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kempfme's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
judithdcollins's review against another edition
5.0
Helen Cooper returns following [b:The Downstairs Neighbor|56175878|The Downstairs Neighbor|Helen Cooper|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1607223924l/56175878._SX50_.jpg|83167285] and [b:The Other Guest|59070145|The Other Guest|Helen Cooper|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635803036l/59070145._SY75_.jpg|93144308], with her latest gripping domestic suspense, THE COUPLE IN THE PHOTO.
When a woman sees her best friend's husband in a photo with another woman, she has to decide how far she will go to keep this secret; however, she has no clue how far this web of deceit and lies will go that may impact her own family.
Lucy is married to Adam and has two daughters, Tilly and Fran. They are best friends with Cora and Scott. They (Taylors and the Waughs) co-own a beach Norfolk cottage, and their children are friends. Scott, Adam, and Cora went to the same university.
Lucy is at work and sees honeymoon photos from Ruth, her co-worker, and in one of the photos, she spots their friend Scott with another woman. She questioned her friend, and Ruth said they were a lovely couple, Jason and Anne, and they spent time together.
What was Scott doing in Maldives with another woman?
She comes home and tells her husband, Adam, but Adam says it cannot be him since he is in Japan. Cora and their children, Ivy and Joe, would be devastated. The Waughs were like family to her. They had been best friends for fifteen years.
She is determined to protect her best friend from possible infidelity, but when she learns that the woman in the photo has gone missing, she fears Scott was involved.
A chill washes over her when she sees the news of a British woman missing from an island resort in Maldives. Her name was Juliet Noor (not Anna), and she failed to return home. She apparently was staying alone and working on a novel. She was later found murdered.
Lucy is obsessed with searching for answers while it escalates, pouring over social media and this woman's past. Who is keeping secrets? She suspects Adam, Cora, and Scott know more than they are saying. Is she the only one in the dark? How deep does this go?
There is also a mysterious POV in italics that adds mystery and intrigue.
The plot thickens between the three regarding a cover-up from the past. What appears as a close friendship is anything but when the secrets and lies are unraveled.
When the truth comes out, how far this web of lies goes is explosive, starting from the past and its aftermath. There is something more sinister than an affair, and someone else winds up dead.
Wow! THE COUPLE IN THE PHOTO is my first book by Helen Cooper, and I look forward to reading more! Lucy was a great character and highly relatable. This story was realistic and could be ripped from today's headlines. What happens when you learn the truth? Two picture-perfect families with cracks that run deep below the surface.
The author cleverly builds suspense and tension as we follow Lucy, trying to make sense of everything and unravel the secrets. Lucy does not know the level of deception, lies, and manipulation from her husband and friends. No one is as they appear, except for Lucy—many pieces of the puzzle make for a great mystery with adults misbehaving.
Thought-provoking, an exploration of marriages, friendships, and secret pasts. A page-turning domestic suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
How well do you know those closest to you? From well-developed characters to a clever plot with unreliable narrators, for a twisty, engrossing domestic suspense of lies, deceit, manipulation, betrayal, and secrets—how many people and its aftermath ultimately affects marriages, friendship, and motherhood.
THE COUPLE IN THE PHOTO is for fans of Kimberly Belle, Robin Harding, Sally Hepworth, B.A. Paris, and Mary Kubica. I look forward to reading more from this author!
Thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Putnam and NetGalley for a digital advanced reading copy for an honest review.
Blog review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4.5 Stars, rounded to 5
Pub Date: Dec 5, 2023
Dec 2023 Must-Read Books
Dec Newsletter
When a woman sees her best friend's husband in a photo with another woman, she has to decide how far she will go to keep this secret; however, she has no clue how far this web of deceit and lies will go that may impact her own family.
Lucy is married to Adam and has two daughters, Tilly and Fran. They are best friends with Cora and Scott. They (Taylors and the Waughs) co-own a beach Norfolk cottage, and their children are friends. Scott, Adam, and Cora went to the same university.
Lucy is at work and sees honeymoon photos from Ruth, her co-worker, and in one of the photos, she spots their friend Scott with another woman. She questioned her friend, and Ruth said they were a lovely couple, Jason and Anne, and they spent time together.
What was Scott doing in Maldives with another woman?
