chapter would start, and I wouldn't pay attention to whose perspective we were in but I could tell within a few sentences. I thought the additional POVs that we get sprinkled in throughout the book were also well done and they helped fill in some narrative gaps in the story in an easy and non-convoluted way. The descriptions given of both people and places were just descriptive enough that I could get a picture in my mind without King going on and on for paragraphs at a time. After re-reading a few passages, I think King does an excellent job of picking out key, grounding details to give to the reader and then she let's us fill in the finer details on our own.

The biggest let down of the book for me was the thriller aspects, which was a bummer considering this was labeled a domestic psychological thriller which are normally home runs for me. Now maybe people who haven't read as many thrillers as I have wouldn't have these issues with the book, and since all of this will be vague as to avoid spoilers, maybe take my opinions with a grain of salt. So, first of all, it wasn't that the thriller aspects were bad or mishandled. Quite the opposite, in fact, I will say I didn't see the final twist coming (I did call the earlier ones though) and the tension and sense of danger that Freya was in was very well crafted and kept me flipping pages as fast as I could. However, I found the overall thriller aspects to be very surface level and if King had just turned up the dial a bit, I think this book could have been fantastic. To start, I've read a few amnesia thrillers where the woman in the story is the one who lost her memories and she has to spend the whole book getting them back, only to find that someone she trusted the whole time was actually lying to her. I thought that this book would be following that same sort of story line except it was the man who had lost his memory and it would be the woman's turn to get revenge or manipulate him in some way to her benefit since we know from the summary that their marriage is abusive. This was not what happened and I was bummed about it, but, again, not everyone will have those expectations if they didn't read those previous books. Also, there was some set up in Paul's POV for Freya to be an unreliable narrator as he questions her motives and what her true intentions are (which, if these thoughts had been paired with her actually manipulating him in revenge like I was expecting, would have been awesome). However, the reader never sees Freya as anything other than 100% trustworthy. We are immediately sympathetic to her situation and everyone in her life that we're introduced to supports her. She doesn't have any sort of mysterious past like we get with Paul so when Paul starts to question her motives, I basically immediately dismissed them and I never got a build up of tension trying to figure out who is right that I think the story was going for.

The ending of this story I found really great. Again, no spoilers, but any time the final twist in a thriller gets revealed and verbally react when I'm reading is a sign of an excellent twist. I especially liked the final twist because I had guessed that X happened, then X was dismissed in the narrative, but then the final twist was given and X turned out to be true, but not in the way I had initially thought. There also was a good amount of resolution time after the final confrontation, which I always appreciate.

Overall, a pretty decent surface level thriller with dual POV. Decent twist on the amnesia-thriller trope. Writing was great, very tight, and kept the tension high throughout the book. Trigger warning for on-page domestic violence.

295 pages.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing the ARC. This book will be published on November 23, 2020.

I really liked the unreliable narrator aspect of the book. I know every other mystery/thriller pulls that trick, but I really didn't know who was telling the truth until well into the book. So I liked it for the most part, although I thought the ending was a bit tidy.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book.

Enjoyed this book though couldn’t bring myself to feel even a tiny bit sorry for Phil.

The Stranger in My Bed is one of the best thrillers I have read this year. Freya and Phil's marriage is on a scary course of violence that will leave readers on the edge of their seats.

On the outside Freya and Phil have a perfect marriage. Good looking, sexy, and loving, Phil is everything Freya has dreamed about in a husband. But not the violence. He has a temper, acts irrationally and jealously. She is at her breaking point and is ready to leave.

Until Phil is in an accident that almost kills him. The police realize his car has been tampered with. While he's in a coma, Freya has to make a choice - does she stay and help him or does she go? When Phil comes out of the coma and can't remember their entire marriage - or the violence - Freya decides to stay and help him recuperate.

Phil can't trust anyone but Freya - he's shocked that his car has been tampered with and doesn't know anyone who would want to hurt him. It's scary and painful missing out on two years of his memory. Can he really trust his own wife?

