I don’t often struggle to write a review or to come to a conclusion as to what rating to give a book but The Match has confused me.
To start with I hadn’t read the prequel to Wilde’s story but I don’t think that mattered. I also fell deeply in love with Wilde from the off which also skewered my thoughts.
Wilde is such a complicated man who by inputting his DNA on a database starts to unravel many twists snd turns to his true identity. The DNA lines and how people match really confused me, in fact I’m still not sure how they are all related at the end which is where my 3 star review kicks in. However the story is addictive and Wilde’s relationships with his friends and family keeps you turning the pages. I can see this as a major blockbuster film and maybe then I might be able to follow it better. Overall it is a good read and as a fab of Harlem’s work and the fact I could not put the book down I give it 4 stars.

Wilde spent his early years in the wild, a regular Tarzan. He grew up with a good foster family and as he got older he decided to put his DNA on an ancestry website wondering whether it would lead to his parents or siblings and to him finding out how or why he was abandoned as a child. The results are back and he finds who he thought was his father and he went to visit him not realising the can of worms he is about to open. It also matches with another person and this leads him into the unknown and life becomes dangerous for all around him. Wilde is a man who likes to be alone and is not very sociable but he deals very well with Hester Crimstein who is a lawyer and always has his back. She is a bit like a rottweiler and helps him discover himself even in a romantic way with her daughter in law, her son having passed away and who was Wilde’s best friend. The story wends its way to and fro and leaves you not knowing how this will all be resolved. I thought I had guessed where it was going – wrong on so many levels. This is a great book and I found I could not put it down as I needed to know what happens. A pleasure to read

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House UK, Cornerstone and Harlan Coben for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Wilde is back for round two. He puts his DNA into a database to find out if he has any existing relatives. It comes back with a match but all is not what it seems.

As usual, Harlan Coben does not disappoint. This is dark, thrilling and completely gripping!
It is perfect for fans of thrillers.

The Match is a follow-on story about Wilde - a boy who was found living alone in the woods as a child, with no recollection of where he came from and who his family were. I haven’t read the first novel so the characters were all new to me - but I didn’t find this to be any problem in understanding what was going on and enjoying the book!

Wilde is now a grown man in his 30s and, after not having much interest before in finding out about where he comes from, he has decided to take the plunge and enter his details into a DNA website. A match pops up that statistically can only be his father! After a trip to Vegas to meet the man, Wilde finds a dead end as his father had no idea he existed and doesn’t know who his mum may be. Wilde is disappointed and decides not to meet his father again.

He also finds another lower level match with a man who looks to be a second cousin or similar - and this is where the mystery starts. The man leaves him some mysterious messages before disappearing. And Wilde ends up going down a rabbit hole of lies, deceit and mystery as he begins to investigate!

Meanwhile we meet a secret online vigilante group, Boomerang, led by The Stranger from Coben’s book of the same name. The group is on a mission to bring justice to people harmed online - and their work begins to intersect with Wilde’s investigations into his family. When people connected to both Wilde and Boomerang start getting killed, Wilde starts to attract some unwanted attention from the police…

The Match was an extremely enjoyable read - really very original - and a perfect mix of thrilling, intriguing, and funny. I really enjoyed the writing style which was clever and witty, and the story was compelling and hard to stop thinking about. I will say that it got a little bit complicated towards the end.. with some of the DNA connections and working out how people were related! In fact I’m still not 100% sure about how Wilde was related to the second match he found on the site! But that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of this very clever and original book.

In The Match, Harlan Coben brings back the main characters from The Boy From the Woods. Wilde was found in the woods in New Jersey, where he was found living a feral existence after having been abandoned. Now an adult and a former soldier, he is a security expert who still lives mostly in the woods, off the grid. What brings him into action this time is a DNA match he finds while trying to find out about his birth parents.

As he follows this match, he uncovers a web of relationships, lies and crimes that bring together the worlds of social media, reality TV, secret societies, internet security and the truth about his past.

I am a great fan of Harlan Coben. I like his stories, his characters and his writing. Although this plot was quite complex and at times slightly far-fetched, I really enjoyed this book and it kept me alert until the very last paragraph.
There are still quite a few open questions and I am not sure Wilde is going to stop here. I wonder if he is going to do anything about "the vile man". Or should I rather say, I hope he will!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK Cornerstone for the advance reader's copy.

The man known only as Wilde was found wandering in the New Jersey woods as a child, able to read and write but with no memory before his experiences living wild. Persuaded to take a DNA test, Wilde discovers a close relative – a reality TV star who has disappeared following the exposure of his behaviour on the internet. Determined to find the truth about what happened, and who exactly the relative is, Wilde begins to look for him, never expecting the trouble he is getting into.

A community has been patrolling the internet, dedicating to finding and punishing anonymous online trolls. Links soon appear between this group and Wilde’s investigation, but when people begin to die, it seems that a ruthless killer has surfaced. But what is their agenda and will Wilde end up in their sights?

A new Harlan Coben book is always a fun read. I rather enjoyed Wilde’s first outing, The Boy From The Woods, but the author had made life hard for himself with this one. You see his last book, Win, was outstanding. A really fresh feeling novel with a gripping narrative voice, following it up was going to be difficult. This is a perfectly good Harlan Coben book – it’s just Win was brilliant.

This one does take a little while to get all the pieces in place and then start moving in the right direction, but I did like the fact that Coben refused to draw out some of the soap opera elements, especially with Wilde’s love-life. The character of his godson in particular worked well to move things along, rather than being the two or three book obstacle that some authors would have made him.

