The Perfect Wife: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Saskia Maarleveld (Narrator), Graham Halstead (Narrator), Euan Morton (Narrator),

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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)

Listening Length

10 hours and 42 minutes
Author

JP Delaney
Narrator

Saskia Maarleveld, see all
Audible release date

Aug. 6 2019
Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audio
ASIN

B07RKYNB9G
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	10 hours and 42 minutes
Author	JP Delaney
Narrator	Saskia Maarleveld, Graham Halstead, Euan Morton, JP Delaney
Audible.ca Release Date	August 06 2019
Publisher	Random House Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07RKYNB9G
Best Sellers Rank	#49,864 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #75 in Genetic Engineering Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #519 in Psychological Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #607 in Genetic Engineering Science Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

2,685 global ratings

5 star		48%
4 star		28%
3 star		16%
2 star		5%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from Canada

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Charlee

Hard to find book

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 19, 2022

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Ordered on Amazon as it’s sold out everywhere near me, book was much larger than anticipated and edges of pages are shredded style

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Alyssa Hodder

Gripping story that makes you think

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 28, 2021

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I love SciFi, and this novel is a successful marriage of SciFi and thriller, while also contemplating some deep issues on the personification of women and the future of AI. I finished it in less than 48 hours. A gripping read

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Catherine Adams

Book

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 30, 2019

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I am reading the BOOK..

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Captain John

Thought provoking ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 6, 2019

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... what will the future bring? This is an eternal question and more poignant now as we consider the implications of artificial intelligence. Thankfully, I won’t be alive to see the answers.

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Elizabeth Ferjo

The perfect wife

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 1, 2019

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I am an avid reader, but totally disliked this book , it was awful ,nothing beleviable

One person found this helpful

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Beckie Bookworm

such a unique piece of fiction.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 6, 2019

Abbie wakes to find herself a cobot.
An advanced AI companion/robot Invented by her genius husband Tim five-years after her demise and implanted with her memories and personality.
Returning with Tim to her former marital home Abby #2 attempts to acclimatise herself to her new reality with her husband and disabled son.
Told in a then and now fashion this skips between the two-time frames the then narrated by an unknown observer and the now with Abbie the Cobot.
Gradually a picture of events stars to emerge.
This was such a unique and unusual story that captured my imagination almost instantly.
This took me places I wasn't expecting and that finale caught me completely by surprise.
This was not incredibly complicated but it was just so gripping a really great psychological thriller that I managed to read in one entire sitting.
I also loved the inclusion of Danny and how his autism was addressed.
My son has Aspergers totally different end of the scale in terms of functioning but I can still relate somewhat.
I enjoyed this one much more than I thought I would the only thing that let this down for me was as much as I adored being lead down the garden path here in terms of the grand finale I would still have perhaps prefered a different final destination.
That still doesn't take away from the fact that this was such a unique piece of fiction.
That kept me on my toes right until that finish line.
I voluntary reviewed a copy of The Perfect Wife.

One person found this helpful

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Domestic noir with a twist

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 27, 2019

I've read both of J.P. Delaney's previous suspense novels and quite enjoyed them. I easily put The Perfect Wife on the TBR list.

Abbie awakes in a hospital with no idea of who she really is or what happened to her. The man who says he is her husband begins to fill in the gaps in her memory. An accident five years ago took her from him. Now stop here if you plan to read the book.....

"She is a miracle of science." In fact she is an AI. Yes, an artificial intelligence one of a kind. Husband Tim runs a high tech company that has the capability to pull off this one of a kind..Project? Miracle?

And this reveal is where I stopped and thought do I really want to read this? I'm not much of a sci-fi reader. But I wanted to see where and how Delaney would inject his suspense and twists, so I kept reading.

Alternating timelines give the reader a look into the 'before' of this marriage. And it is unsettling. However, both the narrator and perspective alternates between second and third person and found this a bit confusing.

So yes, we learn that the marriage and family (they have a son) had/has issues. How is a co-bot (companion robot) going to cope with real life issues? I got more caught up in the story as AI Abbie becomes more sentient. But pragmatic me had a hard time buying into the premise (which is why I don't read a lot of sci-fi). I found the characters (including the human ones) fell all a bit flat for me. The exception to that is their son Danny who has autism. I thought the depiction of both boy and autism to be written really well. It was only on finishing the book, that I learned Delaney has a son with autism.

Delaney is a British author. I found The Perfect Wife reminded me of a British television show called Humans which imagines a world with sentient AI's.

The Perfect Wife was an interesting combo of domestic noir and sci-fi. I can't say I loved it, but I am glad I kept reading. And I will pick up Delaney's next book.

One person found this helpful

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Lisa Bagdan (@LisaBReads)

Unique mix of suspence and sci-fi

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 14, 2019

The Perfect Wife was an interesting mix of Sci-Fi, domestic thriller and drama. Abbie is a care bot designed by her robotics genius husband Tom to look and sound and have the memories of his wife. As we move through the book we start to wonder what happened to the original Abbie and what occurred leading up to her disappearance.