Told from multiple points of view, The Stranger in My Bed is a spine-tingling thriller that will leave you guessing. I was hooked from the first few pages. Grab this book!

Can amnesia really change someone?

An accident, or a deliberate act of malice?

A crash, and two years lost, could you manage? The last thing that could be remembered, getting off the plane from their honeymoon.

What would you do? Question, worry, try to piece things together?

A dark hidden past and actions any normal person would have more than kittens at, if they were them.

This, is a little gem. It holds your interest and draws you ever deeper in to the plot the more that you read. The characters are strong and well shaped. Developed and with strong histories, as both past and present are interwind.

Would I recommend this book? Yes without a doubt.


Status: Completed

Rating: 4.7/5.0

This is the first time I have read anything from Karen King. The Stranger in My Bed seemed like it would be a good read. It's a story of a husband that was in an accident that caused him to have amnesia. He can't remember 2 years of his life. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way. There was no character in the story I liked not Phil, Freya, Daisy nor Mark. In the end, it seemed as if the story would start picking up my disappointingly it ended as soon as the story got interesting.

Thanks #NetGalley for allowing me to read #TheStrangerinMyBed by #KarenKing

Thank you to Karen King and Netgalley for this ARC

This was a really good story, I enjoyed the new concept of the crash causing amnesia on the guilty party and his wife deciding to change him.

I thought there was suitable intrigue and mystery. What was missing for me was "thriller" aspects.
I didn't sense a twist and in essence there wasn't really one, I didn't feel like any action happened or the pace quickened.

It was a very tame thriller but very enjoyable all the same.

The Stranger in My Bed is a slow burning psychological thriller that kept me turning the pages to find out more.
I read a lot of psychological thrillers and the ending didn’t totally shock me but the author certainly did keep me on my toes. A story full of secrets, lies and manipulation, this is an enjoyable read for all those interested in the thriller genre.

The Stranger in my Bed is the first of two psychological thrillers from writer Karen King.
It’s a change from her usual romantic comedies and from the blurb I knew immediately I would enjoy this.
Freya, who is about to leave Phil, a man given to unpredictable moods and outbursts of violence, is told he has been in an RTA and is in a coma in hospital. When he wakes up he has no recollection of the last two years of his life – the time they have been married. Freya wonders whether this lack of memory might give her back the man she fell in love with. She is caught between staying or going, but eventually decides to take a chance, hopeful of a new beginning. The story is then split between Phil and Freya’s viewpoint packed with their inner thoughts which I felt gave a lot of information but slowed things down slightly. However, the whole thing moved up a notch when the police reported the car brakes had been tampered with. Who had a grudge against Phil and are they the same person who has been accessing the family home and leaving threatening messages? That’s the part of the story when things should have become interesting but they didn’t and eventually discovering the perpetrator for me was a bit of an anti-climax. So all in all a little disappointed.but at the end of the day it's all down to the individual reader and I'm sure fans of Karen's will enjoy this new direction in her writing.

Freya and Phil have been married for 2 years, a tumultuous relationship, due to Phil’s explosive temper and controlling nature. They met and quickly fell in love, without Freya getting the chance to meet his family.

After yet another fight, Phil storms out and Freya is determined that she’s ready to leave him. But, he has a bad car accident, which leaves him hospitalized with broken ribs and memory loss. He can remember everything except the last 2 years of his life.

Memory loss takes a toll on Phil and leaves him vulnerable. Freya is having second thoughts of leaving him while he’s in a vulnerable state. Soon, Phil’s temper starts to flare again, along with Phil receiving threatening notes. Someone set out to get him, but who could it have been?

This book was really entertaining; I really liked how the amnesia aspect put a different spin on the story and how Phil was paranoid of who or what to trust because he couldn’t rely on his own memory.

