I’m quite torn with this book. There are parts of it I really enjoyed and others where I struggled a bit. It felt like it was part psychological thriller and part domestic noir and the parts didn’t quite gel for me with neither quite winning me over. Overall though it is an ok read.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Sometimes I loved it, other times I disliked it intensely. So this review is difficult to write. Not sure how I feel about this book except to say it didn’t excite me as much as I thought it would. So, I’m only giving it three stars. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

This wasn’t the book for me. The blurb suggested it would be a page turning thriller and at 30% through I wasn’t turning pages and I wasn’t thrilled. The characters aren’t likeable as a psychologist myself. I couldn’t separate myself from the unethical decisions being made.

This wasn’t the book for me but if you like slow burn domestic novels, this could be the one for you.

What a fantastic rollercoaster of emotions! Rachel is the main character in this novel she is a GP with a husband- Nathan and a grown up daughter Laura ( who doesn't want anything to do with her!) Rachel is bored with her life until she meets Luc, a newcomer, in her surgery one night he's depressed and needs to talk! The attraction seems instant, and she gives him a prescription but then doesn't see him until a few months later when it turns out he and his family have bought a house near her.... And so begins a passionate affair, the problem is Luc and the family all have their own secrets, but has Rachel fallen to much in love to see what is in front of her? The murders soon start and Luc gets arrested because all the evidence points to him and because he was manic at the time this is how the murders occurred. Rachel doesn't believe that Luc could be capable of murder, even in a manic/ psychotic state but then she gets accused of being an accomplice!!!

Loved this novel, haven't read any by Jane before but I will be looking out for them now. Highly recommended if I could give more than 5 stars I would!!

Wow, thank you to HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and Netgalley for the invitation to read The Patient. What a treat.

I love it when you know or have been to the the location of a book and The Patient took me right back to the Salisbury Cathedral Close are of Salisbury, and indulges your imagination with the fantastic descriptive writing of Jane Shemilt.

I started this book with no expectations as had never heard of or read a book or by Jane Shemilt before, but will definitely be looking out for more by this author and checking out previous books, as if they are anywhere near as good as this, I will thoroughly enjoy them.

In this book Rachel Goodchild, a local GP meets Luc late one evening at the practice, the attraction is instant.
But she is a doctor, and he is her patient. She gives him the drugs he needs – but in doing so, risks everything.
And when a secret is exposed, they’re both in the firing line. He's not only her patient but a neighbour too and there's a very tangled web to uncover. The book is told from Rachel's perspective and flits between the present and the past and flows perfectly. I loved

It is an incredibly well written and unpredictable psychological thriller and really hard to put down as it is so exciting, and love the mix of betrayal, obsession and nervousness and 'its worth the wait for the fantastic twisty ending.

My only negative was that I don't think the blurb really did this book a justice as there is so much more to it. than that.

I’d like to thank HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Patient’ written by Jane Shemilt in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Rachel Goodchild is much-respected GP and married to schoolteacher Nathan, and though their marriage isn’t unhappy it’s become stale and dull. So when Rachel meets Luc Lefevre, a new neighbour who’s briefly her patient, there’s an instant attraction that she’s unable to ignore, nor does she want to. But a relationship with him can be her downfall by ending her marriage and her career.

The book focuses on Rachel, her family relationships and her love affair and at the beginning I enjoyed the story although I thought it was more of a family drama than a mystery thriller. It was clear from the start that Rachel was being questioned by the police but it wasn’t until later we discovered why. I didn’t find any of the characters particularly likeable and the story was so slow I was tempted to jump over bits but I’m glad I didn’t as I became more involved as it went on. The story had some good visualisations and I was hoping it would build up to a dramatic ending but I was disappointed as it seemed to fall flat towards the end, almost as if the author couldn’t think of another way to finish. To sum it up, I enjoyed the story but wouldn’t have been disappointed if I hadn’t read it.

