I literally loved this book. It was so exciting I couldn’t put it down. The plot was well thought out and it played out well. The author was clever putting it together. It wasn’t your run of the mill murder plot

This book started off slow, then you couldn't put it down. It’ has plenty of twists and turns throughout with a surprising ending. The characters were great, the story itself was suspenseful and the style of writing was perfect. I have read other books by this author and I have really enjoyed them.
I would recommend this to anyone who likes reading psychological thrillers.
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in exchange for a honest review.

Unfortunately I have not been able to connect with this book and after multiple attempts have had to admit defeat and mark as dnf.

Dark and twisty, just the way I like my books. A story that keeps you guessing and makes you genuinely feel something for the characters. Winner!

Why would Oscar kill himself when he had everything to live for? Beth, his dreary doormat of a wife, doesn’t believe it and makes it her mission to find out what happened and doesn’t like what she uncovers. Oscar is a man of many sides, none of them pleasant so it’s hard to sympathise and Beth is just too good to be true. I thought using the recognised stages of grief unnecessary and didn’t add much to the story. There’s lots going on, enough to keep even the most jaded of readers intrigued and turning the pages. Some nice descriptions of the Derbys Peak District. More of a domestic drama than an out and out thriller although it does have its moments!

A fast paced, twist filled domestic thriller. I liked the Peak District setting, well written characters and it was an easy read.

We look while on holiday at families enjoying themselves and always tend to speculate who they are and the lives they lead. But the images we gain from family events, looking over parks and pictures on our social media often rarely tell the whole story. People put themselves in roles – the father, the mother or the wife. The role can take over someone’s life. Not maliciously just it’s the easier thing to do. Then things can go wrong, and we are required to remember who we actually are. In Jo Jakeman’s fascinating thriller What His Wife Knew we get an apparently successful loving family suddenly rocked to its core y unexpected events and setting up a whole chain of unexpected consequences

The Lomas family are Oscar, Beth, Gabe and Honey. Oscar is the daring brother running the family lumber business. Beth is the wife and mother staying at home looking after house and kids. They enjoy family curry on Friday night when the phones are tucked away. Then Oscar disappears over the weekend; his car is found abandoned by a park and then his brother finds his body at the bottom of a cliff. Beth is shocked and not sure what has led her to this. Her childhood best friend thre successful Molly has come to help her. Beth starts to discover Oscar had a lot of secrets and wasn’t the man she had thought he was. These discoveries rock her world, expose even more secrets and ultimately put Beth in a lot of danger herself.

I really enjoyed this story as it crates a tangle of surprises and family secrets that Oscar’s death finally brings to the surface. What really made this work for me is the primary character is Beth. Jakeman makes those chapters in Beth’s own voice and the [phrases, use of tone make her feel an incredibly warm, often stressed and initially frazzled character dealing with grief and shock; not just her own but her teenage children’s too. But as the revelations come thick and fast; we see someone who has a lot of hidden strength despite so many people thinking she is fragile, Beth actually will always put her remaining family first too. As Oscar’s various actions and lies to cover them up all come out we soon find ourselves ever more bonding to her and want going some justice and closure for Beth as the betrayals she finds stacks up.

The wider cast to is really interesting in particular Molly. A working-class child now a successful London based businesswoman who is the polar opposite to Beth but we also discover she has secrets in her past that make her actually more someone in armour than could be easily undone. Trying to out the pieces together is the ambitious DC Lowry a detective who wants to progress and finds this traditionally quiet neighbourhood not offering any chances until this death rocks the community. It’s a very strong cast of women both good and not so good that I loved had weaving storylines and unexpected connections that puled me into the plot.

The central mystery is also very clever. A dead person with hidden secrets is a classic plotline but Jakeman throws in a host of unexpected revelations that are juicy, changing your impressions of characters and also revealing a bigger mystery to be solved. It leads to a very clever, tense, and unexpected finale pulling all the pieces together and giving closure to the various storylines in a very satisfactory way.

What His Wife Knew is a great thriller. Perfect to clear your head of festive cobwebs and get the brain working as well as reminding us that we never truly know all sides of a person even those we hold very close. Highly recommended!

