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The Ideal Wife

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The Ideal Wife

By: Annie Ward
Narrated by: Paul Fox, Vivienne Leheny, Xe Sands
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About this listen

In the most explosive and twisted psychological thriller since The Woman in the Window, a perfect love story leads to the perfect crime.

It seemed like such a beautiful marriage....

Maddie and Ian's love story began with a chance encounter at a party, while she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now, almost two decades later, they are married with a beautiful son, Charlie, and living the perfect suburban life in middle America.

But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian, her concerns for the safety of their young son and the couple's tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.

Following their story across the globe, 16 years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in a frantic 911 call summoning the police to the scene of a shocking crime.....

Previously published as Beautiful Bad.

©2018 Annie Ward (P)2018 Quercus Editions Limited Psychological Suspense Fiction Thriller Camping Marriage

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Intriguing but...

This is single hardest book to review that I have listened to on Audible. It's tricky and impossible without tiptoeing into spoiler territory.

The book starts off as a thriller/mystery but it is interwoven with a romance in flashbacks and also a drama story between two women. The romance is the least interesting thread for me, and the performance really grated on me - I was at the point where if he called her "Petal" one more time, I was going to crack. The female performance is overwrought and whilst that adds to the thrilled atmosphere, it's agitating to listen to. I thought the friendship between the women was compelling and I was frustrated by how this played out overall.

In the spoiler territory, this is a story that relies on having a huge twist which is dramatic and changes your whole perspective of the story. Listening through the book a second time a year or more later, I could appreciate some of the elements more knowing what was coming, but it hard to not feel a bit like the story is all a bit of a misleading journey.

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