The Happy Couple by Samantha Hayes
Genre: Psychological thriller, domestic thriller
Read: 27th September 2020
Published: 6th May 2020
★★★ 3 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Me and Will. Will and Me. A perfect match. He said he would always be there for me, but it’s been a year since he drained his coffee, walked out the front door and vanished.
Did he leave me? Or did something terrible happen? I’m scared someone finally found out about what happened on the drive home that night…
I lie awake at night trawling the internet for rental properties, desperate for an escape. Until I see my husband’s gorgeous face smiling back at me from a photograph on the fireplace in someone else’s home, and something inside of me snaps.
At the house, I find no trace of him and the woman who lives there has no idea who I am. But I’m certain she’s hiding something behind the locked door upstairs. I know that if I want answers, I have to stay.
You might think that what’s inside that room is the answer to all my questions and the end of all my pain. But it’s only the beginning…
Nail-biting and completely gripping, The Happy Couple will make you question how well you really know the ones you love. Perfect reading for anyone who adored by The Wife Between Us, The Girl on The Train or Gone Girl.
MY REVIEW:
I really wanted to like this book. I tried to. I really did. I didn't even give up on it like I do with most books that don't hold my interest past 20%...but it was just so slow from the outset. Too slow. And Jo...well, she just annoyed me. The fact that there were so many questions I wanted answers to that made me keep reading...and I guess I was rewarded to some extent, as it DID get better.
Jo's husband Will has been missing for a year. One day he just went to work...and didn't come home. And Jo has spent the past year searching for him. Trolling through missing person websites in the hope she will see Will's familiar face on there. But now it's been a year and there is still no sign of him. Her best friend Louise has tried setting her up with various friends but Jo isn't interested. She just wants Will.
Jo adored Will. She thought they were the perfect couple with the perfect marriage. They were happy...blissfully happy...but there was something Jo wanted more. A baby. And try as they might, they had failed to fall pregnant. Then three months after Will disappeared, Louise announces she's pregnant...and Jo is speechless. I mean, she is happy for her friend but she is also devastated that she and husband Archie had managed something she and Will never could.
Now it's approaching a year since Will's disappearance and Jo is no closer to finding him. After being roped into another matchmaking dinner at Louise and Archie's, Jo takes her friend's advice and decides to take a "house-sitting" holiday. But as she searches the "House Angels" house-sitting website Louise initially signed her up for, she comes across a house that has photos of her missing husband on display. Not one, but THREE photos of Will displayed along the mantle-piece. Three photos she recognised. Two which she had taken and the third that had included her but she had been cut out of to display just Will.
So why were there photos of her missing husband at this random house? Near Hastings, of all places? Where she and Will had planned to spend a weekend break before he disappeared? Is this where he has been living for the past year? Shacked up with another woman?
The house is Hawthorn Lodge. The owner is Suzanne. She has one cat and one dog who require looking after in her absence, and her application is accepted.
Arriving at the house late on a Friday night, Jo is welcomed by the neighbour Simon who lets her in. All at once she is eager to see the photos on the mantle but as soon as she enters the living room, she sees that they have gone! Had she just imagined those photos of Will? Surely not. She screenshot the image that displayed those three photos prominently and she kept checking to see that they were still there. And they were. But now they are not.
And then there is the locked spare room for which she has no key. What is behind that locked door that the owner doesn't want her to see? Then when Jo discovers spare keys to Hawthorn Lodge between the cushions at Simon's place when he nips to the bathroom, she quickly pockets them after clocking there are an extra two keys to the set than she had been given. But when she unlocks the door to the room one night, nothing will prepare her for what lay behind the door.
Even more so, she is even less prepared for the early return of Suzanne who goes as white as a ghost and faints as soon as she sees Jo.
So who is Suzanne? Why does she have photos of Will? And why does Jo's presence send Suzanne into an almost catatonic state? And what has any of this got to do with Will's disappearance? Does Suzanne know something she's not saying?
A slow burner that was a little too slow, THE HAPPY COUPLE is anything but. Jo thought they were happy and she was obviously devastated by his disappearance but as the story progresses it left me scratching my head as to why she held on to such an image. They clearly were anything but happy. In the flashback snippets we saw of Will, I didn't like him at all. He appeared to use coercion to maintain an element of control - of situations and of Jo. How she could not see that is beyond me. And then there was Jo herself. I did not like her at all. Her constant whining and excessive dialogue with the apparition of her missing husband were somewhat irritating. As was she.
Told solely from Jo's perspective, THE HAPPY COUPLE sees the present day woven with flashbacks of the past from before Will disappeared as the bigger picture begins to slowly unfold and secrets start to unravel. There were several eye rolling moments and I quickly tired of Jo's whining and constantly seeing her missing husband everywhere she went to conversing with him! There were some twists which had me ruminating over as I puzzled out where everyone fit into this not entirely discombobulated story. The big reveals, when they came, were no great shock as I had managed to figure them out myself...but even so, I wasn't wowed by it at all.
The ending was a little disappointing as well when I know the author is capable of so much better. However, although I didn't love this one I didn't hate it either. It just took longer to get interesting and the main character was excessively irritating. And though I didn't love it, I look forward to her next book.
I would like to thank #SamanthaHayes, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheHappyCouple in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Samantha Hayes grew up in the West Midlands, left school at sixteen, avoided university and took jobs ranging from being a private detective to barmaid to fruit picker and factory worker. She lived on a kibbutz, and spent time in Australia and the USA, before finally becoming a crime-writer.
Samantha has been a full-time author since 2006. Her novels are family-based psychological thrillers, with the emphasis being on ‘real life fiction’. She focuses on current issues, and when she writes, she sets out to maker her reader ask, ‘What if this happened to me or my family?’
With three children of her own, Samantha is well-versed to talk about how the aftershocks of crime impact upon families and communities.
Samantha lives in Warwickshire with her family.
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