This is the first novel I've read by the author, and I was attracted to it by the synopsis and positive reviews of her previous novels. When Beth's husband Oscar's body is discovered in the Peak District, police believe that he took his own life despite Beth's disbelief that this was the case. I felt that it started off well and I was intrigued to find out what had happened to Oscar. and wanted to discover more about the relationship between them. However, as the novel progressed, I wasn't convinced by the plot, or the characters and I soon lost interest. There are many superior thrillers in this genre, and I felt that this was a poorly written novel that I never became immersed in.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.
2.5 stars.

What would you do if you found out you'd been living a lie after your husband's death? That's what happens to Beth and her two children after the apparent suicide of her husband Oscar.

I really enjoyed this book and did not guess a thing until the reveal was handed to me!

What His Wife Knew is an addictive, twisty thriller with compelling characters and an unpredictable plot. The story hooks readers from the first page and never lets them go. Highly recommended! Be sure to check out What His Wife Knew today.

Firstly a big thank you to the publishers for my copy to review. I really enjoyed her previous books.

This is a twisty tale finding out your husbands true colours after he dies . What do you do when everything you thought you knew is a lie?

Fast paced ,gripping and a rollercoaster of a read.

Who is telling the truth? Packed with suspense from start to finish .

Published 17th February

Stand out cover ✔
Synopsis that delivers ✔
Full on tension ✔
Brilliant ending ✔

Basically this book ticks every box you need to be ticked for an outstanding domestic suspense thriller!

It's a story that seriously makes you question 'what would I do if everything I knew, loved and breathed for was snatched from beneath me?'. Any book that makes you dig deep and question life in some sense is worth reading for sure.

After the apparent suicide of her husband Oscar, Beth is left to pick up the tiny broken pieces of the life her and their two children once knew. At the same time Beth is in complete denial that her husband would take his own life. Did he really take his own life or was his life taken from him?

As Beth starts to search doe the truth she starts to realise that her husband wasn't the man she thought he was. Many skeletons fall out of his closet and many wrongs he committed make Beth wonder just how many people would want him dead.

This was a novel that had ,e second guessing constantly, to the point I gave up trying tow work it all out and just enjoyed the whole experience this book was giving me.

Jam packed with suspense, tension and leaving emotions running high throughout, Jo Jakeman manages to aeave in just the right amount of detailing to keep you on the edge of your seat forgetting to take a deep breathe.

This is a really deep twisty thriller that I will highly recommend again and again.

Huge thanks to netgalley and Random House UK for the ARC.

What His Wife Knew is split into five sections using the five stages of Grief as headings - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance - which was an interesting concept that fitted this storyline perfectly as we follow Beth's journey to find the answers she desperately needs to enable her to accept how her life has been turned upside down in an instant.

From the outset there are so many questions waiting to be answered. What was Oscar 'Sorry' about and just why is Beth convinced that he's not dead when the police and evidence suggests that he is? Is this just a grieving widow unable to accept this shocking news or is there more to his death than at first thought? These and so many more are explored as the story progresses and we soon discover that nothing is as it seems and you needed to read between the lines to work out what was fact and what was fiction with regards to Oscar and his actions.

As we soon discover Oscar wasn't the nicest of people and he certainly had his fair share of enemies. The more we learn about him and his character, the more we realise that he was a man who was used to get what he wanted by whatever means possible and he wasn't afraid to sink to the lowest of lows to get himself out of sticky situations.

I'm not really sure how felt about Beth. At times I wanted her to stop being a wallflower and stand up for herself when it was apparent that there were things that she was letting others hold over her. But she certainly turned my opinion of her on its head when she finally decided to take the bull by the horns and take control herself and look for the truth. And boy was I cheering her on as she finally stood up for herself!

The more the story progresses, the more you realise that so many characters had a reason or motive to want Oscar dead and with him perhaps their secrets can die with him... And even though I had figured out how it was going to play out it didn't spoil what for me was an enjoyable read.

