I am very late to the party with Imperfect Women but I recently read One Of The Good Guys (the latest book from Araminta Hall) and absolutely loved it. I immediately started to look through her backlist and realised that this one was on my list to review.

I was hooked from the start by this story of three women who have been best friends since University but for various reasons have all ended up unhappy with certain aspects of their lives. The worst of these cases is Nancy, who despite a seemingly good marriage, has an affair with a married man and within a year ends up dead. The Police and her friends initially think that her lover must have been the killer, lashing out when Nancy tried to end their relationship. However, when Ellie starts getting closer to Robert (Nancy's husband), the suspicions begin to creep in as to whether he might have been involved. Ellie and Mary (who has her own disastrous marriage to deal with) cling together to try and make sense of the awful situation they have found themselves in, but will the truth ever come to light?

This was such a fascinating exploration into female friendships and the expectations which are forced upon women. I thought it was really refreshing to read about the men in the story's views about how women should take a step back from their careers after having children and just be happy to give up on any previous dreams of work and making an impact career wise. It's an opinion which I personally don't think is voiced enough so I really appreciated the way this was portrayed in the book.

I was surprised by the direction the story went, it actually made it more interesting for me. It was a gripping mystery and I thought that the characters were very realistic - each with their own imperfections and issues to work through.

This is an average read
It is a slow burn and the second half is much better than the first half.
It is a blend of psychological thriller and crime

This is an exploration of women and female friendships which left me pleased that none of them had been my friend. I did not like any of the main characters who for me were the definition of women who would not have been friends if not for a common place or time in their life.

I thought the author explored the different path that each woman's life took in a really insightful and heartfelt way with the mystery almost taking a back seat to the development of the characters.

I enjoyed that we got the three perspectives in a block from each character rather than back and forth and found the ending to be uplifting.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Despite the messy ending of Our Kind of Cruelty, the first book I read by Hall, I was impressed enough to pick up another novel by the author.

This is a story of three good friends and how two of them cope with their grief after one is murdered. Of course, it's not just a case of life after the loss of their best friend, it's also about the secrets about the deceased each has.

Whilst I enjoyed this and found it compelling, I did find it a little intense, and the endless unparagraphed passages of each of the women's insecurities and dissatisfaction with their lot were rather tedious…to the point I very nearly just wanted to shake them and tell them to grow up and either stop moaning and deal with it or change it. Ultimately, they were each victims of their own life-style choices, so the incessant 'poor me' outpourings are rather grating.

No messy ending for this book: neatly conclusive in a rather 'wow, I wasn't expecting that' way. On the whole, an enjoyable book, but I have to say, the editing is dreadful: countless grammatical and punctuation errors, missing or misplaced words. 'Were sat' can never be forgiven: new editors required, Ms Hall.

great story looking at a group of friends, Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.

This was a very involved story.
Deep relationships, lies, love, imperfections.
At times I found it slow, at times it was fast and gripping and I couldn’t wait to finish work to get back to it!

Enjoyed this a lot. I thought it was well-written and I would be interested to read more from the author in future.

This is a very slow burn of a story based around the lives of three friends. I enjoyed the overall plot to the story but I do think it could have definitely been shorter in places.

This is very slow burn mystery, surrounding the lives of 3 women and the tragic death of one of them. It features love, lies and friendship in its quest to entangle the reader into the lives of these three friends and their secrets in order to truly discover how and why Nancy died.
I enjoyed the overall plot to the story and how the reader was given an insight into each womens lives and inner most secrets but I do believe that the story could have been shorter as some parts seemed to be unnecessarily long and didnt progress the story along.
Thank you to Orion books and Netgalley for allowing me to review this book.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for the ARC of this book
I liked it, I didn't like it, I got confused, I understood ...!
This is the story of 3 friends and everything which comes with friendship.
I didn't like the characters to start with but by the time I finished I didn't mind them.
My problem with this book was for me it was just too slow, but the ending was good.
I want to give 4 stars but just can't as it was too slow for me and I had to keep dipping in and out due to this.

A gripping mystery.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

A story of 3 friends and all that comes with that, love, lies and friendship. The characters weren’t very likeable at first, however by the time I’d finished I ended up liking some. A slow burner, one that as you read you’re not sure you’re enjoying it. Made up for it with a good ending though.

