Emily is expecting a boy, and they have another daughter. Emily's postpartum psychosis disorder caused her and David to lose their daughter. A babysitter and a doula are hired to prevent a repeat of the catastrophe. They gain the family's trust and form a close relationship with them. Emily chooses to vanish. When she accepts the offer of assistance, the psychological thriller heats up and is full of surprises that keep you reading.

The second version was sure a better one! The book deals with issues on mistrust, mental illness, as well as marital problems but always with a bit of hope at the end the beginning is very slow which would turn off some readers but the second part really comes together with some good twists. The story felt very real and could really happen in real life! great job

A dark thriller which makes you really think about what desperate lengths a person can find themselves going to when they are in despair. I challenge anyone to guess the ending before they reach it - this is a twister. I found the pace a little uneven and the end felt a bit rushed but overall a really great story.

This book as been translated into English and then edited by someone whom English is not their mother-tongue and it shows. The editing is really quite deplorable and the whole thing needs to be redone. Incorrect tense, wrong words, poor grammar - it really is a mess. Which is a shame because underneath all that there is a decent story!

Aside from that.. the story is as a said, decent - but just not for me. The characters are so unlikeable, I didn't care who lived and who died. I did however really appreciate the postpartum psychosis being the focal point of much of the book. A lot of writers wouldn't have the courage to tackle such a sensitive subject, so I liked that!

This went straight to my DNF on page one. Here’s why:

“ Six months ago, we moved into this new house—a replica of the old one—in a miserable attempt to forget our dead daughter, whose name was Sarah, too. My wife and I thought that giving our second daughter the same name would help us forget the first Sarah over time. Pitiless, you might think, but we needed to move forward.”

Obviously this author is not a parent. No parent would EVER do this. Imagine if… That one paragraph made it impossible for me to continue.

The Savior is the first book I have read from this author. An intense psychological thriller.

There is depression, murder, attempted suicide all bundled up to make for a a great thriller.

The storyline latches on to you until the very end. There are characters you like and some you do not like. However, overall the plot is one that was believable and interesting to read.

This story could have taken place in any country. It was so believable from the first postpartum depression attack and Emily's bout with prison. A doula is a new term that I had to look up and it is when support is needed for the mother. I felt that David was truly a man who understood his wife's problems yet he couldn't keep his mouth shut when he slept. This in itself was the reason for their problems. A doula and a woman who looked after their second child. This was a messy situation and both women made a pact to implicate both David and Emily. I'll let you try to figure out what this entails and say that Abdellatif makes everything fly out of the ordinary enough to keep you glued to the rest of the book. It's a real who done it.

Wow! This book was so hard for me to get into it then as sudden as I did it went right away. The back and fourth and confusion had me hating this book and I hardly ever say that. I just honestly didn’t like it at all.

The Savior was quite disturbing and I stopped reading it several times. None of the characters were likable and several were dispicable. Postpartum psychosis was well portrayed and made even more dramatic by several characters taking advantage of a very sick mother in an unexpected manner.

When I first strated to read this book I thought it was a bit slow but after I had read over half the book it suddenly picked up. I found that I didn't want to put it down.. It follows the story of a couple who endure the loss of a young child in very sad and disturbing circumstances. The woman falls pregnant again and the story is all about what happens next.

A really dark story that starts off with a bang but progresses reasonably slowly for a while before the pace picks up again. I guessed who was behind everything but not the real reasoning and this kept me reading to the very end. I must admit that I found parts a little too unrealistic but at all times everything was well described. The story covers issues that are often taboo and does it very well. A woman suffering postpartum depression killing her child starts the book off and all the way through I felt her emotional state was realistic. I felt that there were a few missing bits of information but it was a good thriller with well defined characters and scenery.

This book definitely did not turn out the way I thought. Emily is a mother who does the unthinkable, she murdered her own child. She was suffering from delusions and spent time in jail but now she is out and pregnant again. It turns out Emily was pregnant when she went to prison and had a child. Her husband, David has been trying to hold everything together but their second child Sarah, does not recognize Emily as her mother. Instead she thinks of Patricia, the woman who helped watch her while Emily was in prison as her mother. Emily is miserable and being pregnant doesn't help. With the help of a doula, Hannah, Emily hopes to improve her life. Only things do not turn out as planned. David is thought to have committed a murder and Emily goes missing. This is a very interesting read with some twists that were very unexpected. As a mother I do have to say that I found it very hard to relate to Emily. What she did was unthinkable even going through postpartum myself.

