Morning All,

Happy Saturday. The end of the week is upon us! Finally. My word, this week has felt so slow for me again. I don’t know what I’m doing that’s making the weekdays drag and the weekends fly, but I need to find some kind of happy medium. That said, I have had some late nights this week, reading this delightful book.

Book 📖

Thank you to @0neMoreChapter_ and @JaneLark for this advanced copy of The Secret Couple in return for an honest review. The Secret Couple was published on 13th May 2022 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

Alice is a well respected defence solicitor and until very recently her life was going exactly as she thought it should. But then her marriage breaks down and her immediate reaction is to shut off. Conveniently, she receives a mysterious request for a meeting from a potential client and so welcomes the distraction and the chance to get out of London.

After meeting with Luke, Alice ends up getting much more than she bargained for. A new relationship and whole lot of risk. Both of them have secrets. Both of them are in too deep to go backwards.

General Thoughts 🤔

This book was definitely a thinker. I spent so much time finishing a chapter and then just pausing to ponder over what had happened and what I thought would happen next. There were so many twists and turns and I saw nearly none of them coming. As a result, I had a constant feeling of unease whilst reading and it never seemed to simmer. I always felt like something really bad was about to happen.

Characters 👫👭👬

The main characters in the story were Alice and Luke. I felt quite impartial about Alice; I didn’t love her but I didn’t hate her either. She was a cold woman but she recognised that trait in herself and she had good reason for constantly having her guard up. Although Luke was probably the less likeable out of the two of them, I think I empathised with him a little more for some reason. His background and upbringing didn’t give him the best start in life and I think he was a product of that.

I’m not sure that the two of them were healthy for each other, but somehow it seemed to work. Whether or not I think that something could last between them in the long term, whether it be as friends or otherwise, I’m really not sure.

Writing Style ✍️

The timing and pacing of this book was everything and I love that the author was able to make me feel tense the entire way through. There wasn’t really a climatic build up to something, it genuinely was just constant for me and it was that which kept me turning the pages.

I also appreciate this authors ability to write complex characters with undesirable sides to them, but keep them likeable and not turn them into villains. I think there is a fine line between the two and this book was able to walk that line successfully.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would. I haven’t seen an awful amount of publicity on the usual channels/sites about The Secret Couple and I think it deserves more visibility. This is a perfect book for a Saturday night in, with a glass of wine when you feel like being taken along on a ride that will make you feel uneasy, tense and excited all at the same time.

😍😍😍😍😩