Great book lots of twists and plenty of edge of the seat thrills

A great author and a wonderful cast of characters especially ones you loved to hate

Looking forward to more books from this author she is definitely one of my go toos.

Highly recommend

Wow, this book left me gasping. I really struggled with it at first as the viewpoints changed in the middle of a chapter. Initially thought it was because it was a proof copy of the book but as I carried on reading I realised that that was how the book had been written. Olive is the wife of a prominent MP who is staying the night in a hotel. She is dining alone but on returning to her table she is joined by a woman, who is a stranger to her, but says that she is her wife. They end up spending the night together and Olive confesses her secrets to her that she has been keeping from all her friends. When Olive goes missing her husband and the mystery woman become the main suspects. The story flips between Olive and the police investigating the case, PC Garry Mixon and DS Lexy Thomas. I can’t begin to explain all the secrets and lies but it is a most compelling and gripping read. My favourite book of the year.
Thanks to Netgalley and Orion for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

I enjoyed my first Sharon Bolton book!
I listened to the audiobook as part of an online book club.
I've heard the good reviews about this author, so was excited for it!
I enjoyed it, but I don't think it really wowed me as much as I hoped, but it was worth reading.

I was certainly intrigued by this book. The opening definitely caught my attention and hooked me in.

However it took me a while to get used to how quickly the viewpoints would change mid chapter, between Olive and Garry. In fact initially given I was reading an advance copy I was wondering if something had gone wrong in the editing or formatting as I wasn't even sure Garry's storyline initially was anything to do with this book .

Rest assured as you proceed it does all start to make sense, and not only that I started to really get interested in both of our main characters. There is more to Olive than what you first think. and the more I got to know the more I wanted to know.

And I was really rooting for Garry too, he is a bit of a bumbling cop, how gets involved in this investigation mainly due to his excellent driving skills, and I really liked seeing him develop as the story progressed.

This was a really good book, that had me invested at all times.

Thank you to Orion and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

This was quite hit and miss for me, and I nearly gave up on it very near the start. The opening scene of the novel was just so weird and oddly contrived. Once I'd got past that, it developed into quite a good missing person story. I liked the characters of Lexy and Garry and would enjoy reading another book which featured them, but it was their interactions which carried the story for me, rather than a strong plot.

Olive Anderson is dining alone at a hotel when a glamourous stranger joins her table, pretending to be her wife. What starts as a thrilling game quickly turns into something dangerous.

I initially thought I wasn't going to like this book and almost DNF very early but glad I pushed on a a little further as this became a thrilling page turner and I couldn't put it down. The story had me gripped. Would definitely recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley, Orion Publishing Group and Sharon Bolton for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. (Sorry I didn't get to this much sooner !)

This book has an incredibly slow and confusing start, but does develop into an interesting and twisted story. There were no major shocks, but it was still quite hairy at times - it's just a fairly average, although well written, psychological thriller.

Well thank you Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley that was total unexpected.
Revenge is sweet and it certainly was in this book.
Brilliant, this was absolutely brilliant and highly recommend.

I have loved all of the author’s previous novels and so was excited to read The Fake Wife.
The premise sounded interesting; when MP Michael Anderson reports his wife Olive missing, the police investigation, lead by DS Lexy Thomas aided by PC Garry Mizen becomes more complex than they expected.
Although this starts off extremely slow paced I loved the atmospheric setting and was intrigued by the opening chapters. I loved the characters of Lexy and Garry and their scenes really lifted the novel for me. However, overall I felt this was one of the author’s weaker novels that had little tension and was too slow paced with an unbelievable plot.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

Took me a time to get into this book but it was q good story with lots of character twists so d turns. First Sharon Bolton book that I have read I believe

Just enthralling page turning suspense. I could not stop reading until I found out the outcome. Just exactly who is the supposed fake wife? And why are women related to my husband going missing? Will I be next?

Unfortunately, I was unable to download this book before it was archived and so am leaving this as a review/explanation as I didn't know what else to do after finding a few books I had managed to miss in a section of my account entitled Not Active: Archived, Not Downloaded; so I thought it best to clear it up. I have already bought a copy and will leave a review on places like Amazon, Goodreads, Waterstones, etc, once I've completed it and formed my thoughts on it. Apologies for any inconvenience and thank you for the opportunity.