Rachel is a middle aged doctor living in Salisbury with her teacher husband. A terribly respectable, rather boring existence, the only fly in the ointment being her tricky relationship with her grown up daughter who has recently moved back to the town.
An unplanned appointment with Luc, a distressed and mentally disturbed patient, awakens new feelings in Rachel. When they meet again a few months later the attraction is intense and a passionate affair begins. However, there is far more to Luc and his family than meets the eye and death follows them to the quiet streets of Salisbury.
I really enjoyed The Patient. It’s is well plotted and written and leads you exactly where the writer wants you to go. It’s not really a thriller, more a domestic drama. I had a good idea where we were going by the last quarter but it still had some surprises and it was throughly enjoyable finding out the denouement. I would imagine I would have devoured it in a day on a sun lounger.
Thank you to #netgalley and #harpercollinsuk for allowing me to review this ARC

A dark domestic thriller.
Rachel is a GP , who begins a passionate affair with a one time patient Luc. This in turn leads to devastating consequences for them both .
The story is a slow burn and includes a few twists and turns . Murders , stalking , obsession all feature in this story.
The writing is strong but slowed paced and I enjoyed the final twists .
A solid story .
Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK .

The Patient was more of a domestic mystery rather than the thriller it was said to be but on this occasion it didn’t hinder my ability to enjoy this book.
Rachel Goodchild is late forties and a doctor, she is finding that the distance between herself and her husband is growing and her adult daughter just can’t seem to abide being anywhere near her. Rachel’s life is just plodding along until a patient sits in front of her in tears feeling like killing himself. Rachel prescribes him some medicine to help and advises he seeks help further the next day. She strangely feels attracted to Luc but tries to think nothing of it. Rachel and her husband Nathan are invited to a house warming at the newly renovated canonry and the owners are Luc and his wife Ophelia. Rachel wanders out into the garden with Luc and it’s pretty obvious that although he is younger than her he is attracted to her. An affair starts and also the start of murder and disastrous consequences for Rachel.
Although this was a slow burner it made me want to read it, I enjoyed the different timelines and thought it worked well. The structure and plot line was good and there were some decent twists and turns in there. I just wish the ending had explained a few more loose threads than it did.
I would like to thank Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

The book centres on Rachel – a 49 year old GP. She is bored in her marriage to a local school teacher, and her grown up librarian daughter doesn’t seem to want anything to do with her – and she feels peri menopausal and invisible. Having a central character the same(ish!) age as me was interesting.

Rachel’s first dealings with Luc are as a patient – after hours one evening at her surgery – but this is only a very small part of the storyline.

Luc and his glamourous wife Ophelia, and extended family, have moved to Salisbury (the cathedral – famous for the fact that Russian spies like to visit it – is almost a character in its own right!!) and Rachel and her family are invited to their housewarming party – and from there the storyline develops.

The plot twists and turns – in Salisbury and France – and you’re never quite sure whom to trust. I have to say that some of the twists I guessed – whilst others were a total shock – which gave me the right level of smugness whilst still enjoying the ride!

I really enjoyed the book and will definitely look out for more books by this author in the future.

The Patient is released next week, 28 April 2022. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Description 🔖

When Rachel and Luc meet, their attraction is palpable and instant, but not conventional. Rachel is a doctor and Luc is her patient.

Decisions are made that puts everything on the line for Rachel and when a huge secret is unveiled, both of them are in the firing line in a serious way. Someone or everyone is lying. What is the truth?

General Thoughts 🤔

What a whirlwind this book was. This is the quickest I’ve gotten through a book in a while (audiobooks aside). I just could not put this down and devoured the chapters like I was reading on a deadline. I thought that The Patient was very moreish right from the offset and the pace of the book started fast and continued on that trajectory.

The last third of the book felt like someone was toying with my emotions and laughing at me. Just when I thought I had gotten to the truth, there was a loose thread and I figured out there was a lie somewhere. And then the same thing would happen again. This was definitely a book that kept me on my toes.

Characters 👫👭👬

Rachel was the main character in The Patient and the story was told from her perspective. I had a weird connection with this character in that I thought that she was emotionless at times and I couldn’t quite understand her POV, but then at others, my heart broke for her. I think she had a taste of what her life could/should have been and from that point on, life as she knew it maybe felt bland and not where she was supposed to be.