She comes home and tells her husband, Adam, but Adam says it cannot be him since he is in Japan. Cora and their children, Ivy and Joe, would be devastated. The Waughs were like family to her. They had been best friends for fifteen years.
She is determined to protect her best friend from possible infidelity, but when she learns that the woman in the photo has gone missing, she fears Scott was involved.
A chill washes over her when she sees the news of a British woman missing from an island resort in Maldives. Her name was Juliet Noor (not Anna), and she failed to return home. She apparently was staying alone and working on a novel. She was later found murdered.
Lucy is obsessed with searching for answers while it escalates, pouring over social media and this woman's past. Who is keeping secrets? She suspects Adam, Cora, and Scott know more than they are saying. Is she the only one in the dark? How deep does this go?
There is also a mysterious POV in italics that adds mystery and intrigue.
The plot thickens between the three regarding a cover-up from the past. What appears as a close friendship is anything but when the secrets and lies are unraveled.
When the truth comes out, how far this web of lies goes is explosive, starting from the past and its aftermath. There is something more sinister than an affair, and someone else winds up dead.
Wow! THE COUPLE IN THE PHOTO is my first book by Helen Cooper, and I look forward to reading more! Lucy was a great character and highly relatable. This story was realistic and could be ripped from today's headlines. What happens when you learn the truth? Two picture-perfect families with cracks that run deep below the surface.
The author cleverly builds suspense and tension as we follow Lucy, trying to make sense of everything and unravel the secrets. Lucy does not know the level of deception, lies, and manipulation from her husband and friends. No one is as they appear, except for Lucy—many pieces of the puzzle make for a great mystery with adults misbehaving.
Thought-provoking, an exploration of marriages, friendships, and secret pasts. A page-turning domestic suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
How well do you know those closest to you? From well-developed characters to a clever plot with unreliable narrators, for a twisty, engrossing domestic suspense of lies, deceit, manipulation, betrayal, and secrets—how many people and its aftermath ultimately affects marriages, friendship, and motherhood.
THE COUPLE IN THE PHOTO is for fans of Kimberly Belle, Robin Harding, Sally Hepworth, B.A. Paris, and Mary Kubica. I look forward to reading more from this author!
Thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Putnam and NetGalley for a digital advanced reading copy for an honest review.
Blog review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4.5 Stars, rounded to 5
Pub Date: Dec 5, 2023
Dec 2023 Must-Read Books
Dec Newsletter
sthomas77332's review against another edition
3.0
Lucy has a happy family with her husband and two daughters. Her and her husband Adam had an amazingly close relationship with another couple, Scott and Cora, whom Adam had been close friends with since university. The two families did everything together, including buying a vacation house. Life was good. Then Lucy happens to see a picture of a coworkers honeymoon in the Maldives that included Scott with his arms around another women.
Lucy is shocked and determined to get to the bottom of why Scott was in the Maldives with another woman. She is determined to protect her friend, Cora. Lucy loves Scott but now doesn't trust him. She spirals down the trail of the photo, trying to get to the truth, doubting herself, her friends and her husband. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if you can not trust the photos your seeing?
While it was a little slow to start, the story did have some good twists and ah ha moments. I enjoyed it and found myself invested in the story, I did find it a little predictable, however, I read a lot of thrillers. The characters were well developed and easy to connect to. This was my first read from this author. I will definitely be checking out some of her other titles.
Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Publishing group for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Lucy is shocked and determined to get to the bottom of why Scott was in the Maldives with another woman. She is determined to protect her friend, Cora. Lucy loves Scott but now doesn't trust him. She spirals down the trail of the photo, trying to get to the truth, doubting herself, her friends and her husband. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if you can not trust the photos your seeing?
While it was a little slow to start, the story did have some good twists and ah ha moments. I enjoyed it and found myself invested in the story, I did find it a little predictable, however, I read a lot of thrillers. The characters were well developed and easy to connect to. This was my first read from this author. I will definitely be checking out some of her other titles.
Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Publishing group for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
annameix's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
shelfreflectionofficial's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
“She feels like something dangerous. What she knows about me, about us. What she could destroy. I’ve been careless, taken my eye off what’s important, and things have gone too far.”
“My family, my kids. They can never, never know what I’ve done.”
