The Bigamist by Rona Halsall
Genre: Psychological thriller, Domestic thriller
Read: 5th July 2023
Published: 5th July 2023
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
‘I’m sorry, Sam’s not available,’ says the woman who answers my husband’s phone. I can’t place her voice, so I politely ask who she is. Her answer sends my world spinning out of control: ‘I’m his wife.’
I know I want to marry Sam the moment I meet him. After I lost my beloved mother so suddenly, this charming, softly spoken architect with his deep-brown eyes is just the fresh start I’ve been searching for.
I’m delighted to be expecting our first child before we’ve even had a chance to plan a honeymoon. I want our family to work so I try to ignore his long work trips. I turn a blind eye to the private calls he takes and I listen to his excuses about why the money keeps disappearing from my bank account. After all, he has no idea what I’ve been doing in our house whilst he’s away or how I really made that money.
Then I find out Sam’s got more to hide than I ever imagined was possible. Because my husband is leading a double life. He’s already married to someone else.
But what Sam doesn’t know is that he’s not the only person keeping secrets.
And he has no idea how far I’ll go to protect myself…
A totally unputdownable, twisty, will-leave-you-gasping story of marriage, guilt and lies. If you love Lisa Jewell, Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins, you will not be able to sleep until you’ve finished every last page of The Bigamist.
MY THOUGHTS:
"Hello." A woman's voice.
Emma frowned., puzzled, but she knew she'd got the right number. Sam must be busy and his client had answered his phone, which was definitely out of order. Her annoyance racheted up another notch, her voice strident, impatient.
"Hi, it's Emma. Sam's wife. Do you think I could speak to him please?"
Silence for a beat. "What are you talking about. I'm his wife."
The tone of her voice told Emma this wasn't a joke, and her mouth dropped open as the meaning of the words hit home. No, she must have misheard. His wife?
**************************************************************************
WARNING! This book is full of red flags! None of which our main character takes any notice!
So as a domestic-slash-psychological thriller expert like me, you may be fooled into thinking that you know exactly where this is going and how it's all going to end. Right? WRONG! Rona lulls you into a false sense of "easy-peasy" just another bloke who wants his cake and to eat it too, right? Wrong again! THE BIGAMIST throws you completely off course and unlike any other author has been able to hoodwink me completely and thoroughly! No mean feat, either. Hats off to you, Rona, for what it possibly one of your best thrillers to date (I still love "The Honeymoon").
Emma is grieving. Her whole world has been torn apart with loss after loss after loss. Her mother, her miscarriage, her husband's tragic accident. And so she finds herself at a bereavement group. There she meets quiet shy architect Sam and his sister Faith, a psychologist who organises the group. Their relationship quickly escalates and before long Sam is spending all his time at Emma's flat when he is not on site with clients. One day, he asks her if she could have any house she wanted, what would she like? And so together they play the fantasy of the perfect house for the three children she plans on having. So when he bursts in excitedly one morning with plans to show her, Emma is quickly swept up in his excitement. He has nailed it. Her perfect home. And together they decide if he can find the perfect location, he will build her her dream home.
Then Emma discovers she is pregnant. This has been her dream she has longed for and she is over the moon. She longs to be a mother and together with Sam it will be perfect. When she tells him, he proposes and they marry in a quiet affair. And when he finds the perfect location for her house, they pack up and move north and live in a secluded holiday rental while her dream home is being built. Sam works long hours for other clients whilst juggling their new build, and his work takes him all over the country trying to secure contracts to help build a better life (and home) for them.
But the weeks drag into months and there seems to be little progress. Sam assures her this is all normal bureaucratic red tape that comes with planning permissions and so forth. Says he's never failed to gain permission in the past and that this is just a blip. But this is her money she's investing. Money paid for compensation after her husband's tragic accident. And then when she's flicking through a magazine in the doctor's waiting room, she sees something which catches her eye. Her painting. On the wall of someone else's house. How could this be? That painting is a one off. It's personal to her. She doesn't understand. Until she sees the architect's name. Sam. It was an award winning design for him but that was her painting on a stranger's wall. Furious with him she calls him for a "pleas explain" and is instead greeted with a woman's voice telling her that she's his wife - not her! What the hell is going on??
One thing is for sure...Sam has been keeping secrets, but to what extent? And while he may have his secrets, so does Emma. But who has the biggest secret of all?
Wow! This was one wild ride that I did not want to stop as I read late into the night. It certainly kept me guessing right up till the end that I was completely blindsided. How did I not see that? Rona Halsall deftly creates illusion after illusion that is all smoke and mirrors, and I was gullible enough to fall right into the trap she laid.
I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller that was riddled with red flags - the fact that Emma failed to take heed of any should have been a red flag in itself! But she was in love. And she was pregnant. It was all she ever wanted. But so many secrets. And only a handful of characters. How is this going to turn out? And then just when I thought I knew it all, Halsall turned the tables with another twist that left me literally me speechless. The pace is fast, and those short snappy chapters keep it moving even quicker.
As I said, there are only a handful of characters and I can't say I warmed to any of them. They all seemed to be keep secrets. Yet they were each angered by the other keeping secrets. Pot...kettle...and all that. But oh, how it kept me thoroughly entertained. Definitely up there as one of her best to date!
Overall, THE BIGAMIST is a cleverly twisted tale where nothing is as it seems, that is fast paced, addictive and delivers a shocking big bang of an ending. 5 stars.
I would like to thank #RonaHalsall, #Netgalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheBigamist in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Rona was born in Nottingham, grew up near Blackpool and went to college in Leeds. She then moved to Snowdonia, North Wales where she brought up her family while working as a business mentor.
She is an outdoorsy person and loves stomping up a mountain, walking the coastal paths and exploring the wonderful beaches on the Island while she's plotting how to kill off her next victim. She also makes sure she deletes her Google history on a regular basis, because... well, you can't be too careful when you spend your life researching new and ingenious ways for people to die.
She has three children and two step-children who are now grown up and leading varied and interesting lives, which provides plenty of ideas for new stories!
Rona lives on the Isle of Man with her husband, two dogs and three guinea pigs. She has been a bookworm since she was a child and now she's actually creating stories of her own, which still feels like a dream come true.
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