Hannah and Susan - who was crazier? Kind of crazy ride with the 2 of them over Mark, who didn't seem to be that great imo. Hannah's character development could have been better, but I loved the ending.

Thanks NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the ARC.

This author can certainly tell a great tale.
Well written characters, none of them likeable. A tense and gripping read which I read far to quickly.
Huge five stars from me.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy.

I always look forward to a new book from Valerie and The Mistress is everything you want and more from a psychological thriller.
Hannah Parker hasn't had an easy life,her father walked out of the family home when she was just ten years old. Unfortunately she was left with just her mother who made it perfectly clear with undermining and violence towards Hannah that she wasn't wanted.
After leaving home to go to Bristol university Hannah finally has the freedom she craves but with a no strings approach to her affairs. That is until she meets Mark and for six glorious months Hannah was happy but she always had that lingering doubt that if someone loves you then they will leave you, so she made the decision to dump him instead. Mark is devastated and promises to always love Hannah.
Twenty years have passed and Hannah has married a much older man Ivan. When Ivan became extremely violent towards Hannah and she is left hospitalised, she makes a plan to leave him.
After returning home Hannah comes across an old photo of herself and Mark and remembers how happy she was back then so she makes up her mind to track down Mark and get him back no matter what the cost!
Unfortunately Mark is happily married to Susan but after their son goes off to university the marriage becomes a little tense. A perfect opportunity for Hannah but how far will Susan go to keep hold of her man?
A brilliantly written tense thriller that you won't want to put down.

Valerie does it again! I just love her writing style!
This was a fast paced thriller that I could not put down.

She pulls you in to this book immediately and then you just want to read one more chapter and before you know it you have read the whole thing in one sitting!

Also loved the twist in the end!

If you like a domestic thriller the this one is for you!

Thank you Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

I loved this book despite not really liking a single character. I couldn't put it down and needed to know what happened! I'm officially a Valerie Keogh fan!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this copy.

I enjoy Valerie Keith’s books and jumped at the chance to read her latest. At 35% I was done. I hated Hannah, Susan was insufferable and if I had to hear one more time about how she missed her son……. It was repetitive and I just didn’t feel sorry for her at all. I guess I just don’t understand going into a deep depression because my son went off to college. I hate not finishing a book, especially by an author I love. But unfortunately this was a no for me.

Wow - what a story! I have read a few heavier books lately and I wanted a page-turning popcorn thriller to lighten things up. I’m pretty good at deciphering synopses; this book definitely fit the bill! To sum up the story, we have a situation on our hands:

Hannah has left her wealthy and abusive husband, Ian.

Hannah moves to her (estranged) mother’s house to figure out a plan.

Hannah reaches for an old book and finds a 20-year-old picture of herself with Mark, whose last words to her were “I’ll always love you”.

Hannah finds Mark and sets out to seduce and win him back.

Problem? Mark is married.

Mark’s wife, Susan, gets suspicious of his recent actions.

Susan hires a PI to get to the bottom of things.

Susan wants to kill Hannah.

Events transpire.

This was quite the tale of deception, of love and hate, of truth and lies, and of two broken women. The book is written from Hannah’s and Susan’s viewpoints, and the characters, especially Hannah, were very well-written. I found myself laughing (in a good and wicked thriller way) a few times throughout this read because Hannah was such a hateable yet lovable character. Overall, this was quite entertaining. Four stars.

(Thank you to Boldwood Books, Valerie Keogh and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on March 25, 2024.)

This book had me hook line and sinker. I could not get enough of it. So much suspense, unexpected thrills and shocking twists in the best way possible. Highly recommend! You will not regret it!

Sheer genius! I went into this expecting a variation on the same story I've read a million times but this was so cleverly written and plotted out. It is unlike any other :mistress" thriller I've ever read and the twists were amazing. The ending had my jaw on the floor. Its a must read! You have never read a thriller like this before, I flew through it in a day and it just keeps you hooked from the start. I kept thinking I knew where it was going and every time I was proved wrong. I can't speak highly enough of this one

You Can’t Always Get What You Want
But if you Try Sometimes You’ll find
You Get What You Need.*

It’s been years but Hannah wants her old boyfriend back. Who’s now someone else’s husband. Will she succeed?

This book has a few clever tweaks on the Other Woman / Mistress theme that veers it away from the usual.

First, I felt empathy for Hannah, the conniving woman who conspires to seduce and win over another woman’s husband. Even though she clearly wasn’t nice, her backstory pulled me in.

The second being that I was rooting for Susan, the wife, even though she wasn’t too likable either. She does redeem herself during the course of the book however by not being the complete pushover portrayed at the beginning.

I think the clever writing style facilitated and gave nuance to what could have been a typical cheating husband trope and I appreciated that the book went off the beaten path a bit.

I also liked that the author would alter the timeline by dangling bits of information and then filling in missing pieces later. I’ve seen this tactic a bit more lately and it adds to my contemplation of the mystery unfolding.

I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I’m not sure about the ending though - It was surprising but I was hoping for something different.

Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for my advanced electronic copy.

*The Rolling Stones

This is another winner by Valerie Keogh. I raced through it in one sitting. It’s extremely fast paced and comes with plenty of twists throughout. The ending is outstanding! A worthy 5 star read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.

Susan and Mark have been married for a long time. Their only son decides to move away for university and Susan’s life loses purpose.
Hannah’s husband Ivan beats her to a pulp. During recovery she finds a photo of her with Mark, an old flame. She sets out to win him back.

