The Other Couple
My rating: * * *
Goodreads Description
A dark, twisty psychological thriller set in paradise Amber wakes up in a Vietnamese hospital; she has been left for dead on the holiday of a lifetime after a night-time swim in the picturesque So Den caves. We flashback to her fairytale wedding with Ollie, where a mystery guest puts in motion a change of events that will lead to murder. Unable to come to terms with the police's version of events, Amber returns to the scene of the crime. She remembers that there was another couple during the night of the murder. And the killer is still out there...
My Review
This is one of those stories that I just couldn't get in to properly. It had all the makings of a great read - a romantic wedding, a honeymoon-gone-wrong in Vietnam, memory loss, trauma, murder - but yet I just never really bonded with this story.
It would seem to me that I'm just having "one of those years", being a year in which a lot of books that I'm reading are good, without being great. Yes, I've read a few absolute pearls this year so far, but I've also read a lot of average reads, and so perhaps the problem lies with me and my reading mojo, and not so much with the book itself.
Asha comes from a somewhat modest background and she has married a wealthy man, Ollie. Although it's clear that their social backgrounds are very different, they seem to genuinely love each other. However, on their honeymoon, Ollie starts to act strangely, becoming distant, evasive, uninterested in sex and generally withdrawn. At first Asha is convinced that he's merely stressed about work issues, but soon she starts to wonder whether her new husband is actually hiding something.
This story switches back and forth between the present, when Asha is in a hospital bed, and the time before the honeymoon, back to the wedding and the events of that day. It doesn't take long for an uneasy feeling to develop, and I found myself wondering whether it was Ollie or indeed Asha that had enemies.
This is a good read. It's a twisty psychological thriller, and one that many people have found highly entertaining. I enjoyed this one, but as I mentioned earlier, I never found myself totally invested, never on the absolute edge of my seat, never forcing my eyes to stay open to read another page. This one will go onto my list of read and enjoyed. If the blurb appeals to you, give it a go, because the problem may indeed be mine.
My Rating: * * *
Publication Date: March 2018 (South Africa)
Genre: General Fiction
Format: Trade Paperback
Source: Review copy received from the publisher. Many thanks to author, Sarah J. Naughton and Jonathan Ball SA for my copy. It was my pleasure to read and review this title.