Nancy has the perfect life. She is bright, beautiful and rich with an adoring husband and daughter.At least that's what it seems on the outside to her two best friends.But then Nancy is murdered.And as the lies start to unravel, they realise they never knew their perfect friend at all. She clearly had as many secrets as they do...

Thank you to the publishers and tour organiser for inviting me to be part of the tour

This book was a real slow burner for me. Nancy is founded murdered at the start of the book and the book unravels the lies and secrets between the three friends, Nancy, Eleanor and Mary.
I struggled to connect to any of the characters, which is important to me in a book. I like to love at least one character.
The book explores the deceit and secrets that each friend has
It is a brilliant book, with a very interesting storyline, just a little bit of a slow burner! I would recommend to anyone who is a fan or slow paced thrillers

Published on 8th July by Orion, I am so stoked to be a part of the accompanying Compulsive Readers Tour for 'Perfect Strangers' by Araminta Hall (a.k.a Imperfect Women)

''Nancy looked like she was close to tears.'I know, but do you know how hard it is to hang on to that when you're actually doing it?When you're bombarded with women 'having it all' , as they like to say, rushing to a meeting in a smart suit with a baby on their hip. Domesticity has never been valued.' ''

On the surface, this appears to be a 'whodunnit' as Nancy, mother and wife goes missing and is subsequently found dead of blunt force trauma, her phone missing and her purse emptied.

Her friends of almost 30 years, Eleanor and Mary, are who we get to know Nancy through, being as she dies right at the start of the book. Having meet initially at university, each of them has re-examined why they are where they are, right now, and where they have deviated from that path since leaving uni.

Each has had success in their own fields, even if Nancy does not realise this, as a mother and a wife she has held her household together. The above quote relates to her lashing out to Eleanor at the seeming injustice of the way she is expected to behave by both the family she has created, and society in general.

Her placing a lack of value on what she has achieved really hits home in the context of her having an affair, about which Eleanor knows but Mary, and Nancy's husband, do not. Eleanor's initial irritation at having been confided in about this makes her feel complicit in this state of affairs and leaves her angry and unhappy. The subsequent conflicting feelings after her shocking death really hit home as a result, and forces  both women to look back at their relationships with Nancy, and their relationships with each other.

How far removed are they from the women that they were at the start of their friendship?

How much of this has to do with the way that Nancy has died and how they react to this?

It's an engaging and moving character study of modern womanhood and the way that we pile pressure on ourselves to meet impossible standards set by a patriarchal agenda.

And even if you know a person for decades, how well do you really know them?

Is it a reflection that you expect to see when you look at your friends, or are you seeing the real them?

There is so much to think about, pull apart and reflect about as you read 'Perfect Strangers' and find yourself questioning not only how self aware you are, but also how social constructs create friendships, as well as estranging them.

Highly recommended to readers who love complex, multi layered investigations into the human condition.

Not really for me I'm afraid, I disliked the main characters and didn't care what happened to them. It was sadly a DNF.

I'm not sure why this book has been given so much publicity as I found it very hard to connect with. I didn't warm to any of the characters, in fact I found them mostly annoying. I think the book went on for far too long and when I finally got to the end I didn't care who the killer was.

An enjoyable read which fully explores the relationships between the main characters. Great character development throughout

A good story. I didn't care much for how it was written the writing style is too drawn out for me. I cannot find this book on Amazon so I am unable to leave my review on there.

Disclaimer: I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this title in exchange for a review.

Imperfect Women was, in many ways, a deeply frustrating book. I enjoyed much of it, but it ultimately left me feeling disappointed.

The writing was lovely. Part best-selling, snappy, crime thriller, part self-conscious literary fiction. I enjoyed many turns of phrase, the reflections they contained and the cinematic use of language. That said, it sometimes felt that the morality lessons from the author lacked any subtlety; they were often shoved down your throat.

I loved the grey morals and the nuance, the complexity of the relationships and the preciousness of friendship. While I found some points of view tedious, I understood that this was an intentional drawing out by the author to illustrate the argument that women are often tangled in webs in their own minds.

The biggest disappointment by far, however, was the predicted outcome. I guessed both twists genuinely less than a fifth of the way through the book. And while I liked the layered build-up of the storytelling through the three perspectives, the red herrings were poor and I found myself annoyed with the predictability. I’m also not delighted with the tied-up-with-a-bow ending, enjoying more ambiguous conclusions myself.

I still recommend this book as a beach read, just not a world shattering one!