The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton | Blog Tour Review | @KJHAuthor @Wildfirebks #psychologicalthriller

Published by Wildfire Books

available in ebook (1 March) and hardback (22 March 2018)

368 pages

Source: ARC Review copy

|   About the Book   |

Juliette loves Nate.
She will follow him anywhere. She’s even become a flight
attendant for his airline, so she can keep a closer eye on him.

They are meant to be.
The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing.
Because Juliette has a plan to win him back.

She is the perfect girlfriend.
And she’ll make sure no one stops her from
getting exactly what she wants.

True love hurts, but Juliette knows it’s worth all the pain…

|   My Thoughts   |

I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for The Perfect Girlfriend.  I wanted to read this since hearing Karen Hamilton talking about it at a recent Rooftop Book event and my thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me to take part.

If you love someone, set them free.

If they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, make them.

Oh my, what a character Juliette is. If you ever meet anyone like her RUN, as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

This debut from Karen Hamilton is a fabulously unnerving, entertaining read and a very different psychological thriller.

Juliette (or Elizabeth or Lily) has had a difficult background, details of which are slowly revealed throughout the story. When she meets Nate, a handsome airline pilot, she believes that she has found true love forever. It’s just unfortunate for her that Nate doesn’t feel the same way.

When Nate ends their relationship saying he wants her to move out of his flat as he needs some ‘space’ Juliette gives him a few months before she intends to return to him. She is not idle during this time, oh no. She is plotting her next moves in great detail, and getting a job as cabin crew with the same airline as him is just one part of her Plan of Action.

I was really conflicted in my opinion of Juliette. I initially quite liked her, despite her obsessive and really quite outrageous behaviour. She may have come across as a bit bonkers but she was engaging and her caustic comments were often spot on and amusing. Although I didn’t quite see what she saw in Nate, I did kind of hope that things would work out between them. BUT as the story went on and her obsessive, deluded, stalkerish behaviour increased, I started to worry. Just when you thought that she couldn’t surely go any further with her outrageous schemes, she would up the ante. There was a point when events escalated to the extent that she completely lost my sympathy and I began to feel really sorry for Nate.

Without going into details of the plot and spoiler territory, The Perfect Girlfriend is a wonderfully twisted story with a totally unhinged character at its heart. With Juliette’s first person narration we are privy to her every thought and action and although I would have liked to have heard from the POV of other characters a little more to give a balance, seeing everything through her eyes gives a chilling and almost claustrophic feel to the story.

The old adage of ‘write what you know’ has clearly worked here for Karen Hamilton; using her own experience of working for an airline makes for an authentic and revealing backdrop and it added a good balance to the story, both in terms of lifestyle and the difficulties it can cause for any kind of normal homelife. I found it fascinating to read about and although I’ve always thought how glamorous the job was, also now realise how demanding it can be.

Despite reading through my fingers at times in sheer horror and cringing at some of Juliette’s antics, I very much enjoyed this and would love to read more from this author.   Juliette is one character that I won’t forget in a hurry. Disturbing, gripping and entertaining. Yes, The Perfect Girlfriend is all of those!

My thanks to the publisher for the ARC copy to review.

Follow the tour

|   Author Bio   |

Karen Hamilton spent her childhood in Angola, Zimbabwe, Belgium and Italy and worked as a flight attendant for many years. Karen is a recent graduate of the Faber Academy, and having now put down roots in Hampshire to raise her young family with her husband, she satisfies her wanderlust by exploring the world through her writing. THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND is her first novel.

Author Links:  Website  |   Twitter   |   Amazon UK   |  Goodreads