At the end of the day, this is a satisfying read with an interesting idea at the heart of it – two, in fact, with the DNA stuff and the troll hunters. I could have done with a better reason for the escalation of the killer’s activities, but overall, this is another solid book from a master thriller writer. I do hope Win 2 is on the way though…

The Match is out now in hardback and ebook in the UK. Many thanks for the review e-copy

The sequel to The Boy in The Woods which I enjoyed and carries on the story of Wilde, this time seeking his biological family. Many twists and turns which are standard for the author. Though I thought the ending was rushed, I enjoyed the characters and the plot.

I was eager to read this book after watching a few Harlen Coben's stories turned into dramas. It took me a while to read this book; probably a couple of weeks (a while for me.) I didn't find it very easy to follow at times until I got past half way through. I enjoyed the ending though.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this book.

This is the second in Harlan Coben’s series featuring lead character Wilde and supporting characters from his other series. I love Coben’s writing but I don’t think Wilde is his best protagonist, his backstory is a bit ridiculous.

I was pleased that the book gives us some resolution as to how Wilde ended up abandoned in the woods as a child, even if didn’t entirely make sense.

As usual, this book featured some interesting current hot topics, such as DNA matching sites and online fame. Parts of the story were fun and intriguing and parts were a bit far-fetched.

I really enjoy Hester Crimstein’s no nonsense attorney character. The other supporting characters also help to make Wilde more relatable.

Harlan Coben is a master of his craft. In the second book about Wilde he brings the reader an intense, funny and hard hitting story that’s impossible to put down. With brilliant characters like Hester Crimstein and the main character Wilde, this is another brilliant story by one of the best crime writers around. I absolutely loved it.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily.
I have not read any other books by this author, although I have seen some of the Netflix adaptations of his work. I thought this book followed his style of a complex plot and he provides explanations so that the reader understands the DNA and computer hacking references. The inclusion of the reality show, it's stars and social media made the plot very contemporary and the content is delivered at a fast pace.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book although I thought the event in the final couple of pages was a little far-fetched, although not impossible it was a bit trite, hence my rating of 4 stars rather than 5.

Another book by the master storyteller Harlan Coben. I always enjoy his books as they take you on a journey that has twists and turns along the way.
I was engrossed in this book and didn't want to put it down, I hadn't realised that it was a sequel to The Boy from the Woods and I have not read that book. This was not a problem however as it worked well as a standalone with all relevant information shared with the reader.
It has a very up to date feel with it's references to social media and DNA genealogy sites, alongside reality tv. The bonus for me though was the characterisation of the main people in the book. Wilde in particular was very relatable.
Recommended!

I want to give this book five stars because Harlem Coben is such a brilliant writer and the story had me totally caught up in it. I stayed up late into the night then couldn’t wait to finish it the next day. The characters originally in The Boy from the Woods were every bit as delightful and whilst The Match is a stand-alone I think you have to read them both in order. So why then am I only giving it four stars? I just thought the plot got too complicated. Just perhaps one too many fabulous turns of plot. I love the author and can’t wait for his next book but just want a slightly less headache inducing last few chapters. Sometimes less is more.

Another fantastic book by the king of thrillers. I couldn’t put this one down. It gripped me from the very beginning and was full of twists and surprises. The ending was also one which I didn’t see coming.

His the Boy From The Woods.
He knows nothing about where he came from or who his family are.He grew up in the mountains of New Jersey and his known by the name Wilde.
When a match from a DNA site puts him on a journey to finding out the truth his relation dissappears as quickly as he appeared.
Wilde continues on his quest which leads him to a secret web of people committed to exposing online trolls.
One by one people begin to die and it looks like a serial killer is targeting the secret community.
One of my favourite authors his books never fail to deliver.
This was a really good follow-up to The Boy In The Woods it was brilliant learning more about Wilde I'm hoping there could be more to learn in the future.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK Cornerstone for the ARC.

Harlan Coben is one of my favourite authors, but I felt he left me wanting a bit after I finished The Boy from the Woods.. At the time of reading it, I didn't know the intention was for a series with Wilde, so I was ECSTATIC when I saw The Match was being released as a continuation of Wilde's story.

The Match was a fast paced action thriller and it was great revisiting Wilde, Matthew, Laila and of course, Hester! Harlan knows how to write page turners, and The Match is no exception., because every chapter leaves you with answers and a new question, so you just want to keep turning the pages.

The plot was kind of like The Bachelor meets Dexter (though not as meticulous), with a whole lot of interesting information about DNA and DNA matching sites.

You could read this as a standalone, because Harlan is skilled in recapping information in a way that doesn't make the book feel 100 pages longer then it needed to be.

Really enjoyed this one, writing, plot, and getting more information on Wilde's past....I'm hoping this isn't the last we've seen of Wilde ;)

I love his books, but this one just did not hit the mark. I just could not get into it...
This was just a 3 stars for me.

Great to read a follow up to Wilde’s story and to understand some of the past. Having been found in the woods as a child, Wilde didn’t know much about his past, and in this book, he learns a bit more about it. Familiar characters made the story feel more intimate,.
Well written, as always with Harlan Coben, with twists and turns and unexpected results, this was an interesting book.

Wow! What a book. This is the first Harlan Cohen book I've read but it certainly won't be the last. It was gripping, fast paced with great characters and incredible plot twists. I literally could not put it down.

I found it a difficult to get into and keep me interested.
Read lots of his books but this one was not for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.