Rachel’s daughter Lizzie got under my skin. She had a very obvious problem with her mother, however didn’t take any adult steps to try and resolve anything. She came across like a bit of a brat to me and I just wanted her to cut her mother a bit of slack and give her a chance.

Writing Style ✍️

I really enjoyed the tone of this entire story. The author was able to create a sense of unease right from the beginning which was maintained and increased throughout the rest of the book. She was also able to keep the story compelling by weaving an unpredictable plot that was full of twists and turns.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I started this book without having a clue what it was going to be about (the blurb certainly keeps it mysterious) and I was so pleasantly surprised. It was brilliantly paced with just the right amount of eerie, spin chilling tension. This is the first psychological thriller that I’ve read in a while that has truly taken me by surprise; 100% worth a read.

I had high hopes for The Patient but It was a really slow burn with way too make background and character building for me. Usually I enjoy this but I just did not care for any of the characters and what was happening to them.

Thanks to the publisher for this book. Can't love them all

Thank you to Netgalley and the oh lsiher for approving me for this arc

I didn’t like the flow that much of this book, I’m not sure if it was me as I couldn’t read a chunk ag a time. I didn’t gel with the book well.

I hope others found this better than I did

Where do I begin with this review? I did not like this very much at all, in fact I'm struggling to think of anything I did like...
First of all the blurb is slightly misleading and because of this I was expecting a lot more from the story.
This felt to be written in a jarring way and I felt it just didn't flow very well. It is too slow and therefore, dull.
All the characters main personality trait seemed to be that they didn't have any. The lead character Rachel, we are led to believe is a successful mature career woman, but she is written like she is a lovesick teenager after one short appointment with Luc. I found this to be highly irritating and spent most of the book wishing she would get a grip and grow up.
I never once felt that the connection/attraction between Rachel and Luc come across on the page, so I really didn't care about them. It also feels like not enough is actually happening.
The last 40% of the book felt to become even more ridiculous, as the author seemed to be just throwing everything out there and seeing what worked.
Unfortunately this just never worked for me and I would be wary reading anything else that this author writes.

Thank you to Netgalley/author/publisher for an advanced copy of this!

I really liked the idea of this book and the writing style but I’m not sure Rachel’s character was for me! She has a damaged relationship with her daughter and is bored in the relationship she has with her husband.

It’s not too shocking when she starts a relationship an affair with her patient, Luc (I guess he was only temporarily her patient) Based on the title I would have assumed that he was a orient for longer than roughly an hour.

With a slow start, the book starts to get interesting about 40% of the way through, there are lots of twists/plotting/ and the story really picks up.

I enjoyed this book but I guess I just didn’t seem to Rachel’s character!

4 stars for me!

Rachel is a GP who is in an unhappy marriage and begins a relationship with a patient. I'm afraid I found it hard work and boring, with little plot and unlikeable characters. The unlikeable characters bit I can cope with, if I'm invested sufficiently in the plot and I enjoy the writing style. Unfortunately, neither of those were true for me in this instance and I think the advertising around this book is misleading as, had it been marketed as a family drama I'd have been less disappointed.
It's definitely got it's fans and for those who enjoy a book about relationships and with a twist at the end, this is for you.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview. Just not one for me.

The Patient is a slow-burning mystery about secrets, lust, and the need to feel appreciated.

Firstly, the synopsis does nothing for this book as it doesn't give any of the main story away, merely stating that there are two characters who are attracted to one another. So I was pleasantly surprised by how everything developed instead, as The Patient is a much more character-focused story full of suspense than what I was expecting.

Although there are many thriller elements thrown in, what this book really about is Rachel, a middle-aged woman who has reached an age where she is starting to feel invisible in her life. Her husband is focusing on his career, while her daughter no longer needs her support or affection. It's such a great focus for the story as I found Rachel really compelling, trying to understand how I would feel in her situation and if I would react in the same way.