Whoa!! This book was the epitome of a mystery and thriller with some horror to boot, in my opinion. It was kind of a dark book starting out with the subject matter being about a mother who had post -partum disorder and she had killed her first baby, Sarah. She hadn’t meant to it was because of the disorder. As you read more, it gets REALLY dark in my opinion, but still a great read. You will never know who the “”who did it?” Or “whose doing it?” Is until it’s time to know. It’s a really great thriller! Thank you to #NetGalley and the publishers of #TheSavior for the opportunity to read and review with my honest opinion.

The premise of this book made me want to read it so I was thrilled when NetGalley chose me to read and review. I can only give it 2.5 stars. I feel as though it is a great idea, the characters were mostly unlikable. I had no sense of place but surmise perhaps an urban area in Africa. I think with a good editing and more context to place it could be a good book. I hope to read more of this author as the books mature.

This is my first book from NetGalley, and honestly, I was quite surprised.

The Savior starts out sad, continues with a lot of issues on mistrust, mental illness, as well as marital problems. But on all of that, there is a speck of hope, that even with the situation that arises, everything works out in the end.

During the first half of the novel, I did feel quite bored with how the story was turning out to be, but once the plot started to thicken, with a couple of twists and turns that I clearly thought were going to involve another character, I was hooked and finished it in one sitting.

This was a suspenseful book that I greatly recommend if you're looking to explore this genre.

After a young wife succumbs to post-partum psychosis and drowns her first daughter at bath-time, then doing time as a punishment, surely both she and her husband have experienced their quota of horror and tragedy for one lifetime. There are always solutions. Emily, the said young mother, has a new child to look after once she is home again, and another is on the way, all whilst continuing to work as a professional artist.

Surely nothing can go awry now. Emily and David have a carer, Patricia, and Hannah, a professional doula, to help keep an eye of thing, until their third child is born.

Until Emily disappears, apparently not wishing to see long-suffering husband and daughter again.

David is then to find that the police find plenty of reasons to make him their prime suspect. A trail of clues and leads then lead him to an underworld of horror, as he battles to rescue Emily and her unborn son from a crazed and sadistic foe.

The schlock that follows on from earlier events will no doubt appeal to those who enjoy these kinds of prisoner/foe dynamics, though by now the mystery has descended into fairly easily-recognised tropes, whilst the personality-problem issues of the main villain seemed a little unsubtle.

Nevertheless, the House-of-horrors aspects to this tale should appeal very much for those who. enjoy that sort of thing.

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately I couldn't warm up to this story. IT'S written in this impersonal narrative that makes it impossible to feel close to the characters. Its told from multiple points of views and different timelines with each chapter feeling more disjointed than the last. I just couldn't connect with the story.

I’m a bit conflicted about how to review this book. But let’s set the scene first. Emily Palmer killed her first baby because the voices told her to. She is imprisoned but because she was diagnosed as suffering from post partum psychosis, she was released after only 3 years. She returns home to her husband David, an architect and Sarah, the daughter who was born in prison. While she was gone David engaged a nanny, Patricia, to look after Sarah and Sarah and the nanny have developed a close bond. She doesn’t acknowledge Emily as her mother. Patricia stays on to look after Sarah as David is uncomfortable leaving leaving his wife alone with another child. Then Emily becomes pregnant again and is advised to hire a doula to support Emily during the pregnancy and after the birth. David also thinks this a good idea and soon Hannah is a regular at the house. When Emily is 8 months pregnant David wakes up one morning to find her gone, a note on the fridge reads “goodbye forever”.

The author had a good idea for the story, the start is quite slow but by the halfway point the pace had picked up a lot. David reports his wife missing but the police make no headway beyond suspecting David himself. He follows his own leads and soon receives communication from Emily. In agreeing to meet her, little does David know that he is putting all their lives in danger. There are some good twists in the second half.

But I had a few other issues with this book. Firstly - there is no sense of place, I didn’t even know which country the story was based in although I was able to rule out a few when there was mention of a death penalty as not all countries have this. But still... it is hard for me to place myself in a story when I don’t know where I am. Also, the names of the people and streets and son on were all English sounding but the syntax confused me. This book could also have done with an editor and some of the dialogue felt a little stilted at times. Still, I believe it was a debut and the author shows promise. I thought the portrayal of Emily was really good in the second half of the book. She was brave and resourceful and wanted to prove she could be a good mother. David was a strange character, I didn’t really warm to him. The ending of the book was very exciting. Thanks to Netgalley and Abdellatif Radja for the review copy. My opinions are my own.