His Other Life By Beth Thomas

[amazon_link id=”0007544847″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’His Other Life’ is Beth Thomas’ debut novel.

Grace’s new husband Adam seems like the perfect package. Good looking, great job, completely charming – almost too good to be true. So when Adam suddenly disappears from Grace’s life, she is left bewildered and heartbroken. And with a lot of unanswered questions. As she tries desperately to find him, Grace opens a Pandora’s Box of secrets and lies – and starts to learn that Adam wasn’t so perfect after all. What shameful secrets was her husband hiding? Is Grace in danger? And can she survive the truth? However terrible it may be.

I was curious about ‘His Other Life’ as there was a lot of talk about it on Twitter, people were receiving copies of the book as well as a lock that they had to figure out the code to open it up. So, when I received a copy of the book, I was eager to delve in and like others I thought the book was a gripping and enjoyable read even though I did not wholeheartedly warm to the characters.

The story is seen through the eyes of the protagonist of the story, Grace who’s husband suddenly disappears one night when he goes out to get their takeaway curry. When we meet Grace, we see a woman who has settled in her life. She thought she had met the perfect man when she rented her flat from Adam Littleton, on paper he was the dream man but when Grace marries Adam, she finds herself living a life that was far from what she expected. Adam quickly loses his Prince Charming persona and instead becomes patronising and belittles her. But it’s his secrecy that troubles Grace the most, his phone is never out of his reach and likes Grace to stay away from all his belongings.

So when one night when Adam mysteriously vanishes, it’s almost like Grace’s not surprised and fact that she’s more upset about having no curry for her tea than her husband disappearing also proves that this relationship was most definitely not loves young dream.

The story then follows on as the police investigate the disappearance, Grace finds herself as a possible suspect and she begins to conduct her own private investigation into her husband’s secretive life. But as Grace begins to delve through her husband’s past, she begins to doubt the life that she has been leading has been all a charade.

Grace is an interesting character, she appears meek and doesn’t say much and Adam’s disappearance mainly seems to annoy her than concern her. I found her scenes with the police to be particularly interesting, as she was constantly analysing her behaviour when they visited her with news. Her best friend Ginger provides an element of humour in the story, as she and Grace both work in a fancy dress shop and she regularly turns up on some mad attire when Grace needs her most. Volatile with a heart of gold, she is always there for Grace when times are particularly bad. I did find both Grace and Adam’s parents to be quite strange, almost surreal in a way as they competed with neighbours over the better garden instead of worrying about their son in law.

While Grace works on her investigation about Adam, she has help from Matt, Gingers younger brother who is a policeman. It’s sweet as the two of them try to find clues as well as reminisce over old times when they were teenagers.

As a debut ‘His Other Life’ is most definitely a wittily and uniquely written story. Thought provoking from the first page, we join one woman goes on a quest to unlock the secrets to her husband’s past and find out why he mysteriously disappeared. Gripping.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0007544847″ target=”_blank” ]His Other Life from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.