When the body of Oscar Lomas is found at the bottom of a remote cliff in the Peak District, it is assumed to be suicide, but Beth cannot accept that her husband took his own life. She needs to find out the truth before she can move on, and in the process discovers that Oscar was not the man she thought he was. The deeper she digs into his life, the more secrets she reveals. He was not a good man, but controlling, arrogant and selfish.
Told from the perspectives of Beth, her friend Molly, and DC Lowry Endecott, What His Wife Knew is a gripping psychological thriller, full of twists and misdirection, where everyone has something to hide. The characters are well written and believable, but it is difficult to empathise with a most of them. You keep on reading because you want to know what really happened, rather than because you care about the characters. At first, I didn’t much care about Beth either, but her character develops throughout the story and I admired her tenacity. She goes from being a stay-at-home wife and mother to taking control of her life as she works through the stages of grief from denial to acceptance. I previously enjoyed The Safe House by this author, so was keen to read What His Wife Knew and I was not disappointed. Thanks to Random House, Vintage and NetGalley for a digital copy to review.

As usual in my reviews, I will not rehash the plot (there are reviews like that out there already if that's what you are looking for).

This was an enjoyable read; I read a lot of books in this genre, and guessed some of the plot twists - but not all by any means!

The plot is well structured, with some well written characters - not all likeable by any means - and makes a valid point - how well can you actually know anyone, however long you've known them for? Secrets and lies abound in this story...

I'll happily read other novels by this author.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

What a brilliant book
Definitely will have you turning the pages
Plenty of twists
It will have you guessing right till the end
Thanks NetGalley

What would you do if everything you knew, everything you lived for was suddenly snatched away at the drop of a hat? What His Wife Knew is a novel portraying a Wife’s denial and grief at being told her husband has died by Suicide. The remnants of her and her children’s lives are now a scattered ruin. She doesn’t know how to parent them in a way that they need, she can’t face doing the things that gave her pleasure…she is left in a wasteland of pain. With all, why does her husband committing suicide feel so wrong?

The situation in What His Wife Knew is one of my worst fears. How can you be just getting on with life one day and the next to find yourself without a husband, and your children without a father? Beth’s husband Oscar has been identified dead after falling from a large drop in the peak district. Alongside his brother, Harvey they were keen hikers and knew the area around Cloud’s drop very well. The only thing he left behind was a note that simply said Sorry and his wedding ring. Why if it was suicide did, he take his wedding ring off?

In dealing with the aftermath of Oscar’s discovery his wife, Beth is dealing with denial. She knows he’s been identified as the dead body, but suicide is just not in his scope. He is described as self-important and couldn’t imagine a life without him in it…I think he thinks a little too much of himself. She begins to wonder if he could have been murdered rather than a cut and dry suicide. As she searches for the truth, she discovers that he has more than one skeleton in the closet. His ill deeds pile up and she can imagine more than one person may want him dead.

What His Wife Knew is a taut and highly emotive thriller that had the heat prickling upon my skin. With the added element of DC Lowry investigating the crime we get a sense that even she has her doubts. Jakeman provides the right amount of details to feed the reader’s appetite. You think there’s only one mystery to decode but there are several and it works incredibly well. Old and new faces alike suddenly are criticized under the harsh glass of a microscope, leaving the reader to play a shrewd game of Cluedo.

What His Wife Knew is an addictive thriller with a secretive centre. My brain felt like popping with the pressure and the intensity of a family with more issues than vogue. Fantastic.

An easy to read and enjoyable triller that kept me guessing with lots of twists and turns right up to the end.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It was a dark and engrossing read with plenty of twists and turns all the way through. Good writing and characters made this a very good read. Highly recommend.

What his wife didn’t know!

Beth Lomas doesn’t immediately realise that her husband is missing. They’d had a huge argument and he’d stormed off. She finds out that he’s missing and dead when the Peak Rescue team and a drone mount a search. His brother Harvey found his body at Cloud Drop – a particularly treacherous area.

Molly Ingram – Beth’s best friend from childhood arrives to help Beth and her two children Gabe and Honey come to terms with the shocking loss of Oscar. Beth, always faithful, always the housewife, baking cakes and caring for the home, must suddenly come to accept that her beloved husband, Oscar is dead but also the truth about the man she married.

Jo Jakeman has used a remarkably interesting way to author the book – using the five stages of grief for headings. The storyline fits into each stage: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I raced through the book desperately following Beth and she stumbles from one stage to the other, finding out the truth as to why the man she thought was perfect, was in fact, not perfect at all. She must
find her inner strength to survive the onslaught of all the shocking stories about him for her sanity and to help Gabe and Honey.

A very clever story that had me gripped from the beginning.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.