This was fast paced and excellent! The story is told from both Hannah and Susan’s viewpoint. While the initial sympathy is with Susan, the implied victim, Hannah’s past allows you to feel for her. The strong female characters shone from this book, where the men were shown as weak and flawed. I enjoyed the suspense and the pace of constantly finding out something new and the tale twisting in a new direction. Highly recommend.

Book Title: The Mistress
Author: Valerie Keogh
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Pub Date: March 24, 2024
My Rating: 4.5 rounded up
Pages: 289

Story is told from the POV of Hannah Parker –a home wrecker who has her sights on Mark Shepherd an old flame .and, Susan Shepherd the home Hannah is planning to wreck.

There is no doubt Hannah has issues and has always been challenged with finding acceptance. However seems to find it in all the wrong places.

I am a big thriller fan and this story pulled me in immediately.
I do love to try to put the puzzle pieces together.
I had my suspicions but was close on only one!

This is my ninth Valerie Keogh novel. Her psychological thrillers never disappoint. . 😍

When I got to the end, ` I said ~ “Oh Yes- I remember! Ms. Keogh typically has a signature ending!!! “ She loves to leave us reader with some doubt!!

Want to thank NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this this great early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for March 25, 2024

Superb writing, knife edge right to the end. Valerie Keogh does not disappoint.

I did not see the ending coming in this book at all. What a shocker. If you are of a nervous disposition I would recommend reading this in the daylight. Wife, mistress, mother and son how the story unfolds is an excellent piece of writing.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this book.

This book was okay. It very nearly was a DNF at 25%. Susan was absolutely insufferable as a character and I really struggled to push through.
The book itself was fine beyond that, not super thrilling and I personally hated the ending. I do not enjoy when a book ends that way.

Great book! The story was really good. Fast paced and interesting and the ending was absolutely perfect.
Highly recommended

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for providing this book, with my honest review below.

The Mistress was a fantastic thriller, really more like domestic suspense and two thrillers in one. Valerie Keogh has done a great job with her setting of suburbia and building out characters that a reader has enough information about to feel their bad and good, as one should for most flawed people. While this is about a mistress, Hannah, the wife, Susan, and the husband, Mark, it’s becomes a richer story due to the supporting cast of characters and the myriad of mysteries.

Susan is left at home with a newly departed son, Drew, she doted on far too much. Her husband Mark begins to pull away and suspecting he is having an affair she begins investigating. Hannah is on the scene from the jump but she takes you in, helping understand her current circumstances that led to college sweetheart Mark as well as her checkered past. There are several twists at the end was completely out of nowhere (in a really quite good way), and the events leading up to them keep this from being a character study but a true thriller.

Highly recommended for fans of thrillers and mysteries and good old fashioned suspense.

Wow what a crazy character!! Lol Hannah Parker is the kind of woman who always gets what she wants!! when her current husband finds out she's Been lying to him, he beats her so bad she's knocked out for a long time finally awake she goes looking for her crazy hubby and funds him almost unconscious on the kitchen floor!! The fool went and had a stroke! She vows to get her revenge on him! She finds an old picture of one of her many exes and thinks its a sign to get her first true love! Who cares that he's married with a child?! But his wife is almost crazier than Hannah!! This book was a wild ride!! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one! I definitely recommend reading it! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

Publication date: March 25th, 2024
Page count: 289
Genre: domestic thriller
Setting: England

Hannah uses men for sex and money. Hannah married Ivan- an older, rich men that turned out to be abusive. In college she did have a romantic, “normal “ relationship for 6 months with Mark, that she ended when Mark went abroad because she did not want to be vulnerable, even though Mark wanted to marry her. After Ivan has a stroke, Hannah goes to find Mark, who is now married to Susan.

This is an easy read. It was mostly the story of an affair and woman working through their issues than an unfolding mystery. The action picks up at the end, but not completely satisfying.


Thank you to author, publisher, NetGalley for advanced copy. This is an honest voluntary review.

Valerie Keogh, The Mistress, Boldwood Books, March 2024.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Valerie Keogh’s The Mistress brings together a couple whose marriage has, without their conscious recognition, become stale and the husband’s former lover who regrets having left him. The two women at the centre of the struggle for Mark have pasts that have undermined their capacity to become fully functioning adults and are also dealing with current catastrophes. The brutal attack on Hannah by her husband introduces the novel; in contrast, Susan’s despair over the departure of her son to what she sees as a far-flung university rather than one of those close by which she would prefer is a minor affair. However, for Susan it, and her suspicions about Mark, are an imperative which forces her to act out of character. In comparison, Hannah’s relationship with her husband, and her determination to wrest Mark from Susan which forms the other thread in the novel and is very much in character.

Keogh’s adroit development of these themes together with undertones of sympathy for the women’s pasts, is clever. Both women are flawed, both have pasts that have created those flaws, and their actions are questionable, although ultimately plausible. Also flawed are the men in the novel, Mark the errant husband; Ivan the bullying husband; and Andrew the cossetted son. Although Ivan is introduced as a tyrant, Mark and Andrew’s shortcomings become apparent more slowly than those of the women. This is also clever writing. Susan, the woman responsible for hiding the flaws of the men in her family, gradually acknowledges that her desire for the family to remain as it has for years is destructive for her and will continue to be unless she changes herself and her circumstances.

The damage done to both Susan and Hannah from their past and present and their behaviour arising for their pasts is plausible. So too is the way in which both women realise how they have been deceived. Less satisfying is the ending of the novel, but perhaps this is the only way in which Hannah and Susan’s problems could be resolved. Nevertheless, The Mistress is a good read, in keeping with Keogh’s previous successful work.