ARC Book Review And Blog Tour: My One Month Marriage.

You need your wits about you when reading Shari Low’s brand new novel, which fans will be pleased to know features some familiar characters as well as new faces.

In typical Shari style, My One Month Marriage switches viewpoints, time and sometimes countries, so it’s probably not one to read if you’re sleepy, but this does make it one rip-roaring novel.

It is a bit like my mum’s old pressure cooker where you put all the ingredients inside, turn it on and listen to it hiss and plop while waiting for the button on the lid to pop but, unlike my mum’s pressure cooker (thankfully), this book certainly went off with a bang.

Here’s the blurb:

“I just need to know…which one of you slept with my husband?”

You know that ‘till death do us part’ bit in the wedding vows? Well Zoe Danton believed it. She walked up the aisle thinking that she was strolling to her happy ever after.

One month later, her heart is in pieces, she’s returning the wedding gifts and there’s a husband-shaped space next to her in bed. He’s gone, after Zoe discovered a devastating secret.

But Zoe has lost so much more than her marriage. Her three sisters are not only her siblings, they’re her best friends too.

Now she’s discovered that one of them may have been the reason her husband betrayed her.

She’s lost her happy ever after, but has she lost a sister too?

We already know a bit about Zoe from one of Shari’s previous books, Another Day In Winter, but this is the story I didn’t know I needed to read.

Not only do we follow Zoe but her three very different sisters too, who were all partly shaped by something that happened to them when they were children.

A gamut of emotions are spread throughout the book and it keeps you guessing about the first question, ‘which one of you slept with my husband?’ right until the end.

The thing I really love about Shari’s books is that reading them often feels like catching up with old friends because of the cameos from characters from past novels and this one is no different.

All in all this is a cracking read – just make sure you’re wide awake when you start it.

Format: Kindle.

Price: £2.99.

My rating: Four and a half stars.

Here’s a little excerpt from the novel to give you a taste.

But back to the point. Yvie and Marina are right. If I worked anywhere else – the Civil Service, Top Shop, NASA – then none of this would have happened.

And to quote everyone in the entire history of the world who ever messed up, I just wish I could go back in time and change so many things.

In fact, right now I’d settle for just understanding what has happened to my life because there are still so many questions. So many uncertainties.

My phone buzzes and I stretch over a ceramic planter in the shape of a pair of wellies (from Auntie Geraldine – she has a picture of Alan Titchmarsh on her kitchen wall) to retrieve it from the table beside the sofa.

Marina’s heels click into the room and in my peripheral vision I can see that she slides elegantly into the armchair by the window, plate of sushi in hand.

The name at the top of the notification makes my anxiety soar. Roger Kemp. Sadly, no relation to anyone who was ever a member of Spandau Ballet. Or that slightly scary bloke who played Grant Mitchell in EastEndersand now makes documentaries about criminal gangs and serial killers.

With a shaking thumb, I swipe open the message.

Roger Kemp is a friend and client, the director of a hotel chain that employs our agency for all its marketing needs. After the proverbial hit the fan, I’d asked him for a favour. A slightly underhand, confidentiality-breaching, possibly borderline-illegal favour. With a bit of luck, the bloke that makes the documentaries about true crime won’t find out about it.

I’d asked Roger to check on who paid for a room in one of his hotels last weekend, on the night that my husband broke his vows only thirty days after making them. You know, that fairly insignificant one about being faithful in good times and bad. You see, I know it wasn’t my husband because he’d put his credit cards in my handbag that evening, so it must have been someone else. The other woman.

The thought forces me to take another swig of the unidentifiable pink cocktail.

Anyway, the favour I’d requested of Roger would mean asking someone in his financial team to pull up the credit card records and sharing the sordid details with me.

Now I stare in disbelief at the answer, typed right there on the screen of my phone.

You can find out more about Shari via Facebook page , her website or by following her on Twitter.

With thanks to Boldwood Books (via NetGalley) for the ARC and the chance to take part in the tour. Please check out what these other lovely book bloggers have to say.