Cover Image: The Innocent Wife

The Innocent Wife

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Member Reviews

Dennis Danson is currently on death row in Florida for the murder of 11 year old Holly. He has always maintained his innocence despite the fact he has been convicted and lost several appeals. Eventually new evidence has shown up. Will this prove that Dennis did not kill Holly? I’m the meantime school teacher Samantha is fed up with her life in England and writes to Dennis to show her supper and hope that they manage to get him released. Dennis proposes marriage to Sam and they get married whilst he is still in Prison. The new evidence proves that Dennis did not kill Holly and soon enough he is released. Sam is delighted to have her husband home and all to herself but things start happening whilst Dennis adjusts to life on the outside and Sam becomes very afraid of him. Why if he is innocent does she feel this way.
This book had me hooked very quickly and I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend it and would love to read more from this author.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for access to this book in exchange for my honest review.

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The innocent wife by Amy Lloyd.
You're in love with a man on Death Row in Florida, convicted of a brutal murder twenty years ago.You're convinced he didn’t do it, and you're determined to prove it.
A good read with good characters. 3*.

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Omg wow this book is amazing it's full of twists and turns it will keep you up all night I really enjoyed this book

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Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this. Just found everything about it boring, the plot, the characters everythingwas just dull. Yeah, not for me, really struggled to finish this had to put it down a few times and go back in stages.

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Not a very good book at all. Thought the plot was poorly written and didn’t enjoy any of the characters. Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book at all and wouldn’t consider reading further books from this author based on my experience.

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Interesting Psychological Suspense..
Is the man that she married really innocent? After all he was on Death Row in Florida convicted of a heinous crime. She was so sure of his innocence and now she just feels afraid. Why? Interesting psychological suspense with an intriguing premise in which contemporary themes are examined with a slow burn element of suspense.

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This was an unusual book i liked it and I didn't like it. Couldn't understand why a young woman from England would up sticks and fly to America for a convicted felon. Yeah she was writing to him and believed him innocent. The book dragged on for me and Dennis wasn't the man she thought. I won't give away the ending. All in all it did keep my interest.

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While stylistically the book was good, the actual plot and narrative structure was not enjoyable at all. The ending was anti-climatic and the overall story arc was dull.

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I found this book to be uncomfortable reading, quite why someone would let themselves get in that situation is beyond me. I did think that it may have something to do with the woman's background, but when that was finally revealed it was disappointing - I thought much more could have been made of that opportunity to explain why she did what she did.
I also was looking forward to more twists and manipulation, but was left unfulfilled. I think the premise was good, but apart from never wanting to visit that horrid place, or its real life counterpart, I thought so many opportunities were missed that I felt the book to be a little lacking.

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This book was unfortunately archived before I could read it, which is a shame as it looks to be a great read.

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I really liked the beginning with the letters between Sam and Dennis and how they formed a relationship. There weren't many letters in the book but I presumed there had been a lot for Sam to be willing to travel to another country to visit him in prison.

There was a documentary made about Dennis that made it feel more real. There are a lot of documentaries on serial killers now but I haven't heard of a real life documentary where they believe someone was wrongly accused for murder crimes.

When filming the 2nd documentary about him, there were stories of when Dennis was younger brought up where people in his hometown had their suspicions about him. You could see that Sam was still supportive when hearing this.

What annoyed me was how Dennis proposed to Sam in prison and how she said yes so quickly? I didn't know what she was thinking!
They had only known each other for months, she didn't really know him. She had her doubts about him committing crimes after getting married.

Dennis acted cold towards Sam when he is first released from prison but is fine with everyone else. I first thought that maybe he used her to make him not seem like a murderer by having a relationship. Sam left everything, her job home and family to stay with him and he mentions this to her to hurt her. Dennis is an unlikeable character who manipulated the closest people in his life.

I kept wondering where he disappeared to and with his mood swings whether he did murder the other girls or not.

