I really loved this book!! It had so many twists and turns. It kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next!! This was my first book by this Author, and it won’t be the last!! Quick read!! Highly recommended!! You won’t be disappointed!!

This was far better than I had expected. It's a domestic thriller about an 11 yr old girl, Mara, who is abducted and held prisoner for nineteen years. When she finally escapes she is reunited with her sister Lucia who in the meantime has married and has two children. Lucia’s husband Damien is not happy when Mara moves in with them sensing something is terribly wrong. From there everything starts to spiral out of control. There was such a great twist near the end that had me gasping and rereading the chapter twice..I just couldn't believe the author had fooled me so cleverly. Very good thriller I would recommend without hesitation.

The book is like an accident you pass by. You just can't look away. The story line is interesting. What happens when a lost child is found? 19 years of captivity and suddenly she is found. Often the book is about the life while being held. This book is about life after she is found. What a twisted tale. I didn't warm to any of the characters but Damian and Mara were rather awful. I liked the book, just not the characters.

This book was a bit all over the place. Slow burn,, unorganized. The plot had potential given it centered around two sisters that were eventually reunited after one was kidnapped. The characters were not well developed and it was difficult to get drawn into the story..
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review His Sisters Wife.

I’m going to give this book 3 stars rather than two just because it’s an incredibly fast read, however the turns made toward the last third of the book left me scratching my head and curious as to the turns this one took.

It started out suspenseful and landed in WTF.

Mara was abducted whilst sleeping in the garden with her sister, Lucia and was never found . 19 years later a pale waive of a lady wanders back claiming to be Mara. Lucia and husband Damien take her in. Dark things start occurring and Damien isn’t convinced she’s as innocent as she make out.
Addictive and dark thriller. Great read .

Sadly for me, this didn’t perform. The characters weren’t relatable and really quite odd. I struggled to finish it-but to my surprise, I was compelled to keep reading. Unfortunately, the ending packed no punches and I was left quite disappointed.

Thank you @NetGalley and @CherryTreePublishing for the free digital copy of this book.

It’s unfortunate that I can’t give this book five star feedback because while it has an interesting premise, I think there are a number of ways the book could have been made stronger. It is my opinion that this is a story with a lot of promise that simply fell short in execution. Perhaps the book should have been longer, perhaps there should have been a greater emphasis on character development?

Every time I thought I had a handle on what the author was trying to accomplish, the character’s personality traits or perspective would switch. The characters weren’t consistent and I was left asking myself if any of these POVs were truthful. Normally, morally gray characters are intriguing and relatable. Here, the way character development was handled was just confusing.

According to the author note, it’s a story about two sisters, separated by tragedy, and the circumstances that unfold when they are reunited. But the first half of the book is told from the perspective of the husband of one of the sisters, Damien. At first, he’s painted as an egotistical man, eager to be in the spotlight and excitement of his sister-in-law’s return home. His whole personality is off-putting, but when Mara, the sister-in-law, becomes a permanent fixture in their family, his personality shifts into a jealous, suspicious, whining husband who both dislikes her interference in their life and distrusts Mara’s intentions.

The way the events were unfolding, I was certain Mara was going to turn out to be a psychopath. Damian may have been despicable, but perhaps his fears were founded in truth? Or I wondered if Damien was going to have something to do with her disappearance twenty years ago. Either of those outcomes would have made sense.

But then suddenly, the POV switches and Mara narrates the rest of the book. Come to find out, with no further explanation than that Damien is secretly a jealous, cheating, lying, abusive sociopath, Mara is the hero, Damien tries to kill her, and she’s forced to make a choice to either kill him or take the moral high ground. The last 10% of the book was stomach-turning and a little unbelievable.

It might have made more sense had the book been longer? Perhaps the chapters should have switched back and forth between their POV, making you wonder who was telling the truth, until the big reveal at the end? As it was, all of the characters were unlikable and it was impossible to empathize with anyone because there wasn’t enough character development to build an opinion from.

All in all, it was easy to keep turning pages because I genuinely wanted to know what was going to happen. The bones of a good character-based story are there. Unfortunately, I think it was poorly executed so it was not a positive reading experience for me.

Disappointing last quarter
I really liked most if this book and was really excited to see what developed in the story and kept reading intently. The issue came when the narrator changed to be Mara and it seemed like it was a completely different author, I thought it was a disappointing last part of the book and the ending was weak. An ok read but could have been so much better with an interesting topic

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. Almost 20 years ago an 11 year old Mara was abducted from her garden. Lucia, Mara's older sister slept through it and has been wracked by guilt ever since. A while after Mara's abduction Lucia gets involved with Damian; I must say from the outset I didn't like Damians character he was dark and controlling but even this didn't prepare me for how this book turned out. A really well written captivating book I would highly RECOMMEND!

Following through the eyes of husband Damien, we watch as his wife Lucia is reunited with her sister Mara after she was abducted at age 12 and escaped after 19 years.

While the twist was a fun time, I felt that there wasn't enough distrust in the narration for me. I would have preferred to have both of the points of view we get from the start. The way it went fell a little flat for me.

