I was invited to read The Perfect Wife because Id enjoyed JP Delaneys previous book.
This reminded me a little of the TV Show Humans, It the story of a tech millionaire and an AI robot, built as a companion, a cobot. designed to learn and adapt, with a specific persons memories.
This book feels like a peak into how easily someone can get carried away when they want something and have easy access to money.
I really enjoyed the book, it was compelling and intriguing, with the cobot trying to learn and understand whilst also parenting a young boy with autism.

2* A futuristic book set in Silicon Valley that delivers less than it promises. I felt a lack of connection/ soul despite that the author strives to show us his concept of true motherhood. This review lacks the spoilers in many reviews of this book.

Tim Scott is a tech billionaire/ robotic expert, in what is portrayed as a misogynistic industry and company. He aspires to be the next big thing in AI. He’s not the everyday billionaire though. He was the chief suspect when five years ago, his beautiful, model-like, wife, Abbie Cullen-Scott went missing. With no body found, she can’t be presumed dead in what the police consider a cold case.

At the opening of the book, a woman wakes up in hospital covered in plaster, with a swollen face and little memory of what happened to her. So far so cliched. The story rapidly exposes the heart of the story: its AI, robotic, science fiction elements. The human-related aspects include the mystery of the missing woman, Tim’s child who is on the Autism spectrum, and a semblance of loving motherhood.

The points of view (POVs) of second person intermixed with third person were tiring. To be convincing, a second person POV means that the narrator is watching the protagonist, Abbie, all the time. This wasn’t convincing. It felt a bit voyeuristic and stalker-like. The third person POV was so groupie-like and full of wonder that it grated too.

JP Delaney expects you to suspend belief with the AI ‘science’ talk, but didn’t succeed in this case. There was no / not enough mention of power packs or recharging of the “cobot” (companion robot), when we were led to believe that an AI robot could function without humans/ its maker. The back-up computer function was cursorily mentioned at the end.

The so-called twists and turns were about concealing the facts from the reader, rather than a satisfying mystery, where the reader is given enough clues to try to piece the mystery together. The ending is unsatisfying. Ultimately, I believe that a good story has the odds stacked in the favour of all the parties, especially of the protagonist. We are suddenly supposed to believe in JP Delaney’s concept of motherhood as making the ending work, but it doesn’t work.

I could not relate to any of the characters, especially not Abbie. She was not believable. The world the world the author has created is not believable. There was so much more that a novel like this could have explored both of a science-fiction and a human nature, but it fell short. It could have explored at least one of: immortality, false memories, sentient robots, carer robots. But it didn’t more than superficially. A great shortfall of the novel is that the reader isn’t given a good human character to identify with.

Regarding immortality, the author throws out that Tim Scott has created a replacement for his ‘perfect’ wife he loved so much, and was so heartbroken when she disappeared. This is juxtaposed against the monetary motives. Is Tim using his cobot to launch a prototype that will be a world first? Really, at the end, the questions aren’t answered what happened and why – at least not well enough for this reader to understand why the time was invested in the story to find this out. Tim’s actions and motives at the end are totally contrary to what the book started out to portray. Hard to have suspended belief.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for a free copy in exchange for an honest review. #ThePerfectWife #NetGalley. This book review also appears in https://www.netgalley.com/member/book/161451/review
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2872379037

This book sounded good but it was too sci-fi for me. I couldn't get into it and gave up . Sorry, not my kind of story

I enjoyed this novel, but felt it could have been so much more. It begins in a slightly cliched way (but bear with it) - woman wakes up in hospital wondering what has happened. Then the bombshell at the end of that chapter threw me completely. Wow! I was hooked. High concept, well written, a completely different character yet one I could root for. I loved the next few chapters - I love anything to do with AI, dystopia. But then the twists started coming and honestly, I stopped believing in the characters completely. So, to sum it up: enjoyable, page turney, full of plot. But also, in my view, a high concept novel that could have been more.

Brilliant book, a very exciting plot, that had me hooked from the very first page. I love the way the book unfolded. Highly recommended. I love all this author’s books. Can’t wait for the next one.

Many thanks to Netgalley and JP Delaney for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

What a book!!

I have been waiting for this book to come out, and it was better than I ever expected it to be. Robots and futuristic things aren't really my forte or something I would usually read. But this author does something to me while reading his books, that whether I was out of my comfort zone or not I could not stop reading. The story is so far fetched yet so believable once you realise how advanced modern day technology is becoming. I was hooked from page one, and the hype that I built up for myself for this book was completely satisfied. I cannot wait for the next one.

I loved the person and tense this was written in. How you felt like it was your story that you were telling. But it also referred back to the past which connected the dots and set the scene for what was about to happen next.

My only criticism is that I got a bit confused at the end of who you, me and I were. But I tried to figure it out and I hope that I succeeded.

I will wait patiently now for the next book from this author!

