A patient
A Dr
A special and unique relationship where you can ‘tell all’ for 10 mins then you both move on……..what do you do though if the attraction between you is so strong you are both more than happy to throw away everything you have to indulge your passion? And what about the consequences that abandon may bring?
This book is, as we say, a slow burner and also very descriptive, over so at times but it is well written and handles subjects such as mental health and the menopause in the story
There are some twists and an unusual ending
A different read for me

7/10
4 Stars

Thank you to @netgalley and publishers for this gripping thriller.

A doctor-patient relationship that turns into way more than that. A murder mystery with unusual twist.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

must admit i did struggle at the beginning with this one but only at the pace...but the writer had a style of writing that kept me intrigued enough to carry on with and boy was i glad when i got to the end to find out all what had been going on

there were so many red herrings and pathways that the writer took you down...there were characters you liked and some you loathed, did not like the daughter at all...

but this is life and how we interact with people some we understand and some we dont...

will be keeping an eye out for more of this authors works

I received an E-ARC with a request for my honest review.

This book follows Rachel Goodchild from Salisbury who is a doctor, wife, and mother.

After feeling she has let a previous patient down, when an anxious patient turns up at the surgery, she agrees to see him.

She sends him on his way with a prescription, but she can’t stop thinking about him.

When they meet again, the attraction she feels continues but with secrets and murders revealed it leaves Rachel in a difficult and distressing situation.

Where will this relationship go? What secrets are eager to be revealed?

This book is certainly a book that made me feel I didn’t know where things were going. Not only with a love affair I wouldn’t expect but then with the murders, you don’t know what to believe.

There is a portrayal of mental health in the book from the start, but it all adds to the mystery of the storyline.

I didn’t particularly warm to any of the characters, especially Rachel who I thought I would. I also didn’t really feel her character felt real enough.

Overall, a suspense thriller with obsession, secrets, and murder.

I started reading this book, gave up and then gave it a second chance and glad I did. It was a great suspense book and thrilling to read.

Was fortunate enough to get an ARC from Netgalley of this book, and the premise really drew me in. There's lots of potential here, some expert manipulation and a mysterious 'treasure' to be acquired, but it's just lacking a little bit of sparkle to tie it all together. The end seems to tumble to a conclusion with a collection of disjointed paragraphs. But the way the story is built makes for an interesting read!

Every novel needs descriptions of settings, of the landscape, of passers-by, what's going through the character's mind, etc, etc, but there is surely a limit. And at 25% of the way through The Patient, I'd reached it. I know there's a good story in here just waiting to burst out and had I persevered, I'm sure it'd have been worth the effort but... with so much detail thrown in, I just got bored waiting for the story to start. So, regrettably, a DNF for me.

In The Patient, we meet our narrator Rachel, a 49-year-old GP who feels her best days are behind her. She has a fractured relationship with her daughter and is a little bored by the one with her husband, so its unsurprising when she embarks on an affair with the enigmatic Luc.

The title suggests that there is a huge doctor / patient line crossed but Luc can only very briefly be classed as her patient (like an hour) so this isn't really the dynamic explored in the story.

What does become clear is that things with Luc are not as they first seem... For a book with a linear, slower-paced start, there were more twists than I thought were coming, but this was an enjoyable addition to the overall read.

Packed full of deception, twists and a clever plotting, this was a great read but I didn't necessarily warm to any of the characters - although maybe I wasn't meant to!

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

When Rachel meets Luc the attraction is instant. But she is the 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. Not all patients are telling the truth.

Rachel, a GP, is in her forties, her marriage to Nathan is stale, and her daughter is distant with her. When Luc turns up to her surgery, he's a new patient, he's clearly distressed. She helps calm him down.

The story is told from Rachel's point of view. The pace is slow. I didn't like any of the characters and I didn't trust any of them either. It's quite a dark read but it's neither tense or thrilling. The story has a dual timeline with a few twists. I didn't dislike this book but I didn't love it either.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #HarperCollinsUK #HarperDiction and the author #JaneShemilt for my ARC of #ThePatient in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this story and could not put the book down. It was at times confusing as to the sequence of events but it did not detract from the story itself . After the first few changes in time sequence I just gave up looking at the dates and let the story line flow at its pace and that made it easier.
Difficult topics to cover in such a easy to read , fully emotional way. Some of the ending was predictable but the whole story kept me wanting to resolve all the issues and find out exactly what was going on.
Great author. Highly recommend this book .

Wow what a brilliant story with so many twists and turns This is my first title by this author. A slow burner of a read, It grew on me. It took a while to get into the writing style but I couldn't wait to see how it ended! I'd definitely read more from this author.
⭐⭐⭐⭐

For me i think the book missed it mark.. It got a bit confusing at times with the time line it felt very back and forth but the months never really changed.

It had promise but i just wantes that little bit more to draw me in.. Unfortunately this one was just not for me

The Patient is a contemporary domestic suspense novel set in Salisbury, England, about a middle-aged doctor who begins a relationship with a married patient, with deadly consequences. I’d read The Drowning Lesson by this author before, and had also 3-starred it, but liked the sound of this, especially since the heroine is a GP of approximately my age. It’s a well written thriller, and I did quite enjoy it, but I was put off by the universally unlikeable characters and predictable twists.

Rachel is a 49 year-old, perimenopausal empty-nester with a boring marriage and a stressful job at the local medical practice. When sexy architect Luc presents as a new emergency patient one evening, she is drawn to him, and helpless to stop herself falling into an affair when they meet again some months later. When she starts hearing footsteps behind her, Rachel initially blames stress and paranoia, but then a violent death has her questioning everything - could her lover be a murderer?

