The Man I Married

Lucy is a probation officer, forced to deal with some of the most heinous criminals in the UK. The latest is a nasty piece of work who was sent away because of his unnatural affection for children. Now that he’s being released, he’s made it clear to Lucy he will reoffend, and soon. When she meets a man at a local pub after a few too many drinks, the two end up in bed together and it turns out that her new flame, Paul, is a psychologist assigned to many of the same criminals that Lucy is. Lucy finds herself falling for Paul even though he exhibits some odd and downright disturbing behavior. Before she knows it, she and Paul are married and he’s carefully cutting her friends out of her life, isolating her. When a little girl is kidnapped, Lucy is sure that her violent offender is too blame, but no one believes her. No one believes her about anything and as Paul’s behavior spirals out of control, Lucy can only wonder if she will escape with her life and her mind intact. Wilkes is a master at throwing curveballs and planting red herrings to the point readers won’t know who to believe. Prendergast is a superb narrator, capturing Lucy’s fear and confusion masterfully

4.33 stars

Lucy and Paul had a whirlwind romance and a quick wedding. Lucy was so enamored with Paul that she failed to see some significant red flags; Lucy honestly thought she had everything she wanted. And then she found photographs and text messages that started making her doubt her reality.

I first read The Man I Married as an audiobook produced by Saga Egmont Audio and narrated by Colleen Prendergast. She did a great job with her pacing and making the story easy to follow. I did not feel lost at any point, and I enjoyed the different accents, true to the character’s background. Her narration did Lucy justice; it conveyed her state of mind so well, I felt that I knew her and found it easy to read the story through her perspective! My following opinion has nothing to do with Colleen’s narration or the quality of the production. It’s simply preference - I wish there had been a male narrator for Paul. I enjoy when the character who might be the villain if the narrator isn’t unreliable has their own voice. I feel it add to the atmosphere.

The Man I Married is an insidiously claustrophobic book. I was unable to decide if Lucy was an unreliable character until the very last chapter. Even though I was unsure as a reader about the veracity of her POV, I bought everything she sold and was siding with her because Lucy was that well developed! I also enjoyed Paul’s depiction. I feel that some characters didn’t quite reach their potential, but Lucy made up for them in spades.

Some loose ends and plot conveniences were either forgotten or left without closure, but I can look past them because the atmosphere was fantastic. Being in Lucy’s head wasn’t the easiest - 🎶When gaslighting entered the building/ my stomach dropp-ed/ and it stayed there, and it stayed there, and they stayed there…🎶 Wilkes took the reader to a place of dread and gloom, and I yelled at Lucy so often, my throat hurt! What a fantastic debut novel and I cannot wait to see what Elena writes next!

Disclaimer: I first read it as an ARC. In exchange for an honest review, I am thankful to Saga Egmont Audio, Elena Wilkes, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of The Man I Married.

Dark and thrilling, worth a listen!! Loved the twists and turns throughout the book, glad it’s fiction as this could very easily happen in real life!

This was a dark psihological thriller. Very intense, maybe a little slow at the begginig but after it get really greeping. I wanted to help this women but I had to remember me it was a book. But I really loved the narrator and I hope to listen more.

This is the story of Lucy and Paul. They fell deeply in love soon after they meet. And they get married.

Lucy is in heaven until she found the photograph from Paul's past life. She stars to read the text messages and follow the leads that comes after. She is so afraid I could felt that with her. And she get confused couse she is in love end belive in love. Everything is upside down. She has to come to end of this.

I have to thank Saga Egmont Audio and Netgalley.com for this possibility.

Thank you to NetGalley, Saga Egmond Audio and Elena Wilkes for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This is the first book by Elena I have read. What a book! This is perfect for any psychological thriller fans. It is dark, gritty and a little scary. The tension continues to build with this novel. I was well and truly hooked by the first chapter. I can’t wait to read more by Elena and hope there will be a sequel to this book.

3.5⭐️⭐️⭐️
🧨🧨 this review may contains spoiler 🧨🧨
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Thankyou so much #netgalley for the chance to get an arc for honest review ..
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I must admit, I couldn't put it down the audiobook for the few chapters. It's captivating. The stalker kind, the giggles and friendships. But the ending is kind of a blur and rush. It's like a madness of here and there , it doesn't add up on the first few chapters.
Im puzzled on what happen , is Lucy delusions things at the first time?
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This book is not great for someone has a past of domestic abuse or emotional marriage stress.
The man is very sadistic and I keep rolling my eyes when Lucy ( the main character ) still forgives him and just get on with their lives .
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All in all , for me is a good 3.5⭐️⭐️⭐️
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The best hung captivated me with book is the wording of the author. Very precise . And she knows what she's doing, but the few chapters on the end was a bit of a flop.
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( shaye.reads )

Well this is a great twisty audiobook!! A quick romance leads to a secret wedding between Lucy and Paul but then Lucy starts to discover odd things about Paul and it all starts to go downhill from there.
There are so many twists and turns in this book especially how Paul manipulates Lucy but I don’t want to give any spoilers away! What i also loved about this book was the fact that Colleen Prendergast narrated it. She does such a great job and you can actually hear the fear in her voice at times during her performance! A great debut and looking forward for more from this author. Thank you to Saga Egmont Publishing and to Netgalley.

