Before We Met

Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse

Published by Bloomsbury

8th May 2014

Paperback Edition

 

A whirlwind romance.  A perfect marriage.  Hannah Reilly has seized her chance at happiness.  Until the day her husband fails to come home . . .The more questions Hannah asks, the fewer answers she finds.  But are the secrets that Mark has been keeping designed to protect him or protect her?  And can you ever really know what happened before you met...?

 

This has been billed as the UK's equivalent to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (which I did enjoy, but felt the ending was a bit 'pfff'), and has been featured on the Richard & Judy Summer Book Club of 2014.  I only heard about it from watching the Specsavers TV Book Club as it is one of their featured reads.  Adele Parks reviewed it, and sucked me in.  I wanted to read more.  I read Lucie Whitehouse's first book The Bed I Made when it came out, and it's very 'Sleeping with the Enemy' in context, and I loved it, so I figured I'd love this too.

Hannah is married to Mark, it's been a whirlwind courtship, and a wirlwind marriage, and she's given up her life in America to come to England to be with him.  On the day she expects him to fly back into the country, she is left waiting at the airport.  Mark isn't answering his phone, and he certainly wasn't on the flight.  Maybe Hannah has the wrong date?  He doesn't turn up the following day either, and his PA seems to think he's on holiday with Hannah on a trip to Rome.  Now Hannah is becomming a bit suspicious.  Mark makes contact but his answers still don't satifsy Hannah, who starts to do some digging of her own.  How well does she really know the man that she married?

I was grabbed right from the off, Hannah has married this young, rich, successful businessman, but once he fails to return home, his story becomes doubtful and you start to side with Hannah into thinking there is more to him than she is aware.  In the middle of the book, I was a bit disappointed because I thought the plot had taken a different turn and I didn't want that to be the case (don't want to spoil the plot so having to be a bit vague here).  However, I continued, and I'm glad that I did as it ends with a fabulous fast-paced climax that has you turning the pages in haste to find out what is going to happen next.  I enjoyed her first book, and I did with this one too.  It's safe to say that I'll be picking up the next Lucie Whitehouse when it hits the shops!

 

Happy Reading

 

Miss Chapter x