I didn’t, however, like the fact that no matter how Phil’s rage escalated she still stayed and justified his behavior by saying, “it’s only me that makes him so angry”. Seriously? I had really hoped that more of Phil’s recent memory would return so we’d get a glimpse of all the crap he was involved in. Especially the university scandal. Some of this felt a bit repetitive, but I still enjoyed the story. The ending was full of surprises that raised my brow!

If I had a quarter for every sentence in this book that ends with a question mark, I swear I'd have enough money to replace the roof on our house. Good grief!

Both Freya and her husband of a couple of years, Phil, are facing uncertainties; for personal reasons, Freya has made the decision to leave Phil - or so she says in the beginning. But then Phil is seriously injured in an auto accident that's left him with no memory of anything prior to the return from what he recalls as a happy honeymoon. As she sits with Phil next to his hospital bed, Freya starts to question her motives for leaving and whether she should give the marriage another shot. For his part, Phil seems to have undergone a personality change for the better, but as he begins to learn what he was like pre-accident, he, too, begins to question what will happen from here on out.

And question. And question. Some paragraphs, in fact, are comprised of nothing but questions as chapters switch from the perspectives of the main characters. It's a never-ending string of woulda, coulda, shoulda, what ifs and if onlys that have no real answers until the very end, when the true story is revealed.

But make no mistake: There IS a story here - quite an intriguing and meaningful one, in fact, that highlights a couple of important social issues. Readers learn that there's much more going on that it appears at first blush, with Freya, Phil and, occasionally, Freya's older sister Daisy, all of whom are frustrated to some degree or other by Phil's inability to remember (especially things that don't jibe with the way he sees himself now). But for readers - and the characters themselves - it's hard to determine who is to be believed. Each new chapter adds details that build suspense, if predictably (with the exception of one detail at the very end).

As far as I'm concerned, what woulda shoulda happened - not long after the honeymoon - is that Freya kept that suitcase packed and carried it, and herself, as far away from Phil as she could get with no forwarding address (it was clear early on that something was amiss in their marriage). Not that she's a very relatable character, mind you - none of them is, as far as I'm concerned - but of the lot, she seemed to have the most going for her. It just took her far too long for her to come to that conclusion as well.

Honestly, this book doesn't get a really high score from me, but that's almost entirely because of those incessant questions. I'd love to see the same story told in a more straightforward manor - those above-mentioned issues deserve to be told and retold until they're no longer issues. Meantime, thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review it.

Ooh, this book opens with a huge dilemma. Freya has to make a choice in how she deals with the effects of Phil’s accident. The wrong decision could be deadly, but her husband looks so vulnerable.

There are three main POV’s and a POV by an unknown character which added a big fat dose of mystery to the story. These chapters were sinister in nature and kept me scrolling through the pages to find out who was lurking in the shadows.

The main themes in the book are gaslighting and domestic abuse, and the way these themes are brought to life through the characters and story give a realistic feel to it all. The themes are skilfully handled and some chapters actually saddened me. My thoughts were really with Freya through the whole book.

It’s walking-on-eggshells tense throughout and if you love psychological thrillers, then it’s one to read! Thoroughly enjoyed.

PS - I’m going to double lock the doors tonight - eek!

You never really know anyone until you live with them.

What mother did not give that advice?

Freya learns the hard way and after 2 years of marriage to Phil, she realizes he was not what he appeared to be. How could she be so fooled?

Phil is in a suspicious car accident and has no memory of the last 2 years.

Should Freya go or she should stay and hope he has changed to the man she fell in love with.

Oh Freya! Run would be my advice.

Phil has secrets no doubt but will he remember them?

The pages will fly by as you race to the surprising conclusion.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for another great read.

This is the first book that I have read by this author but I really enjoyed it. The author has a great command of how to write a plot and characters and kept me turning the pages until the very end. I would highly recommend.