A dark thriller.
Lucy and Paul meet fall in love and marry quickly , too quickly ! Once Lucy learns what Paul is really like it’s too late .
The story started at at a slow pace, but it picked up around half way through. The themes running through the book include gas lighting and emotional and mental abuse , which I found at times hard to read , but these are integral to the story and not gratuitous.

I found the ending didn’t really wrap things up and left questions to be answered, but altogether a solid and a little disturbing thriller. I found it disturbing because even though this it is a work of fiction it can so easily happen in real life.
Looking forward to the next book by Elena Wilkes.
Thanks to NetGalley and Saga Egmont Audio.

What a dark and twisted read! I listened to it in one day because I just couldn't stop! Lucy, a probation officer, meets Paul, a psychologist, in a pub and they quickly fall in love. But things are not quite as they seem with their relationship.

Nothing is what it appears in this book and I didn't know who or what to believe but little alarm bells were ringing and I wanted to scream at Lucy to get herself out before it was too late! As the story unfolds it is truly harrowing and scary and the gaslighting is written really well.

This could so easily have been a 5* book, but I knocked off a star because I was so confused by the ending. I have thought about it a lot (the mark of a good book, I guess) and I do have my theory. I would also have liked a proper conclusion to the sub-plot involving a paedophile and a missing girl.

Colleen Prendergast did an amazing job narrating.

Thank you Netgalley for the audio copy. Lucy meets Paul in a pub and marries him after a whirlwind romance. Then Paul becomes controlling and manipulating. Lucy finds a old photograph in Paul's drawer of his old flame. Then Lucy keeps seeing the same lady and presumes Paul is having an affair. This book had me gripped from page one but I found the ending abrupt and confusing.

Where to even start with this book...

This book was crazy! The majority of the time I had no idea what the h*ll was going on. For a book like this, that can be a good thing, but it also wasn't. I loved how twisty it was and there was always something going on to keep you thinking. But, this book gave me some serious anxiety.

Paul's sides of the story, was a bit much. There was a lot of what seemed like gasslighting and anger, it was a bit all over the place. It was honestly hard to get through. As for Lucy, I kept wondering why she was putting up with all of the terrible things Paul would put her through, especially so soon after meeting him.

As for the end, again I still don't fully understand what happened in this book. It was confusing, and I couldn't quite tell if the other characters were real, if Paul really was the bad guy or if Lucy was just bat sh*t crazy.

The audiobook itself was wonderful. The narrator was great and you definitely got the feeling of suspense from listening. I'll maybe try a print book of this later to see if I can figure out what really happened.

Thank you to Saga Egmont Audio and Netgalley for. a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review

A well written psychological thriller that has some unsettling moments and tense encounters. Lucy is a probation officer who finds herself in a stressful situation when dealing with Gould, a child sex offender. After this encounter she finds herself on a night out unsettled, alone and slightly intoxicated when she meets Paul a psychologist who grabs her interest. What follows this initial evening is a relationship that rapidly moves to living together and finally marriage. Circumstances at work, with her family, her previous relationship and her best friend all combine to overwhelm Lucy until she finds that Paul is her only safe space. But … is he really?

Elena Wilkes delivers a debut novel filled with sinister plot twists, suspenseful moments, creepy characters and an unreliable narrator who appears to be descending into a breakdown. At times it can seem predictable and some of the situations take a stretch of the the imagination but it still delivers enough to land as a good solid psychological thriller.

Great story!
Gripping and intense - I didn't have a clue what was going on until the end!!

Hopefully, I'll find more audiobooks by this author. The narrator was pretty good too.

Thanks very much Saga Egmont Audio, via Netgalley, for the audio copy.

This debut domestic thriller was well written and had good potential; with Lucy's psychologist Husband gaslighting her until the end - An ending which was somewhat rushed and left ambiguously. I was hoping that Lucy would rise up, figure things out, then outsmart Paul with a clever twist at the end; but I was pretty frustrated in her continuously justifying the creepy things Paul did to her and blindly ignoring some of the obvious signs of warning that something is wrong.

I noticed quite a few colloquialisms which are very Yorkshire/British and I'm not sure a wider audience will completely understand them. The story and pace are both decent throughout, but with the ending leaving important unanswered questions and where we are left to assume what had happened, this did somewhat spoil the story for me.

Thanks to Saga Egmont Audio and NetGallery for giving me a copy of this book.

Lucy is a probation officer, and after one of her cases challenges her emotionally she goes to a pub, there she meets Paul , a psychiatrist, they hit it off and the relationship develops rapidly marrying within a few months . At first Paul appears to be extremely nice, but as the story goes on he becomes controlling and manipulative making Lucy begin to doubt herself, Paul and the people around her , that is until Lucy discovers a photograph from Paul's past and the secrets begin to come out.
I thoroughly enjoyed this well written, dark psychological twisted thriller. It started off a little bit slow to get some insight on what was yet to come, but once it started to pick up it was extremely fast paced and hard to put down. Definitely a book that I would recommend and I look forward to future books by this author.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Saga Egmont audio and Elena Wilkes for an ARC of The man I married in exchange for an honest review.

So this started off quite slow and so I had to stop a few times but it eventually got going and got really interesting. I really wanted to scream at Lucy at times - sign of a very good book/story. Really do recommend this book

Really did love the narration - it just added so much. Will definately be on the lookout for this narrator.

I was given an advance copy by the publishers and netgalley but the review is entirely my own.