A suspenseful revenge thriller. Olive is dining alone at a hotel when a mysterious woman sits down at her table and pretends to be her wife. Although Olive is married to a man, she goes along with it. Things get even more bizarre when Olive is kidnapped. A fast-paced corkscrew of twists and turns will keep you hooked.

Sharon Bolton is an accomplished author who writes intelligent and original novels. I really wanted to love this one, but just couldn’t get on board with it. Not for me.

Such a fabulous book! I loved it and could not put it down. A must read! The characters, the story line everything was perfect. The book will keep you totally engrossed!

This was one of the best books I've ever read. I went out and bought the hard copy of it just so I can add it to my collection

The story is completely uninteresting and frankly stretches credulity right from the beginning. And if it's aimed at an adult audience, must we really have a sex scene every few pages? Not for me. I feel as if I've read this book a thousand times in the last few years.

I very rarely choose to pick up a contemporary crime novel, but I’m always happy to make an exception for Sharon Bolton. I think I’ve read all of her novels but one and have loved nearly all of them, so I had high hopes for her newest book, The Fake Wife, published last month.

The novel begins on a snowy evening just before Christmas when Olive Anderson, on her way home from a business trip, is staying at a hotel in Hexham, Northumberland. She has managed to get a table in the busy hotel restaurant, but when she enters the dining room she is surprised to see another woman sitting in her place. With no other tables available, Olive agrees to dine with the stranger, but is even more surprised when the woman tells the waiter that she and Olive are a married couple. For some reason even Olive can’t explain, she finds herself going along with the story and accompanying her ‘wife’ back to her hotel room after the meal.

PC Garry Mizon has twice tried and failed to qualify as a detective and has had to settle for a job with the traffic police, patrolling the roads at night and in bad weather. When politician Michael Anderson reports his wife, Olive, missing, Garry is ordered to accompany DS Lexy Thomas to interview him. Believing Olive may have had an accident on the country roads after leaving her hotel, Garry and Lexy head out into the snow to see if they can track her down. Olive, however, isn’t the first woman connected with Michael Anderson who has gone missing and to get to the truth behind her disappearance, Garry and Lexy will need to delve into the politician’s past and the story of his first wife, Eloise.

When I first started to read The Fake Wife, I wasn’t at all sure that I was going to like this particular Bolton novel. Those opening scenes in the hotel seemed ridiculously contrived – Olive’s reaction to having a strange woman stealing her table then pretending to be her wife certainly wasn’t the way I would have reacted! – and as I read on, other parts of the plot felt very implausible as well. It was also clear from early on that there was going to be a lot more sexual content in this book than you normally get from Bolton, something which I don’t really enjoy. Somewhere after the first few chapters, however, I became immersed in the story and then it didn’t really matter how far-fetched the beginning had been. I’m glad I didn’t abandon it, because otherwise I would have missed out on all the twists and turns of the plot as the novel headed towards its conclusion – and I wouldn’t have got to know Garry Mizon.

Garry is a wonderfully endearing character, one of my favourites in all of Sharon Bolton’s books. He’s one of those people who always try their best, yet nothing ever seems to go right for them, as we see at the beginning of the book when he makes a catastrophic and embarrassing mistake during a raid. Having proved yet again his unsuitableness for detective work, he is only asked to drive Lexy to the Andersons’ because nobody else is available, but as the investigation begins to unfold, we quickly discover that he is much more intelligent and resourceful than his superiors think he is – as well as being a genuinely nice person. He and Lexy make a great team and I would love to meet them again in a future book, although I suspect this is probably just going to be a standalone.

This book isn’t a favourite by Bolton, then, but the characters made it worthwhile. It’s also the perfect novel to read at this time of year, as so much of it is set outdoors in the snow. I’ll look forward to her next book, but meanwhile I really need to find time to go back and read Blood Harvest, which I think is the only one I still haven’t read!

I'm a big fan of Sharon Boltons so was excited to start this and it didn't disappoint. A twisted tale that begins with a playful encounter and a saucy night but ends with a car crash, a snowfilled chase, a lot of blackmail and an old mystery. I really enjoyed this and am looking forward to what Sharon writes next. I was less enamoured with her previous couple but found this much more like her older Lacey Turner page turners which keep you hooked.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC.

I really wanted to read this book but sadly my copy was corrupted and made it impossible to read.