The Perfect Wife

A Novel

By: JP Delaney

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Graham Halstead, Euan Morton, JP Delaney

The perfect life. The perfect love. The perfect lie. From the best-selling author of The Girl Before comes a gripping new psychological thriller....

“Mind-bending...Delaney takes domestic suspense beyond its comfort zone.” (The New York Times Book Review)

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Public Library • A Cosmopolitan New Must-Read

Abbie awakens in a daze with no memory of who she is or how she landed in this unsettling condition. The man by her side claims to be her husband. He’s a titan of the tech world, the founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most innovative start-ups. He tells Abbie that she is a gifted artist, an avid surfer, a loving mother to their young son, and the perfect wife. He says she had a terrible accident five years ago and that, through a huge technological breakthrough, she has been brought back from the abyss.

She is a miracle of science.

But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins to question her husband’s motives - and his version of events. Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together forever? And what really happened to her, half a decade ago?

Beware the man who calls you...

The Perfect Wife.

Praise for The Perfect Wife

"A twisty, completely original psychological thriller that grabs you from the start and doesn’t let go until the very end." (Karen Cleveland, New York Times best-selling author of Need to Know)

"Seriously, amazingly, awesomely brilliant...speculative fiction mixed up with a mind-bendingly twisty psycho thriller! I devoured it." (C. J. Tudor, author of The Chalk Man)

"A tour de force...The Perfect Wife is a chilling and uniquely disturbing twenty-first-century twist on the unreliable narrator that makes for a compulsive and deeply thought-provoking book. It asks troubling questions about selfhood and ‘souls’ and what makes us human, and plays them out in a compelling psychological thriller." (Cara Hunter, author of Close to Home)

©2019 JP Delaney (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"The Perfect Wife blew my mind! What a wonderful and unique thriller. I haven’t been able to put it down since it arrived, and now that I’ve finished I can’t stop thinking about it! Those last lines...wow! JP Delaney has outdone himself with his latest dynamic, razor-sharp, and thought-provoking thriller. The Perfect Wife is a cutting-edge suspense novel unlike any you’ve read before.... A must-read!" (Mary Kubica, New York Times best-selling author of The Good Girl)

"Readers...will be rewarded with a fresh take on the domestic thriller that will leave them satisfied." (Booklist)

"Puts - almost perfectly - a high-tech spin on the stories of Frankenstein and Pygmalion with a tinge of the Stepford wives.... The intriguing plot leads to a chilling and surprising finale that perfectly caps The Perfect Wife." (Associated Press)

"Artificial intelligence might seem like a risky plot device, and the premise of the novel itself is tricky at best, but Delaney pulls it off brilliantly, with an intoxicating knack for suspense. This is the kind of novel ugly words like ‘unputdownable’ were invented for. With the tale of Abbie, Delaney delivers a sharp reflection on misogyny.... With every thriller must come a dizzying plot twist and an unforeseeable denouement, as is definitely the case here.... Everything about The Perfect Wife feels earned and satisfying.... This journey is a captivating, deeply engrossing one." (The Independent)

Not that great

Didn’t love it. Found myself ready for it to be over. It was boring and dull most of the time with no twists or excitement

AI alive or dead

It took time to comprehend the perspective of the narrator. Once you realized what was going on the way the book was written, made sense. Right now I’m perplexed with the goal of the deceit? What did Tim have to gain? If he viewed women as sex bots, just get legal to make an NDA before .,.sex! I had a hard time with feeling for a robot! I’m intrigued with the interaction AI and Danny (autistic child). Could a robot communicate with autistic child better?

Good but could have been better

I was looking forward to listening to this book. Unfortunately, it did not meet my exceptions. It had too much filler so was about an hour long and gratuitous language. I have another book by this author that I'm not sure if I'll even listen to it.

Highly Recommend!

I read the reviews and decided to give it a listen. It immediately caught me off guard and I was convinced that I just wasted one of my credits - boy was I wrong!! What an incredible book, with a new concept and very well written and performed.

Surprised at the end.

I loved the story and narration. I really enjoyed the clear distinction between past and present. I am a recent fan of this author and plan to read more of his books.

checks all the boxes

My 2 favorite topics are AI (and its ethical use) and psychological thrillers, maybe with a jolt of feminism and strong female characters. Maybe I am an AI, as I came to the same conclusion the AI did (or the author masterfully led me down a path). I did not see the ending coming. In ways, this book was more realistic than far fetched. Listen to the author's note at the end, and I do know people like one of his main characters. Best I listened to in a while.

Just okay

Hard to believe from the get go and, to me, the ending was predictable too soon so I slogged through. I’m not a sci fi lover so maybe that made it less l than a top rated story to me. Just so so.

Outstanding.

gives a vivid compassionate window into autism. the character development and plot development are absolutely wonderful. nothing is predictable in this book except what you're supposed to think is going to happen. And then it doesn't. You will not be disappointed.

Worth a listen but still a little disappointed

I was so excited for a new JP Delaney novel after The Girl Before. I’m not interested in tech at all but he seamlessly wove that part of the story into a gripping story about love, mystery, and betrayal.
So when The Perfect Wife started out as more of a sci-fi novel I decided to give it a chance since this was an author I’d raved about many times before.
Unfortunately, the story just never took off for me. I was waiting for a hook that didn’t come until the last 20 minutes of the book. Things didn’t start revving up until I was 85% done and as a result I found myself getting bored and losing focus fairly often while listening to this one.
The overall concept was interesting and knowing that something unexpected was coming definitely kept me interested but to be honest, I only kept listening because the book details told me there would be a twist.
All and all, he can do better and I hope he does next time. This hasn’t put me off his books and I’m excited to see what he comes up with in the future.

Good premise but not well executed

I liked this idea. But I feel like the author was always fighting its sci fi elements instead of truly exploring them and embracing them. The use of second person was weird and distracting. At times the book felt like it was more about autism and the merits of various therapies than it was about the true storyline and I think the authors own autistic son made it hard for him to root out unnecessary passages relating to the son’s autism in the book. And honestly it was just slow. I know it was a psychological story rather than a thriller but it just didn’t keep me interested enough to care about the characters. They were all so flawed I didn’t really care what happened to them. I only finished it because I try and finish most books I start.