I was attracted to this book by the information and the author, and looked forward to reading it. The story is quite intriguing; a girl snatched from a tent in the garden and is missing for twenty years suddenly reappears. Her sister, who was sleeping next to her the night she vanished has moved on with her life, now married with children of her own, but has lived with the guilt of it not be her who was snatched.
It sounded interested and i soon got into the flow of the story, and read the first few chapters fairly quickly. It then started ti slow down a bit, but i plodded through, but have to admit I kept looking at the percentage left in the book and trying to work out how the story was going to last that long. There were a few twists in the plot, but my enthusiasm soon waned as I struggled to understand why a wife would put her whole faith and trust in her sister over her husband and children. I trudged on through more chapters waiting for something exciting to happen, but it felt like wading through treacle.
I did not feel any connection to any of the characters, There seemed to be a lot of telling rather than showing, which made them seem all one dimensional. I kept going, but now it was a chapter every few nights, When once again the husbands worries was dismissed and .the long lost sister gained the upper-hand. Eventually i could read no more. I hate giving up on a book and even though I then looked at other reviews to discover that the ending livens up a bit, nothing could make me pick the book up again. I apologise to the author, I understand how much work goes into writing a book, and I do read a lot, but this one did not hold my interest.. I'm giving an honest review and thank Netgalley for allowing me to read this book for free.
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This book started off well with enough mystery and built up curiosity to make you keep reading well past lights out time. However after a few chapters I found that I didn't like any of the characters..... not even the children. The final quarter of the book which included the big reveal became more and more sensationalist. Yes I kept reading as I was curious but it left me disappointed overall.

This book was disappointing. From the start I didn't like the main character, but was intrigued enough to keep reading. I continued reading and began to like or dislike each character at different times, but what was always consistent was my distrust for each character. I, however, kept reading. I wanted this ending to be worth it so badly but the shift in POV was just too much. I couldn't wrap my head around the first 50 chapters being complete lies and the truth being in the last 10. It was just a very disappointing ending and I felt like this book had so much potential but it just didn't live up to it.

From the depths of Nicole’s Book Cellar (Instagram.com/nicoles_bookcellar):

Book: His Wife’s Sister (Release Date: June 7, 2020)

Author: A.J. Willis

Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Mystery

Rating: 4.5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ and a half

Positives: A lot of crazy in this book! All the characters are unreliable and you just want to know what happened so you keep reading! I literally was YELLING (in my head-I’m not that crazy) at the characters and was just angry with them most of the time-which is a good feeling as a reader, in my opinion.

Negatives: If abductions, torture, or abuse are a trigger then this isn’t the book for you.

Recommend?: Absolutely! I want to see who’s POV do you believe!

Plot: Mara Sitwell was abducted when she was 11 years old. The police looked for her for and had no leads. Almost 20 years later, she just resurfaces from the woods claiming to have been held captive, underground for all those years. But where is the abductor and why is Mara so secretive about things that happened?

Lucia, Mara’s sister, has never given up on her and her guilt of her sister being abducted has weighed on her for twenty years. She decides to move her sister in her house along with her husband, Damien, and their 2 kids. Damien doesn’t trust Mara and believes she is hiding something and potentially dangerous. But is anything or anybody what they seem?

Thoughts: So this book, as I said before, has some unreliable characters. You just have to decide who is lying and who is telling the truth. I did not like any of the characters but also was rooting for them at certain times in the book. Even by the end of the book, I could not decide if one character in particular was redeemable.
I loved the mystery behind what happened to Mara. As sick as it is, you want to know what happened during all those years in captivity. Willis makes you unsure of what is happening in the current days with Mara, Lucia, and Damien. I was so uncertain and certain at the same time in this book and wrong so many times.
Final drinking thoughts: If you want to read a book that makes you unsure of not just the characters but yourself-this is the one. This book had mystery, thrills, and showed what happens when compulsion and infatuation takes over.
Thank you to @NetGalley @IndependentBookPublishersAssociation (IBPA) #AJWillis for the advanced copy of #HisWifesSister
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Thank you to the publishers for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'll start out by saying that the author did a great job of building suspense. Relating to the characters was easy and I'll admit, for 3/4 of the book, I developed a hatred for Lucia and Mara for reasons given in the book (I'm not one to spoil).

With that said, the last 1/4 of the book, it took an awful turn. The reader is built up with suspense and then dropped. Was Mara's perception true? We don't know. Was anything true about Mara's story? Again, we don't know.

There was a lot of promise to this book but once it hit Mara's perspective, it went out into left field, ruining the entire book for me. Had it kept up with the perception we were given and the readers given an insight into Damian's perception, the book could have easily earned 4 or 5 stars.

I loved the first 3/4 of this book. It was creepy, and suspenseful, and interesting. The ending for me came kind of out of left field, but I was still glued to the book to see what would happen. I look forward to reading more from this author. I received a copy of this ebook from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley for the preview of this book. This book began well as it was exciting and enthralling, It was easy to get into and the plot was fast moving with baby twists and turns. The only thing that let it down was the final few chapters where the pace of the novel fell flat and the ending was poor.

I hated all the characters in this book! But I rather enjoyed the story! Usually there's one character that I'm rooting for but I really didn't find myself doing that with any of these people. So I'm surprised I enjoyed it. The ending was a little unrealistic to me tho. Not sure how we ended up getting there, just seemed a bit too messy. But overall it was a good story....

Dark, twisty, compelling and addictive. What more could you want from a novel.
I particularly enjoyed this novel, would definitely read more books from the author