When the first thing that happens in the book is the main character, Lucy, sees a coworker’s photo of a couple they met in the Maldives that appears to be her husband’s best friend with a woman who was not his wife, I worried that we found out too much too fast and it was going to be long and boring.
But luckily, I was wrong. There were many more knots and secrets to untangle as the story goes on.
I also appreciated that this wasn’t just a paranoid character trope. Lucy is more just curious and obsessed with finding the truth by actually looking and finding answers, not just sitting at home and speculating in her mind and wondering if she’s crazy.
That helped move the story along because Lucy kept discovering things and actually made some tough decisions to communicate with the police which I found surprising considering a lot of books I read.
The premise is this:
Adam & Lucy and Scott & Cora are two couples who are best friends. Adam, Scott, and Cora went to Leeds University together and have a history. That history comes to haunt them when Lucy finds out the woman in the photo with Scott— Juliet— was a girl who also went to school with them.
Then Juliet turns up dead in the Maldives- murdered. And Scott was supposedly just with her.
And then the coworker who showed her the photo finds herself in the hospital.
Lucy’s world comes crashing down when more and more secrets are revealed as she searches for the truth.
She might not like what she finds and whoever is hiding from her will do anything to keep those secrets hidden!
I will warn that the end of the book isn’t really a happy ending. It’s not necessarily unsatisfying but the characters are pretty dysfunctional and if you’re a ‘happy ending’ kind of book reader, you may not want to do this one.
I figured out the primary mystery at 30% (i.e. who was narrating the mystery POV sections and who the killer was) but there were other things that I wasn’t sure about throughout the book.
It’s not a high-octane thriller, but more of a suspicion-driven domestic thriller.
There was a decent amount of swearing, but most of the f-words were grouped together during times the characters found out bad news or got hurt and not in constant daily use like an adjective. Not great, but could have been worse.
Overall, a decent book that I would recommend.
Learning Corner
Cooper is a British author so of course here is my little learning corner. These are all food-related words I learned while reading this book:
- Ribena: blackcurrant-based soft drink (carbonated and non); and comes in concentrate to be mixed with water
- cheesy mash: cheesy mashed potatoes
- Quavers: UK equivalent to a Cheeto; a cheesy airy chip named after the musical note- quaver (which is an eighth note); you can buy them on Amazon
- malt loaf: a sweet bread served with butter
- poppadoms: thin round Indian bread
[Content Advisory: 48 f-words, 15 s-words; an affair occurs but no sex scenes]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
“My family, my kids. They can never, never know what I’ve done.”
When the first thing that happens in the book is the main character, Lucy, sees a coworker’s photo of a couple they met in the Maldives that appears to be her husband’s best friend with a woman who was not his wife, I worried that we found out too much too fast and it was going to be long and boring.
But luckily, I was wrong. There were many more knots and secrets to untangle as the story goes on.
I also appreciated that this wasn’t just a paranoid character trope. Lucy is more just curious and obsessed with finding the truth by actually looking and finding answers, not just sitting at home and speculating in her mind and wondering if she’s crazy.
That helped move the story along because Lucy kept discovering things and actually made some tough decisions to communicate with the police which I found surprising considering a lot of books I read.
The premise is this:
Adam & Lucy and Scott & Cora are two couples who are best friends. Adam, Scott, and Cora went to Leeds University together and have a history. That history comes to haunt them when Lucy finds out the woman in the photo with Scott— Juliet— was a girl who also went to school with them.
Then Juliet turns up dead in the Maldives- murdered. And Scott was supposedly just with her.
And then the coworker who showed her the photo finds herself in the hospital.
Lucy’s world comes crashing down when more and more secrets are revealed as she searches for the truth.
She might not like what she finds and whoever is hiding from her will do anything to keep those secrets hidden!
I will warn that the end of the book isn’t really a happy ending. It’s not necessarily unsatisfying but the characters are pretty dysfunctional and if you’re a ‘happy ending’ kind of book reader, you may not want to do this one.
I figured out the primary mystery at 30% (i.e. who was narrating the mystery POV sections and who the killer was) but there were other things that I wasn’t sure about throughout the book.
It’s not a high-octane thriller, but more of a suspicion-driven domestic thriller.
