The Innocent Wife by Amy Lloyd (thoughts)

Summary from Goodreads:

"Twenty years ago, Dennis Danson was arrested and imprisoned for the brutal murder of a young girl. Now he’s the subject of a true-crime documentary that’s whipping up a frenzy online to uncover the truth and free a man who has been wrongly convicted.

A thousand miles away in England, Samantha is obsessed with Dennis’s case. She exchanges letters with him, and is quickly won over by his apparent charm and kindness to her. Soon she has left her old life behind to marry him and campaign for his release.

When the campaign is successful and Dennis is freed, however, Sam begins to discover new details that suggest he may not be quite so innocent after all. 

But how do you confront your husband when you don’t want to know the truth?"

My Thoughts:

The Innocent Wife was a compelling read but one that I'm not completely sure how I feel about after finishing.  When I first heard about this book I just couldn't resist the sound of that premise.  I was instantly intrigued and wanted to read it.  Honestly I just fell into the pages of this one from the very beginning.  There is this feeling from the very beginning of uncertainty that really doesn't let up until the very last page.  It's hard to explain but that's the best way I can think to describe it.  For instance, there feels like there is something  slightly "off" with Samantha although I didn't know quite what it was.  Or if I was even right in feeling that way.  Then Samantha and Dennis's relationship begins and that too doesn't feel right.  The entire book was like that for me and it just add this layer of tension and atmosphere that I couldn't get enough of.  I read this book quite literally questioning every character's motivations and actions because I just couldn't trust any of them.  They actually all almost had a layer of ick to them if that even makes sense.  The only character I really liked was Carrie (a secondary character that was doing the documentary on Dennis).  So the author has build this crazy intense vibe where you almost expect anything to happen and then the ending hit.  Stop reading here if you don't want any spoilers (I'll keep them at a minimum but still).  I just could not get behind the ending of this book.  It felt rushed and unexplained in a way that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the story. And I don't honestly know if it was just me - maybe I was just so unprepared for the way it ended that it caused it not to work for me?  I don't know?  I haven't yet read any other reader's thoughts yet because I wanted to write up my thoughts first but I am very curious.  Don't get me wrong as it wrapped things up but just in a way that seemed so much less than the first 3/4ths of the book.  I really don't even know how to explain it other than that.  As always take my thoughts with a grain of salt because really otherwise I found this book to be a very good read.  

Overall, I enjoyed this one but didn't love it for the reasons I stated above.  I will certainly read more by this author and am actually really looking forward to whatever she comes up with next.  I just couldn't not mention the ending when I was still questioning and thinking about it two days later.  I feel like this is a book that would be really great to be discussed with other readers.  I'm looking forward to doing just that if I'm being honest so if you've read this book leave me a comment so we can discuss!  I was trying to decide how I would rate this book and I still think that I would give it four stars overall.  The ending threw me a bit but the rest of it was just so good!  I would recommend this book to readers of suspense and thrillers.

Bottom Line:  A compelling and suspenseful read that left me wanting a bit at the end.

Disclosure:  I received a copy of this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley.  Thoughts are my own.