He thought he knew everything about her until she went missing. Before she disappeared, Alexandra Southwood lived an average, happy life: devoted to her wonderful husband, Marc, and caring for her two beautiful daughters. But now, held in a room against her will, Alexandra is forced to think about all she’s lost, and imagine how Marc and her daughters are coping in the wake of her disappearance. … her disappearance. She’s shown news clips of Marc, desperately appealing to the public for information on her whereabouts. She tortures herself with visions of her family’s devastated new reality. And as she envisions Marc’s distress, she can’t help but remember their courtship, their marriage—all that he saved her from and all that they’ve built together.
Marc’s pain is visceral. He thinks of nothing but her. Even when the police discover Alexandra’s bloody belongings by the river, turning their missing-persons case into a murder investigation, he cannot accept that she is lost to him. He shifts from total despair to frantic action, embarking on his own journey through the dark maze of secrets she kept and passions he never understood. Following a trail that leads him to find answers to questions he never meant to ask, he’s forced to confront how frighteningly little he’s grasped about the woman he loves.
EXHIBIT ALEXANDRA is a shocking psychological portrait, an original and unrelenting thriller that ultimately proves how unknowable even those closest to us can be.
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One day Alex Southwood disappears without a trace, leaving her husband completely distraught and determined to find out what happened to his wife. She is being held against her will, being forced to imagine what her disappearance is doing to her family and left wondering if she will ever be able to return to the life that she left behind. From there the story alternates between her thoughts, and struggles and her husbands troubling discoveries and mission to find his wife, both sides of the story seamlessly weaved together to create a telling tale that is sure to keep you mesmerized. This first time read left me puzzled, shaken, entranced, and unable to walk away until I had devoured every last word. Highly recommend you give this one a try, it is an addictive tale that will toy with your thoughts, push boundaries, and leave you questioning every thing you thought you knew!!
I requested an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, and voluntarily read and reviewed.
“Do you think all secrets hope eventually to be discovered? I think the loneliest thing in the world might be to never be known.”
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This was a seriously unusual story, and will happily concede that from the outset I did NOT see things going where they did… I could tell early on that I was in for a weird ride, and that the twists and turns would be thick on the ground, but I did not see the particular whirls or whorls until they were upon me and spent much of the book off-kilter and on the very edges of my seat. Once things came together, there was a little bit of an “Ohhhh” moment, in which I could see how and where many of my questions and guesses took slightly wrong turns, guided oh-so-gently toward false assumptions and misunderstandings. Sometimes this irks me, because I feel like I missed something – here, it actually pleased me because the overall ride was so topsy-turvy. The stomach-bottoming-out feeling was intentional, as were my false starts and early stops – and they all combined together to create a sense of disjointedness that kept me turning pages in a hunt for answers that mirrored Marc’s.
I LOVED the Big Reveal; even if it’s not the first time I’ve seen a story play out this way, I found it to feel thoroughly fresh and it just plain worked for the story. I can’t really say any more – to spoil it would be criminal, because the unfolding is managed so well – so you’ll have to trust me. It just works and you won’t see it coming, and then when it does you’ll join me in the “Ohhh” but still smile and whisper “well played…” to yourself as you frantically turn the page to see where the B.R. is going to take the final bits of story.
There’s a lot of twisted family dynamic here, and a lot of attention to the psychological implications of action and inaction, what happens to trust, how people turn on one another and where defensiveness can lead. It made for fascinating reading (and even more fascinating mind-wandering when I wasn’t reading), even as it sometimes made me a bit squirmy and uncomfortable in my chair. It felt a little like a David Mamet play – you just knew that even the tiny interactions were fully charged, and that eventually that charge would have to be released, and the suspense came from never knowing exactly when (or how) that would come about…
My review copy was provided by the Penguin First to Read program.
so I just finished this book about an hour ago, and it had me racing to find out what happened and how it was going to end. It started off slow and then I put it down and read something else and then picked it back up, And I’m glad I did, but that poor guy and his kids, what is wrong with people?
I’m glad the right thing was done at the end, that person deserved it. the book really flowed once I got back into it.
thank you First to Read for the opportunity.
I’d like to read more by Ms. Bell.