There was a decent amount of swearing, but most of the f-words were grouped together during times the characters found out bad news or got hurt and not in constant daily use like an adjective. Not great, but could have been worse.
Overall, a decent book that I would recommend.
Learning Corner
Cooper is a British author so of course here is my little learning corner. These are all food-related words I learned while reading this book:
- Ribena: blackcurrant-based soft drink (carbonated and non); and comes in concentrate to be mixed with water
- cheesy mash: cheesy mashed potatoes
- Quavers: UK equivalent to a Cheeto; a cheesy airy chip named after the musical note- quaver (which is an eighth note); you can buy them on Amazon
- malt loaf: a sweet bread served with butter
- poppadoms: thin round Indian bread
[Content Advisory: 48 f-words, 15 s-words; an affair occurs but no sex scenes]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
sheyanna's review against another edition
The main character tries to play detective and ignores the police and just blunders things up
smalltownbookmom's review against another edition
4.0
A twisty domestic thriller that sees two close friend couples’ blown up by allegations of infidelity and dark secrets from their last all because of one accidental photo taken by a honeymooning friend. I did not see where this one was going at all. Definitely an entertaining read but I was kind of hoping for more of a gut punch mic drop ending.
thrivingduck's review against another edition
3.5
Well this was a doozy. Definitely fast paced and kept me engaged. The premise of it is a bit unbelievable and I figured that everyone was involved somehow by 50% in.
Giving myself a spoiler summary because I always forget the endings of books I read.
Adam, the main character Lucy’s husband, was in love with Cora, Lucy’s best friend and his university friend / unrequited love. Adam faked a photo of Guy, someone Cora was seeing, kissing another girl at university, Juliet. The faked photo led Cora to go into an angry rage and kill Guy accidentally. Then Adam and Scott, Cora’s now husband, staged an accident to dispose of the body and distance Cora from Guy. In the present times Scott is having an affair with Juliet and a photo of them in the Maldives finds its way to Lucy via a colleague, Ruth’s honeymoon photos. Ruth ends up attacked and unconscious and Lucy received a doctored photo of the photo she saw. In the end Adam faked both the photo during their uni days and in present day and was sending out blackmail emails to Cora, Scott and himself to force Scott to confess to his affair / punish Scott. Scott comes under police suspicion but it turns out Cora committed all the murders. Guy, Juliet, attempted murder on Ruth. Confusing as mud as I write it out.
Giving myself a spoiler summary because I always forget the endings of books I read.
Adam, the main character Lucy’s husband, was in love with Cora, Lucy’s best friend and his university friend / unrequited love. Adam faked a photo of Guy, someone Cora was seeing, kissing another girl at university, Juliet. The faked photo led Cora to go into an angry rage and kill Guy accidentally. Then Adam and Scott, Cora’s now husband, staged an accident to dispose of the body and distance Cora from Guy. In the present times Scott is having an affair with Juliet and a photo of them in the Maldives finds its way to Lucy via a colleague, Ruth’s honeymoon photos. Ruth ends up attacked and unconscious and Lucy received a doctored photo of the photo she saw. In the end Adam faked both the photo during their uni days and in present day and was sending out blackmail emails to Cora, Scott and himself to force Scott to confess to his affair / punish Scott. Scott comes under police suspicion but it turns out Cora committed all the murders. Guy, Juliet, attempted murder on Ruth.
abbycanread_'s review against another edition
3.0
*ARC REVIEW!!*
meh. this book fell really really flat for me. after reading this description, i was very intrigued, and definitely think this book had some promise. unfortunately, it was just wayyyy too predictable and slow, with really shitty characters. i knew the overall premise of the plot and most of the twists a few chapters in, but had to get through 30 more just to see the ending / see if anything changed. i didn’t hate this one, but not sure if i would recommend it!
thank you so much to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for providing this ARC for me to read and review!!
meh. this book fell really really flat for me. after reading this description, i was very intrigued, and definitely think this book had some promise. unfortunately, it was just wayyyy too predictable and slow, with really shitty characters. i knew the overall premise of the plot and most of the twists a few chapters in, but had to get through 30 more just to see the ending / see if anything changed. i didn’t hate this one, but not sure if i would recommend it!
thank you so much to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for providing this ARC for me to read and review!!