I wish this book was a tiny bit shorter. I did find myself struggling through a few sections, but the ones I liked, they had my full attention.
I loved the concept of the story and the addition of AI was unique and fascinating. Overall probably 3.5 to 4 stars from me, just because I like a faster moving plot. If you like slow burn and want to try something very unique, this is the one for you!

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Top reviews from other countries

Lavendyr

A story about humanity in the guise of a thriller

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 21, 2019

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This book is badged and, unfortunately, marketed, as a thriller, but that's not quite right. This is a thrilling book about humanity, set in the context of a near-future in which AI has advanced to the point where a robot, the protagonist, is fully sentient, autonomous and able to express emotion - and has been designed to do so to replace a person - the creator's wife - who has been missing for five years. This situation, in which the robot (or "cobot") is trying to find her/its place, is contrasted with a child - her child? - who has a severe form of autism and is only able to communicate in certain ways.

The premise is immediately gripping, but the story develops slowly and carefully. Initially it may seem like a sci-fi tech thriller, or even a near-future psychological suspense novel. The things that might lead one to those conclusions are, in effect, the backdrop to a much more engaging story.

The author has personal experience with severe autism and trust me, as someone who also has some experience in this area, it is evident in the writing that the author is intensely familiar with the challenges - and the love and, at times, desperation - that come with caring for an autistic child. Yet at the core of this book is the question of what we see as humanity. “But of course Danny isn’t any less human just because he doesn’t have those things. He’s just differently human: someone with an unusual ratio of rigidity to empathy.” “Perhaps the real test of someone’s humanity, you think, is how tenderly they treat those like Danny. Whether they blindly try to fix them and make them more like everyone else, or whether they can accept their differentness and adapt the world to it.”

This is a remarkable book. Sadly, I fear it is being poorly marketed and represented.

19 people found this helpful

H. Wilkinson

So disapointed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 5, 2020

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I've read both 'the girl before' and 'believe me' and loved them. They both had an edge and had so many twists and turns.
However I just couldn't get into this book, there was to much description and even though it was a Sci Fi story it just didn't seem at all plausible.

17 people found this helpful

sft

Far from perfect

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 27, 2021

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*MILD SPOILERS* 2/10 • First of all, the idea that cogent memories can be reproduced from a person's “social media records, texts, and other documents”, and that the resulting memories can then be used to recreate that individual’s personality, is patently absurd. Admittedly Delany notes in his acknowledgments that he deliberately avoided getting too technical about the creation of an AI but for this reader his approach was unsatisfactory to say the least. And then there’s the use of the second person. What can I say? – it bugs the hell out of me. I’ve never read an example that didn’t come across as artifice, and hence destroy the effect the author was trying to create. And then there’s the skimpy plot, which never convinces, and the characters, who are, for the most part, contemptible. And finally, for a thriller this book isn’t thrilling at all. I’m no aficionado of the genre, as I read very few, but frankly much of this novel is dull. The author even includes a couple of recipes, which I really could do without. Now I know some highly esteemed authors have done the same thing but no, seriously – stop it. I wanted to like this book, because the premise intrigued me, but the fact is I was deeply disappointed. Oh, and as for the ending – I don’t even want to get started about that …

5 people found this helpful

Bristol Book Blogger 📚📖📓

An original read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 21, 2019

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I've loved both Delaney's previous novels which are true techno thrillers, this was very different and I wasn't sure I could continue reading it once I realised the narrator is a co-bot (AI/robot) but I wanted to find out how it might play out, if Abbie was alive, and did Ian kill her? Something else that really bothered me was the authors voice as narrator explaining to the lay-person that autism is a awful affliction and that autistic children have zero empathy etc. this is not the case and having a kid with autism it actually put me off reading further. The experiments used to 'treat' autism seemed archaic or some kind of awful futuristic premonition like the Stepford Wife vibe, but at the end the author tells us this is actually happening in America today. We are living in a society that makes everything in this book possible and so the plausibility aspect kept me reading on. Although I guessed how the ending might pan out I was not expecting the final twist. It was original, for some reason I kept reading despite disliking sci-fi. I enjoy JP's writing style so for that I'm giving this book 4 stars, but I hope he returns to the psychological thrillers I know him for and enjoy reading.

11 people found this helpful

Pollywantsacracker

Promising idea but let down ultimately by poor plotting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 22, 2020

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Loved the idea of a first person AI narrator. Not entirely new of course to explore humanity by using non human creations - Gene Roddenberry taught us that many years ago as did many other sci fi writers and indeed literature has investigated the nature of 'man' using comparisons with non humans since literature and drama existed.
The premise of using a non humna narrator is not disputed and for a while I enjoyed the narrative and wondering 'is she? isn't she?' ( dead). The input on autism coming from the authors own experience was also very interesting and gave several insights into undertanding some of the experiences of a neuro diverse person. What let this novel down for me was quite simply the plot and the ending. It felt like a rushed denouement stuck on at the end as if a deadline was due rather than a thoughtful way of resolving this nerrative. Yes it does comply with a cynical view of nothing really changing and the 'heroine', as always, being expendable and replaceable but that again was already done in Stepford Wives in two different ways depending on which one you watch. I'm not sure how 'Abbie' took that story much further? In short, loved the idea but not so much the execution .

3 people found this helpful

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