The Perfect Betrayal by Lauren North
also published as "The Perfect Son" (in North America)
Genre: Psychological thriller, domestic thriller
Read: 19th July 2019
Purchase: Amazon
(release dates 14th March 2019 - Transworld Digital)
★★★★★ 5 stars
This book is just so bloody brilliant I have no words! The twist and that ending. No way did I see that coming! The shock left me reeling as it culminated to the last page. And then all the pieces finally fell into place and everything made perfect sense now. By the time I finished I wondered how on earth I was going to review it.
As the story begins, Tess is in ICU after being stabbed. How she was stabbed or by who was a mystery at this stage. She is incoherent from the strong painkillers they have her on but of one thing she is clear - her son Jamie is missing.
Of course the police are investigating, taking statements and asking questions...but why aren't they out there looking for Jamie? Tess points them in the direction of Shelley. She must have Jamie. Her and Ian, her brother-in-law. They are working together. Please, she whispers...find Jamie.
This may be where the book starts off, but it's not where the story begins...There is so much more that culminates to this point that will leave you tingling, breathless and yes, even crying. This book is so emotive I cannot even begin to tell you the range of emotions you feel reading it. So let's start at the beginning...
After the untimely death of her husband Mark in a plane crash, Tess is devastated. She struggles to come to terms with losing him, her grief and how to go on living without him. But at least she has Jamie, their 7 year old son. Without him, she would have nothing. Together, they would get through this. But neither of them know how to express their grief without anger, each drowning in their anguish.
Then one day Shelley Lange breezes in, filling the dark house with her bright cheeriness where there had only been sorrow. As a grief counsellor, Shelley was enlisted by her concerned mum to help Tess through her bereavement. But as Tess soon discovered, unlike anyone else, Shelley understood her pain, her anguish, her sorrow and her complete heartbreak. And unlike anyone else, Tess let Shelley into her world. She came to look forward to her visits and Jamie adored her. His face lit up each time Shelley was around, and Tess' heart broke a little each time wishing she had that same effect on her son.
As the days turn into weeks, Tess finds herself depending on Shelley more and more, cutting herself off from everyone as Shelley fends off calls from family and friends on Tess' behalf.
But then strange things begins to happen. Tess gets the feeling she is being watched. Someone is following her. She starts getting threatening calls from an unknown number along with hang ups. Cars tailing her in the lane. Items are missing from her house and papers have been rifled through. Someone has been in her house. But who? She can only think of one person who has a key - her brother-in-law Ian.
Ian began bothering her about money Mark had supposedly lent him. But she can find no record of the loan and still Ian is adamant, claiming he told her all this at the funeral. The funeral?? For pity's sake, she was burying the love of her life and Ian was worried about some money??!! Why talk to her about it at the funeral? She could barely remember it, such was her grief. But he keeps pestering her, to the point Shelley stepped in and blocked his moves. In the end he leaves her with a form to sign to renounce herself as executor of Mark's will and leaving Ian as sole executor. Does he have an ulterior motive?
But between the calls from the man with the gravelly voice about Mark and Ian's claim that he'd had borrowed £100,000, Tess begins to wonder just what had her husband done? And why hadn't he told her?
Then Jamie begins to act out. He starts screaming at her and saying he wishes Shelley was his mummy! What has Shelley been saying to her son? Then one night, Tess wakes to find Shelley in Jamie's room sitting on the bed and singing him a lullaby, just as a mother would. When Shelley turns, the hate in her eyes pierces Tess to her core.
With the series of unsettling events, Tess begins to wonder just who can she trust? She begins to suspect Shelley as well as Ian, and more than once Tess heard Shelley and Ian angrily exchanging words in hushed tones. Was Shelley protecting her? Or was there something else going on? She begins begins to write things down, making note of all the unsettling occurrences, her fear that someone was out to get her and Jamie, the phone calls, the man in the garden...and then the hushed tones between Shelley and Ian. Was she going mad with grief or should she feel afraid? Tess didn't know anymore.
Which leaves us with the question - just who was betraying who?
Narrated primarily by Tess, there are snippets from Ian and Shelley sprinkled throughout as well as the questioning of Tess in the aftermath of her stabbing. These chapters are layered perfectly as the main story gradually unfolds through Tess' eyes. Her one line responses to conversations with Mark are heartbreaking, as she relives moments in time of the life they had shared together. An emotionally charged book, it is also an absorbing, riveting and massively addictive thriller I could not put down!
THE PERFECT BETRAYAL is exactly what a good psychological thriller should be. It was well written with deftly woven layers of emotion and suspense creating the type of thriller that makes you question everything everyone says and does - even Tess. And yet I never thought such a twisty thriller like this could have me crying by the end...but it did. The wealth of grief is so immense that your heart just breaks for Tess by the end of this book.
Honestly, I thought THE PERFECT BETRAYAL was going to be just another domestic thriller. And that's OK - as long as the story is compelling and intriguing I don't care as I would enjoy it anyways. But I was so wrong! This book is NOTHING like that. It is so much more. The immense depression, grief and emotions are completely heartbreaking. Everyone's motivations remain hidden throughout. Nothing is as it seems as you question everything. But it's the ending that will have you shocked and in tears. The twist that changed everything and yet it changed nothing. One thing is for sure, that ending will remain with me for a long time to come...and not every book does that to me.
THE PERFECT BETRAYAL is a title you really have the think about to make sense of. And by the end, you will. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If I could give it TEN STARS I would!
I would like to thank #LaurenNorth, #NetGalley and #RandomHouseUK #TransworldPublishers for an ARC of #ThePerfectBetrayal in exchange for an honest review.
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