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I enjoyed the way the author wrote this book. For example, without spoilers of course, the author uses a duel timeline and moves the past closer to the present throughout the book. It never jumps around which makes it a lot easier to comprehend and follow. Art is trying to help Mimi find love in the tune of an altrgorohim. I found this an easy read but wasn't truly invest I'm the characters. For me the pacing is slow and I haven't felt a connect to Mimi or Art. I feel at times this book is a bit long winded. I was excited to read the book because I liked the premise. Unfortunately, I had difficulty with this book. Ms. Lees has written two psychological thrillers. The bucolic, unrefined English countryside and the gritty, congested London streets serve as inspiration for her stories. In the first of her novels, The Girl Upstairs, we start learning about the complicated, passive/aggressive relationship between downstairs Suzie and upstairs Emily. OK, so firstly, THAT alone brings the rating down for me. Why kill an animal so brutally? Why kill it at all? To me, it is senseless. I know it fitted in with the context of the story and by the end it did make a whole lot of sense but still...killing a dog, let alone bashing its head in with a shovel, is a big no no and my rating down will reflrect this. Emily seems to follow a predictable pattern- on Mondays the odors from Emily’s Italian dinner waft upstairs so Suzie cooks a frozen lasagne on Mondays. On Tuesdays is an eggy dish of some kind, Wednesdays Emily goes for the meats. Thursday through Sunday is dedicated to drinking wine with Chinese takeaway on Saturday night.
In the present we meet a woman and a young boy who are on the run. They go to a holiday cottage in the Peak District. Their presence there seems to have been arranged before hand. The woman has little money, even less petrol, and is becoming more and more desperate. Also, she has a nasty knife wound on her arm. She dare not go to a hospital because someone is after her... The wound turns septic... The little boy, Josh, becomes more and more traumatized though the woman is trying to protect him. I would recommend it to my fellow domestic thriller readers but perhaps not as the best example of the genre. To keep it completely 100 with ya'll, this is the designer version of The Wife Between Us. I absolutely hated TWBU because of the amateur hour writing, but Lees can actually write, so the twists landed better. I couldn't make this comparison without the spoiler warning because now you know wassup. Anyways. I don't think it was a rip off, but it's definitely similar. The plot is conveyed beneath a veil of claustrophobia in this somewhat grim novel since everyone is imprisoned in their own private emotional universe. Even a smidgeon of kindness and childlike innocence fails to untie this Gordian knot.
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The present is set during Lea and Harry's wedding day and is about a woman on the run. I can't say too much about this, but you feel that certain things are not right. I found the atmosphere mysterious and the tension was slowly built up. The alternation between the past and the present was nice, but I found the plot a bit disappointing, despite a number of plot twists. My first read by Lees and I would give her another read in the future. Just no killing of dogs, PLEASE!! Now, the downfall of this book happens at 93%. I mean tbh 88%-93% was a lil questionable, but I could still look past it and finish the book with positive vibes. But after 93%? Absolutely not. Haterific vibes only. This is my official petition to stop Scooby Doo endings. Just PLEASE trust that your readers can put the missing puzzle pieces together. We don't actually need the baddie play-by-play after the "final showdown." Just wrap this up and let me put down my Kindle without cringing. A la Verity, we're forced to endure a tell-all letter to the victim from the baddie. But why? It always makes it worse. Some things are better left unexplained. THE AUTHOR: Georgina studied creative writing and film at university and has since pursued a career in video-games journalism, covering some of the most popular games in the world. Her psychological thrillers are inspired by her surroundings, from the congested London streets to the raw English countryside. She can be found playing games, writing stories, and reading anything from fantasy to crime fiction. This is my first time reading a book by Georgina Lees and all I can say is WOW! From cover to cover, I was hooked.’⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
If you enjoy evenly-paced, character-driven thrillers featuring characters that might not always be likeable, then you may enjoy this novel. The story unfolds through the alternating timelines of the present and respective months leading up to the present day. It follows Lea who has lived happily with Harry, the father of her four year old son Josh, for the past five years. Until someone plants the idea of marriage in her head. And Lea wants to know why Harry doesn't want to get married. Or is it that he just doesn't want to marry her? Until the night he surprises her by proposing. And then things slowly start to unravel as well as escalate. Beginning with a shadowy, unsettling scene of a desperate woman and child fleeing into the night, ‘The Lost Wife’ tugs at your curiosity right from the start. Written with an impressive chilling tone, the story is enthralling as it takes you on a roller coaster of unexpected twists and turns. The author smoothly transitions between timelines, providing an intriguing juxtaposition of how the past informs the fractured present. This past story follows Leah as she finally prepares to marry her successful partner Harry who’s also the father of her child and from the instant he proposes things start to unravel and further escalate as they reach full momentum. Leah is largely dissatisfied with her current life but trying to convince herself she’s not and Harry who is secretive and becoming increasingly controlling. We follow Lea and Harry through thier realtionships and some ups and downs we have chapter going to the past and in the present day. The description make this book very eerie as you are following theseThe characters in ‘The Lost Wife’ are what truly draw you into the story. Our protagonist is a flawed, yet utterly relatable woman, whose life has been turned upside down by her husband’s secret. As the story develops, it becomes evident that each of them is trapped within their own emotional turmoil, struggling against the grim reality of their lives. Watching these characters navigate the treacherous webs of deception adds a layer of tension that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I enjoyed this story until about halfway. Then the dog was killed and that took away most of my enjoyment by which time I just wanted to know how it all ended. I didn't care either way. My main issue with the story, apart from the brutal slaying of the dog, is that it is largely depressing. Nothing happy happens in the book. Not even the wedding was a happy occasion. Or the engagement before that. Everything is shrouded in a shadow of despondency. The lost wife' has two storylines. One is set in the present and the other one is set a year before Lea and Harry's wedding. You get closer and closer to the day of the wedding and in the meantime you read more and more about Lea and Harry's relationship. It seems that Harry has something to hide. He throws himself completely into work and Lea regularly cannot get in touch with him. What is he hiding from her? Thank you @onemorechapterhc and @glees_author for my gifted copy and for including me in this read-along!
The Lost Wife is a slightly better than an okay read, but definitely doesn't live up to this author's first book. Fantastic book! Big praise to the author because I did not see that coming! Fantastic plot and well written. Could not put it down.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ There was also a big twist which I actually hadn’t seen coming so that was well done and then the conclusion did manage to give me some closure but I wasn’t a fan of the letter. Overall this was a decent well written psychological thriller it just didn’t have any feel-good vibes to it so was equally quite depressing. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of The Lost Wife. The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything by Kara Gnodde is a tender, intelligent and uplifting novel about love in all its forms, and how life is more than just a numbers game . . .In the present, a woman arrives at a cottage on the run because her husband was a sneaky snake. And in the past, a woman comes to terms with the fact her husband isn't who she thinks she is. So I absolutely loved Georgina Lees' writing in After the Party, but I felt she was trying too hard to make it a thriller and I, an insignificant reader, recommended she focus more on a character-driven story. Now, do I think Lees actually read my review and said Girlwiththepinkskimask, you right!!!?? No. But regardless, this book is definitely more character driven and less like its trying to fit the mold.
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