Overall this is a good read. I felt that the storyline was good but also predictable. Some of it was similar to other books that I have read. I feel that the subject of domestic abuse is tackled well.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Imagine you have an overall unhappy marriage and you are planning to leave your husband. Then the husband is in a car accident and has forgotten the past two years when things became abusive and violent. Do you give him another chance and hope he stays the sweet, loving man he was in the beginning? No! You do not! But, Freya does.

This novel is told primarily from Freya’s POV but also includes chapters told from Phil and Daisy’s (Freya’s sister) POV. An unknown narrator sneaks in between chapters giving italicized accounts regarding Phil’s history, which is as unreliable as all of the other narrators in the novel. I quickly realized that no one in the book is trustworthy and everyone puts their own spin on things, except for maybe Phil directly after the accident. The last thing he remembers is returning from their honeymoon, so he does seem quite sincere for a while.

This is an entertaining novel that I read in just a few hours. I enjoyed it, however, what you read in the blurb is basically what you get. With the exception of one main point, the book reads just like the blurb with few surprises. But even that one main surprise comes along so early that everything after that falls sort of flat. I will say that I was surprised about another player as far as “whodunnit,” but otherwise, this was very predictable. I don’t mean that I didn’t like it, but don’t expect a big “aha” moment.

For those looking for a quick and enjoyable read that enjoy psychological fiction, The Stranger in My Bed Could be just right for you. If you are craving a suspense/thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat, then this isn’t the right book for you.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

Disaster strikes at the very beginning of this book, when Phil is in a serious car accident and is left amnesia, not remembering the past two years of his life, which incidentally is the length of time he has been married to Freya. He can remember everything earlier in his life but from getting off the plane after their honeymoon is a blank.
Freya was about to leave him, his violence was out of control but knowing he had lost all memories of his violence towards her, she thought he would be a different person.
Told in Freya and Phil’s POV at first I did think Phil may have changed, he was confused; scared even that maybe even Freya could have tried to kill him. With an intruder breaking in, letting him know they know what he did. It must have been frightening with not knowing what has happened the past two years and trying to piece it together. I made the wrong call on that one, he is a horrid man and does not deserve Freya!
In Freya’s POV she remembers the times he has lashed out since she has been married to him, but he had a way of manipulating her, making her think she was the provoker. She stood by him and walked on eggshells a lot of the time. It was heart wrenching.
As the book goes on, a lot comes out not just from the past two years but things from before that too and the very end had me left with an open mouth.
This was utterly gripping and I could not put it down.

Phil and Freya have married after a whirlwind romance. Two years later, the marriage is in trouble with rows that often turn violent. Mind games are being played. But who is the abuser and who is the victim?

At this point, though, Phil is involved in a car crash when his brakes are tampered with. He wakes in hospital with no memory of the abuse. All he recalls is the courtship and marriage.

The story is told in the third person but with chapters from the point of view of different characters. Mainly it’s straightforwardly from Freya’s viewpoint but some chapters are from Phil’s point of view. Phil sees himself as a loving husband. OK, he can lose his temper from time to time, but then his wife, as he puts it “always presses his buttons”. Some of her behaviour (I can’t give examples because of spoilers) goes way beyond what I would consider acceptable in a marriage and I found my sympathies moving to Phil. Karen King’s willingness to forgive the kind of behaviour that would suggest a marriage has already broken down makes me uncomfortable and blurs some of the lines in the book. It certainly doesn’t fit well with the “can they get their marriage back on course” subplot. Surely the marriage is doomed? But, given the structure of many romantic novels, maybe there will be a happy ending after all.

Karen King has a lifetime of writing romance behind her and her writing flows well. This is a romance author who is tackling the issue of abuse in marriage. It’s an important, and very unromantic, subject. It has meant breaking away from her usual style to explore a new genre. It’s definitely not what you might expect from Ms King. But it’s an important subject and she deals with it in a book that is well written and carries the reader along and anything that makes people more aware of the issues is to be applauded.