The Vow by Debbie Howells

Blurb

"Two weeks before her wedding, a stranger stops Amy in the street and warns her she’s in danger. Then that night, Matt, her fiancé, doesn’t come home. Desperate, Amy calls the police – but when Matt fails to emerge, she’s forced to call off her wedding day.

Then another man is reported missing, by a woman called Fiona – a man meeting Matt’s description, who was about to leave his fiancée for her. He was supposed to be moving in with her – but instead, he’s vanished.

Amy refuses to believe Fiona’s lover can be her Matt – but photos prove otherwise, and it soon becomes clear that Matt has been leading a double life. As the police dig deeper, two conflicting, yet equally plausible stories emerge from two women who allegedly have never met.

The wedding day never happened. But the funeral might."

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review

I was really intrigued by the concept of this book but sadly it didn't live up to my expectations. I was keen to find out what had happened to Matt but I thought the execution was a bit clumsy and I found the conversations to be quite stilted at times between the characters. Also, one minute the police were being friendly with Amy, then they were suspicious of her, then they were chatting with her like they were friends... it was all a bit odd.

Amy's character has a lot of secrets, even from herself, and I enjoyed finding out her past as this unravelled alongside the main storyline. It was clever that you didn't really know who to believe between Amy and Fiona, the other woman.

Amy's daughter Jess was the best character in the book and her parts of the story kept me engaged. Although Jess' boyfriend Rik seemed a bit unnecessary to the story as she would ask him to look into something but then find it out herself.

I still think the author had a good idea for the story but the writing could have been improved. I really hate to write a negative review but unfortunately this book just didn't work for me.

I gave this 2 out of 5.