However, what I didn't like about this book was the violence towards animals, this wasnt needed at all. The author maybe did this to make Sam and the readers realise he is a different person then what both thought but they could have done this another way where he was being controlling to Sam a bit more.

The ending was a bit rushed as the last couple chapters were packed with drama. I was a bit confused as I'm a bit unsure what Sams feelings are about Dennis now, whether she will help him and stick by their relationship or turn him in.

I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

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Unfortunately I had to DNF this one. I really struggled to get into it and struggled with the format.

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A solid thriller that feeds into the current obsession with true crime documentaries and armchair detectives! A woman leaves her old life to go to America to marry a man accused and convicted of murder but maintains his innocence. She campaigns for his release and he becomes the star of a new true crime show. But once he’s released, she begins to wonder if he really was innocent....
a good read although the ending felt a little rushed, hence 4 stars instead of 5!

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I did enjoy the plot of this book, I had a friend when I was younger whose mum got friendly with someone in prison. I know! Right?! So reading this reminded me of that fact, right back 30 years or so.

That didn’t have a good ending either and she emigrated from U.K. to New Zealand!

I was fascinated by why a person was attracted to people in jail. Romance blossoming etc.

Anyway, there was an obvious way of how this came bout in this story.

I listened to it on audio today, I’m wondering if it would have been better if I read it by physical book or ebook. I remembered then I had this on my Kindle. So I swapped.
It didn’t really make it better, only that I could hear my inner voice reading it instead of someone else.

I’m glad I read this, there were short bursts of me being engrossed, it did jump around a bit.

The ending was 10/10 though.

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This book had great potential but unfortunately I struggled a bit with it. I couldn’t connect to the characters and found myself skipping through the book at times.

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"Twenty years ago, Dennis Danson was arrested and imprisoned for the brutal murder of a young girl. Now he’s the subject of a true-crime documentary that’s whipping up a frenzy online to uncover the truth and free a man who has been wrongly convicted.

A thousand miles away in England, Samantha is obsessed with Dennis’s case. She exchanges letters with him, and is quickly won over by his apparent charm and kindness to her. Soon she has left her old life behind to marry him and campaign for his release.

When the campaign is successful and Dennis is freed, however, Sam begins to discover new details that suggest he may not be quite so innocent after all. But how do you confront your husband when you don’t want to know the truth? "

Firstly the negatives; I found myself trudging through this book, hoping something good was going to happen soon, as the chapters were short and easy to read, but it was not as thrilling and dangerous as I was hoping for. There did not seem to be any twists and turns that I was expecting and hoping for and the ending was abrupt, silly and disappointing.

On the plus side, it was an easy read and well written, and the letters they wrote to each other as they were getting acquainted were a great introduction to the story. However, it went downhill once they met in my opinion, and Dennis was not quite the psychotic inmate I was hoping for.

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2.5 Staars rounded up

Thank you to Netgalley, Amy Lloyd and the publisher Random House UK, Cornerstone for giving me the oppertunity to read this book.

This is the debut book from Amy Lloyd. This book is very slow to begin with and takes quite a while to get going. I felt as though I could not enjoy the characters as much as I normally would with other books, however I still enjoyed the story once it got going. I thought that Amy could have made the story better by putting in a few dark bits and twists and turns, this would of made it harder for the reader to guess whodunit.

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An engrossing read: the kind of plot that explores the questions everyone is thinking whenever you hear about prison penpal love affairs. How could this woman believe this man? It’s a rollercoaster of a read that keeps you guessing towards its conclusion.

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I'm really not sure what I think about this book. Half of me loved it and and the other half was seriously disturbed! I was fascinated by Sam and the way she thinks andI found it difficult to put the book down. Amy Lloyd has done a great job giving insight into why she makes the decisions but the ending was pretty much what I expected.

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What a wonderfully gripping read. This was an amazing thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from Amy Lloyd

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