However, Rachel's relationship with her daughter, Lizzie, felt like a missed opportunity to me. I wanted to feel the tension between these two and see the emotions that were boiling up, but Lizzie's excuses came far too late. While I understand the conflicts that can arise between mother and daughter, Lizzie's attitude wasn't explained until the final few chapters, so her actions came across as ignorant and cruel instead of understandable and sympathetic.

I also found the layout of the story a little messy. The story is told in two timelines - past and present - whilst the dates at the top of each chapter are in chronological order. So I didn't really see the point in this. I was constantly on the lookout for a jump forwards in backwards in time. But instead, the timelines intertwine in quite a muddled way. I would have much preferred the before and after to be better separated as this would have added a lot more suspense, showing a bigger contrast between Rachel considering an affair and then the shocking situation she found herself in after.

There's a lot of mystery and the last section of the book is chocker-block with twists. And while I had my suspicions about every single character, I couldn't pinpoint what was going on so everything came as a surprise.

The revelations at the end, however, felt so disjointed, as if the answers were stated rather than explored. Despite everything around her turning into absolute chaos with so much going on, Rachel seemed to shrug her shoulders and simply accept what was happening to her. Her lack of reaction, therefore, meant that there was no emotional resolution to leave me feeling content.

While I did enjoy reading The Patient and believe that the characters were strongly developed, there were just too many things that didn't connect with me in this one. The potential was definitely there, but too much got in my way to appreciate it more.

This is my first Jane Shemilt novel, and I would definitely read more, entirely captivated by her descriptive style, and the intrigue written into her creation of a believable world, though quite disturbed.

I would say the synopsis from the publisher does the book no justice.

Shemilt weaves a thrilling narrative, giving appropriate depth to each character, and she paints a glorious picture of the various settings of the novel. The story is gentle to start, and builds to a suitable crescendo, with some quite vivid descriptive of some uncomfortable situations, and I raced through it in a couple of nights, to find the apt conclusion.

If I could, I would actually give this 4.5 rather than 5 stars, only because I guessed the ending long before I reached it, but it was still most enjoyable.

I've never read anything by this author before but I'm definitely going to look out for more after reading this extremely twisted and chilling thriller.

Rachel Goodchild is forty-nine, a doctor, a wife and a mother.

Just as she is about to go home one evening, a newly registered patient, Luc, arrives at her practice in a distressed state. Having failed a patient previously with depression and anxiety she doesn't want to make the same mistake again so she talks to him, makes him feel at ease, then sends him on his way with a prescription. She couldn't help noticing that he was an extremely attractive man.

Two months later, Rachel and her school teacher husband, Nathan are invited to a housewarming party for the new neighbours. Yes, you've guessed it, Luc was the husband of Ophelia who had sent the invites out!

There is a clear attraction between Rachel and Luc. Chance meetings. The touch of his hand on her shoulder when she fears she is being followed.

Rachel attends a ten day medical conference in France. Luc invites her to stay for a few days at his Grandfather's house which he is renovating.

After returning home to her husband, Rachel still thinks she is being followed so reports it to the police. Soon after, there is a murder. Is this connected?

This isn't just a thriller. It's so much more, which I wasn't expecting. The forbidden attraction between two people. A stalker. A web of lies. Jealousy. Murder. Disastrous consequences.

Written in chapters from Rachel's point of view,  past and present.

📣 Deals with mental illness.

Many thanks to Netgalley, the publishers and author for an ARC. Really happy to have discovered a new author.

The blurb for this one doesn’t do it justice! Don’t go into this expecting a doctor/ patient and drug seeking relationship because that’s really not what this is about.
The Patient is more a story of affairs, secrets and light suspense. No one in this book is telling the truth and the line between doctor and patient being blurred was handled well.
I’d say this is more of a mystery than a thriller but it was engaging and I read it in a day despite it being quite slow burn.
The writing was pleasant and kept me reading, the characters were interesting despite me not actually liking any of them in the end and whilst there were no shocking reveals the slow drip of new information was engaging and enjoyable.

I’d recommend this one to fans of slow burn mysteries who like books you can inhale in a day.