Firstly can I say this is not my "usual" kind of read - a little sci fi, and a whole lot unusual!
Abbie wakes up, groggy in a hospital bed - next to her sits her husband Tim - the man who has been grieving for her for 5 years. However all is not as it seems - Abbie has been bought back - as a Cobot - a bot that has some of Abbie's memories and feelings - however not all of them. Tim is the happiest man alive, having his wife back - and her being a scientific breakthrough.
For Abbie, things are not as easy - she has an autistic son that needs her love and attention but she needs to learn how to relate and "tap" into him. He has Sian who looks after him but Abbie wants to look after him herself - will Sian allow that? Will people accept Abbie as a "cobot", what will happen to her - does she even want to live her life like this, ? As Abbie becomes more curious about her husband and her old life, things unravel and she finds things out about Tim that may not all be as it seems!
This is definitely an unusual story but scary to think it could actually happen one day in the future!

Oh my goodness, not only have I just discovered that JP Delaney is a he not a she…he also writes as Anthony Capella, which means that he has also written one of my favourite books, the one I kept giving to people and having to rebuy- The Food of Love. Is there no end to this man’s talents as a multi faceted writer?

With shades of  The Stepford Wives this book is unputdownable, absorbing, creepy and challenging-  I loved it. Having recently attended a talk on AI development in Silicone Valley , I constantly found myself thinking, this could happen, this could be true.

This book is a very good combination of a thriller and sci-fi. I really enjoyed it. It was a bit hard to get in, but I'm glad I kept going. It got better and better and I was curious about the end. Didn't disappoint.
Definitely recommended.
Thanks a lot Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sadly I didn’t really enjoy this book. I think it was due to the Sci-fi aspect of it. I was unable to finish it. I was genuinely gutted as I have read J.P Delaney books before.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Quercus Books for my eARC in exchange for my honest review

When I first started reading this book I didn’t think I would enjoy it. But as the chapters evolved,I found myself hooked and needed to know what was going to happen. There is a twist at the end that I never saw coming and I doubt many other people would either. I will definitely be reading more books by this author in the future.

I love JP Delaney’s books I read this in one afternoon it’s a lot different then I would usually go for but I definitely enjoyed it thank you to JP Delaney and NetGalley for the arc.

A complex technical suspense novel which is both frustrating and intriguing.
Contrasting multiple narrators and flashbacks make this a challenging novel and ultimately distract from the main storyline about robotics and character implants.
In a world where Fake memories, behaviours and emotional responses can be uploaded, I found it difficult to fully engage with the Abbie that had been created as a companion robot for her husband Tim or empathise with her relationship with her disabled son.
There were too many impossible and unlikely sceneries in this story for me to suspend belief and dive into the magic of the storytelling.

The Perfect Wife is a perfect book!

A great mix of suspense thriller and Westworld style sci-fi. Not going to lie when I started reading I found it difficult to get into and did debate not finishing...I’m so glad I continued! You need to read it!

This was so not what I expected, to the point that I nearly put it down never to be finished within the first few pages. That would have been a HUGE mistake, though, and I am so glad I persevered. This was a haunting read and a beautifully complex psychological thriller that will leave you unsure of who to trust. It's like no book I've ever read before and once I'd given it a chance I didn't want to put it down.

In saying that, the ending fell a little flat for me and felt slightly rushed. I'm not sure if that was because I flew through the final few chapters, desperate to know how it was going to end, but it fell a tiny bit short of the mark. It was nice to read something that didn't have the typical "happy" ending though.

This book was the perfect mix of Gone Girl meets Ex Machina and made for a refreshing change from the typical psychological thrillers I usually favour.

4.5/5

I don’t read that many sci-fi books but was intrigued by the description for this one.
Whilst I didn’t care much for the two main (human) characters, particularly Tim, the book raises interesting questions about the future of robotics and how far we can take it. I can quite believe that In years to come the appearance of robots and their functionality can be improved to such an extent that they will look, move and even ‘think’ like humans.
This will probably raise all kinds of ethical issues and it will be interesting to see how it develops.
My thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for this copy.

When I first started reading this book I was unsure whether I would enjoy it because of the sci-fi element. I did enjoy the majority of this book. It was mostly well written and I connected with the character of Abbie. It was generally easy to read, but the ending left me wanting more. The fact that the book was written in second person meant that it was difficult at times to know whose views you were reading. I found the ending unclear and am still a bit confused about how everything came together.

I was hooked from the start. I loved the idea of an artificial Abbie trying to work out what had happened to the real one. Very well written and full of suspense. This thriller is full of surprises and twists.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

I loved this book . If you are looking for something a bit different -then this is your man !
Set in a Silicon Valley type community - Tim has created the ultimate companion -a"Cobot". An artificial replica of his late wife -Abbie . However" new "Abbie is no Stepford wife and sets about unravelling the mystery of "old " Abbie's disappearance . I was hooked on page 1 -a great read -highly recommend

An intriguing concept along the lines of the tv drama Humans, The Perfect Wife is set around the world of Artificial Intelligence. Within the story is also a strong theme of childhood autism, which the author has personal experience of, and it pulls at the heartstrings as well and being a good page-turning thriller.

I have read all of JP Delaney’s novels to date and enjoyed every single one. This perhaps tops the list for the subject matter and sheer originality of the story theme. Definitely recommended!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for this honest review.