- Length: Not sure— book seems to only exist in eBook format with no page count
- Genre: Psychological thriller
- Overall volume of words you don’t hear every day: light (far and few between)
- Would I read more books from this author? Yes!
- My rating: 4 out of 5
I bought a copy of The Stranger In Our Bed last week when I saw it listed in my BookBub newsletter (if you don’t know what BookBub is, it’s a site that sends you notifications about flash sales on Amazon for Kindle books).
At the time of my purchase— and this is still true today— The Stranger In Our Bed was listed on Amazon for $0.99, so how could I go wrong?
The Plot
The story is narrated by Charlotte Carlisle, a wealthy 30-something stay-at-home wife living in London with her husband, Tom.
Tom is the CEO of Carlisle Corp, a company his family founded years ago. (Although the author doesn’t really explain what Carlisle Corp does, I’d guess it’s some sort of law firm, since Tom and Charlotte met while studying law.)
Not surprisingly, having no kids or career to attend to during her weekdays leaves Charlotte feeling pretty unsatisfied with her day-today— so when a good-looking stranger takes an interest in her, it only makes sense that they have an affair.
As Charlotte’s secret relationship develops, she starts to question whether or not she actually wants to stay married to Tom.
From there, it becomes increasingly obvious that Charlotte may not actually know her husband of 12 years just as well as she thought…
My Critique
Right from the first page, I was hooked on this story. The writing was excellent, and there’s nothing I love more than a good psychological thriller.
Charlotte’s the type of character whose choices and reactions to situations always made sense to me, despite her affluent lifestyle to which I could never relate (not to mention the fact that she’s a Brit and I’m American).
Because this story leaned more towards a psychological thriller rather than a dirty romance novel, I was able to get submersed in the story even despite my distaste for love stories.
I did figure out the story’s main twist, but I liked how the author kept revealing more unexpected details to the story right up until the very end— that alone makes a difference between a mediocre thriller and an outstanding one.
That said, there was one little element I found kind of cheesy: a letter Charlotte was given towards the end of the story that tied up some of the last remaining loose ends. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I think that’s a cheap way to conclude a plotline.
Despite that complaint, though, I thought this book was an overall great read, and I’d definitely be interested in seeing more from Samantha Lee Howe in the future.
Have you read The Stranger In Our Bed yet? What did you think?
