The Newlyweds - Arianne Richmonde

Release Date: Expected 19th January 2021

Genre: Psychological Thriller

TW: Mentions of Abuse / Suicide / Death / Mental Illness

Viviennes life isn't what she wanted - after tragically losing her parents, feeling an odds with her own body and never quite achieving the status she craved - she meets Dr Ashton Buchanan. He is everything a woman could want - stunningly gorgeous, rich, successful and now, all hers.

She becomes perfect for him - the perfect soulmate, the perfect wife. She needs to have him. After the wedding that every six-year old girl has dreams about, they have the perfect marriage. But in hindsight ... maybe not. It starts off with unexplained bruises, a mysterious note, and some ghosts of the past, but eventually it all starts to unravel around the happy couple - and neither of them want that to happen.

The Newlyweds keeps the reader at a cold, detatched arms length - which at times made it very difficult to find something to relate to in the characters but it worked. The whole way through you feel like you're missing something, and a chilly tension grows with every page of this slow-burning nightmare.

I thought I'd figured out exactly where this was going within the first half of the story - and I was right. But all that did was lull me into a false sense of security so Richmonde could throw curveball after curveball my way.

Now, this book does depict some serious mental illness in a very extreme sense so this may not be suitable for anybody sensitive to this as it could be quite upsetting or possible offensive to those readers - but keep in mind any depictions are done in the a very extreme, fictional way. There are so many twists are turns in this tale but it was so easy to keep up with, although towards the end of the story there may have been just a few too many events that felt like purely shock-factor.

Overall, this book was full of deliciously dark twists that took my breath away - every single time I thought we've reached the end of the depravity and horror people could inflict, someone proves me wrong.

It's a slow, dark and devilishley tense tale ... right down to the very last line.

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Netgalley and Arianne Richmonde for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Comments

REVIEW: This Could Be Us by Clare McGowan

Genre: Fiction | Literary Fiction Release Date: Expected 1st June 2023 Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group | Corsair Kate has done the unthinkable. She'd worked hard to build a perfect life for herself, while ignoring her growing unhappiness. But when her second child was born profoundly disabled, reality hit. Unable to cope, Kate left - disappearing without a trace. She ends up in LA, with a glittering career and a new family of sorts, but the guilt is still suffocating. Husband Andrew was left to pick up the pieces and care for their disabled daughter and angry, confused son. Bereft and broken, he leaned on Olivia, Kate's best friend. She's been by his side ever since, ignoring her own needs to meet his. Years later, Andrew has written a memoir about his daughter learning to communicate against all odds. But when Kate's new producer husband decides he wants to make a film of it, their worlds collide once again. Now, Kate must return to the life she abandoned and reck...

REVIEW: Live, Laugh, Lesbian by Helen Scott

Genre: Non-Fiction | Memoir | LGTBQ+ Release Date: 19th October 2023 Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Part memoir, part guide, part conversation and all queer joy — Live, Laugh, Lesbian is a brilliantly warm and friendly journey into the queer experience, not only from the author but from plenty of other lesbian, queer, bisexual and pansexual contributors who bring a unique viewpoint and voice and also show a beautiful diverse, intersectional scope of the queer spectrum and welcomes in queer people and allies of any kind to come feel the love. The book is very conversational, talking to the reader in a fun, friendly way — at times I rolled my eyes as the use of “famalam” but as a previous patron of Colours and Chicagos I’m not in a position to judge the Essex-isms. It’s full of anecdotes and observations that were witty and relatable as well as talking is through the more difficult side of queerness like dealing with workplace discrimination, religious trauma and coming out to family...

BOOK TOUR STOP x RANDOM THINGS TOURS: Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen

" This town has secrets that are best left alone." Author Hannah is a success, on paper at least. She's receiving critical acclaim and praise worldwide and her work is regarded as some of the best. She writes literature, not just books. But the reality is, outside of the literary circles nobody actually reads her work. But when she finally snaps at a book event and publicly criticises the genre fiction books that outsell hers, claiming they're easy and mindless she's challenged to write her own crime fiction novel in just thirty days by an author she loathes. Desperate not to lose to him, her editor arranges for her to spend a month in a quiet, cold village in Iceland hoping that the solitude will spark inspiration. But instead of writing a murder story - she's in one . Just before she arrives, the body of a young man is pulled from the icy waters and her search for ideas soon becomes a search for a killer. And if she's not careful, she might end up the...

On Bee's Bookshelf

Search This Blog