I’ve read a few books this year by former GPs, and they all make me grateful not to be one any more - then it occurred to me that contented current doctors are too busy to write books, so I’m probably getting a skewed perspective. I do like the accuracy that medical authors bring to scene-setting and plot details.

This is all told from Rachel’s first person perspective (past tense, thankfully) and initially I had a lot of sympathy for her, but this dwindled as she makes excuses for her awful adult daughter’s selfishness and rudeness, her husband’s neglect and her own lust-confused-with-love making her sure Luc must be innocent. The murder mystery wasn’t totally convincing, and I guessed who was behind it and some of the reasons why, but probably only because I read too many thrillers. I liked the descriptive passages of Salisbury and Provence, and I did get caught up in the story, but doubt it will stay with me for long. 3.5 rounded down.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily.
The Patient is published on April 28th.

The Patient tells the story of a 49 year old GP, Rachel Goodchild, and how her life takes a dramatic turn after meeting patient, Luc. It is difficult to explain the plot in more detail without giving away spoilers, but there is a tangled web of mystery surrounding Rachel, Luc and both of their families.

This book was a slow burner and it took me a little while to get into as it was lacking the pace and drama that I usually go for. However, I enjoyed the writing style and quickly got to grips with the characters; although none of them were overly likable, apart from the bit-part character of Victoria, who I adored.

There were plenty of twists and turns towards the end and I loved that the epilogue summed everything up, leaving no annoying loose ends.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.

Even if there's potential I couldn't care for the characters and the very slow burning plot didn't keep my attention.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I always talk about how blurbs and taglines are so important to the expectations of a new book. The Patient by Jane Shemilt is no different - from the blurb I expected a Doctor/Patient relationship gone wrong, perhaps questioning ethics of the job or maybe something to do with drug dependencies if you study the cover. The Patient only really hits this brief slightly; our main character Rachel is in fact a GP and her lover Luc is her patient, but only for one-hour long consultation before she passes him back to his normal practitioner. From there it’s more like a standard domestic love affair story which was quite disappointing.

The plot itself very much drags and nothing really properly happens until the very last quarter of the book. There’s a lot of foreshadowing phrases to end chapters before this point but the first three quarters are mainly just about an unlikeable woman’s infatuation with a neighbour and their love affair. My main issue with the book was that there is no-one to really root for. Rachel herself is unpleasant – she makes some really stupid mistakes and she doesn’t seem to care very much about those around her, whether that be her colleagues or her family. Her husband is a wet blanket who refuses to take her side or back her up in any argument and doesn’t seem to believe in parenting as a team. Her daughter is horrific – a spoiled brat who is openly rude to her mother at all opportunities for seemingly no reason. Even the subject of the affair Luc is painted vaguely and I didn’t really understand his appeal. Most of the scenes with the two of them together are focused on what Rachel is thinking and feeling as opposed to learning anything new about Luc.

The ending did come as a bit of a surprise although I had guessed the culprit even though I didn’t really understand their motives. The reveal came as two monologues which is always a truly boring was to wrap up a plot. It also left me with a lot of questions and didn’t really make sense with hindsight to the whole story. I also really didn’t understand why certain characters acted the way they did at the end – it made for a very confusing conclusion.

Overall, The Patient is not really a story about a GP and a patient, more a domestic love affair that goes wrong with unlikeable characters and an ending that left more questions than it answered. Thank you to NetGalley & Harper Collins UK – Harper Fiction for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher HarperCollins UK for the ARC.

I quite liked this book but it does have a slow start and I was tempted not to finish it early on, but I persevered, and was rewarded with a rather cleverly constructed multi-layered plot.

Set in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Dr Rachel Goodchild works at a busy health centre and husband Nathan is a local school teacher. They have a grown up daughter Lizzie who has her own flat in the city. Rachel's been convinced for months that she's being followed, although Nathan dismisses her concerns. Late one evening, after her rounds, Rachel returns to the health centre to find she needs to see a patient, new to the area, who poses a suicide risk, Luc Lefevre. She's haunted by the death of a young patient who committed suicide a year ago, and she had misconstrued the distress he was in, so, she's determined to give Luc as long as he wants, to talk. However, Rachel is a menopausal 49yr-old who is restless with her life which she feels is slipping away, and when Luc pays her compliments she feels an instant attraction - but this is a doctor-patient relationship. and cannot be anything else. Until........Rachel's family are invited to a housewarming at a rather grand and historic house where she finds Luc, married to Ophelia, 10yr-old Oscar, and Ophelia's brother Blake. Luc is an architect but his passion is for painting. He has inherited a house in France and that's where he really wants to be.
Cue........ Rachel and Luc's blossoming romance. BUT there are lies, deception, and intrigue, together with betrayal and murder in this twisty story, as only nearing the end do all the various strands of the plot converge.
..................................................
Yes, the plot is good and cleverly obscured, however, I didn't warm to any of the characters and found passages of Rachel's personal thoughts and musings to be tediously whimsical I did like the conclusion though.

I enjoyed this story and thought it was cleverly written. It tackles some sensitive subjects about mental health as well as women ageing well. There were several twists and turns which I thought largely worked very well. For a novel with a long slow burn, then ending felt a little rushed to me but that didn't detract from my enjoyment overall.

Very slow moving , not my scene . I couldn't seem to get into the story and didn't like the characters. Got interesting for the last 2 or 3 chapters .

This was quite slow going, but I am glad I persevered with it.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.