Her Perfect Life by Sam Hepburn will leave readers guessing and staying up late to finish another chapter. We all have secrets and the two main characters in the book, Gracie and Juliet, own the market on explosive ones. Who will prevail in this cat and mouse game between two very different women?

Gracie's life is perfect - think a British Food Network star - but not everything is completely perfect, right? She is kind but she has also been betrayed by those closest to her. Gracie thrives on keeping up appearances and keeping her family safe.

While Gracie is on the do-gooder side, Juliet has had a rougher life. She drinks too much, smokes too many cigarettes and isn't polished like Gracie. She maneuvers her and her daughter into Gracie's perfect life. But she's out for revenge. Gracie made a mistake years ago by not choosing Juliet for a project that could have rocketed Juliet to Gracie-level money and fame. Juliet will make Gracie regret her long ago decision.

Told from both Gracie and Juliet's point of view, Her Perfect Life is a nail-biter of a book that readers won't want to put down. Who is the master manipulator in this story? Readers may just be surprised at how long one woman (or both) will sink to get what they want. Sam Hepburn is an author that I plan to watch and look forward to the next book.

Her Perfect Life sounded like a great book & I so badly wanted to like it, but it wasn’t for me. The book was slower than what I usually enjoy so at times I felt like giving up. I did finish it but felt the ending was just alright.

I'm still trying to figure out what I think about Her Perfect Life. On one hand, it kept me interested and I was curious about the secrets both main characters were hiding.

On the other hand, the pacing kind of confused me. Even though a lot happened, the story moved along at a somewhat slow pace. It definitely wasn't a twisty thriller, though it did have a lot of suspense. And when the ending did tie up, I was somewhat disappointed. No, it wasn't what I expected, but it also crammed a lot of "WTF" at once. Maybe I would have liked it more with a few big reveals rather than one major one?

Either way, I did really like the writing and I look forward to what the author does next.

Thank you, Bookouture, for sending me a free copy of "Her Perfect Life" in exchange for an honest review.

The title gives its ambitions away, but "Her Perfect Life" doesn't work as a "girl" book. It's too long, both in page count and narrative. There's a reason "girl" books take place over the course of a couple of months or even weeks: to provide a sense of time accelerating towards a heart-stopping climax. In "Her Perfect Life," entire seasons pass in a paragraph, which not only dilutes the tension, it also distorts the timeline since the story centers around two children who seem to remain age five for well over a year. I was also able to guess the twist 60% of the way through "Her Perfect Life" and probably could have figured it out several chapters before that if I hadn't been so willfully blind, not unlike one of the characters. Ms. Hepburn also bungles the device of a character keeping a diary, rendering it unrealistic and a bit didactic. So as a thriller, "Her Perfect Life" doesn't thrill.

But . . .

As a literary novel, it's not bad at all. Ms. Hepburn avoids the stereotypes common to the genre by making one of her unreliable narrators a culinary guru and the other a failed PR flack, so there's more social satire in "Her Perfect Life" than in your average "All The Gone Girls On The Train"-style pulp. And if she doesn't write with the efficiency necessary to the genre, she writes with the precision and detail necessary to psychological realism, so I don't quite know why she's messing around with genre except maybe for the obvious answer that genre sells. So "Her Perfect Life" isn't what I expected, nor is it what it purports to be, but it's an interesting failure.

Nails sharpened, fists clenched, eyes shooting dagger beams, minds whirling! Let the cat fight between so called best friends begin!

This book is about two women’s friendship.
One of them is everything you’d dreamed of as the other one has nothing to lose!

Gracie is the lucky cow: she has everything other women truly envy: charming husband: check!
Adorable child: check again!
A stylish, meticulously decorated house: check!
A successful career: Check!
A gigolo has best cumulative assets three Chrises have ( Hemsworth, Pine and Evans) : Sorry! She failed but she still seems like she has it all! ( ha ha ha: cold bitch laugh effect)

Anyways, we’re also introduced to Juliet who has anything to hold on: a struggling single parent with no money no man more cry and no future hopes!

How did these polar opposites draw into each other to form a true friendship?

Of course they don’t form a real friendship when both of the parties have disturbing qualities! (Crazy bitch alert!)

There are too many mind spinning and triggering subjects in their story ( in fact those subjects are enough for more than five books) including cheating, stalking, obsession, manipulation, murder mystery, more obsession, more violent tendencies!

This is such a great popcorn book- you just consume fast, you don’t get enough nutrition and your mouth filled in grease at the end, but you don’t care: once you start you don’t want to stop because you’re still having fun!

There are so many batshit craziness you’ll witness during your reading journey and you keep repeating : “ Oh no! Even she cannot go that far! What? Did she do that! Holly hell! “

Overall: I didn’t adore this book! And I didn’t like both of the characters! I like mentally disturbed characters but these women were way too much out of control for my crazy tolerance level!

But it was quick, entertaining read with foreseeable twists! It’s not one of my best , mouth agape, jaw dropping, heart throbbing thriller reads but it is still okay and I didn’t get bored. I found myself nervously giggling at several times.

I still want to read more works of the author.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Bookoture for sharing this arc copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

While I did enjoy this story, I certainly didn’t think it was a “twisty psychological thriller”. I found this book to be more of a slow burn drama that has a good “gotcha” ending. I thank Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Gracie Dwyer has it all: the handsome husband, the adorable child, the beautiful home and the glittering career. The perfect life.

I was literally grabbed in from the first few pages, and I couldn't put it down. It draws you in and holds you captive, and inevitably as with any great book. Well plotted, with credible characters I spun through this pretty quickly.

An excellent psychological thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seats until the last page. This is one of the best books I’ve read all year. I highly recommend it it has a lot of twist turns but realistic characters.