Title: The Vow
Author: Debbie Howells
Published by: Avon Books
Publication Date: October 1st, 2020
Everything was perfect. And then her fiancé disappeared…
Two weeks before her wedding, a stranger stops Amy in the street and warns her she’s in danger. Then that night, Matt, her fiancé, doesn’t come home. Desperate, Amy calls the police – but when Matt fails to emerge, she’s forced to call off her wedding day.
Then another man is reported missing, by a woman called Fiona – a man meeting Matt’s description, who was about to leave his fiancée for her. He was supposed to be moving in with her – but instead, he’s vanished.
Amy refuses to believe Fiona’s lover can be her Matt – but photos prove otherwise, and it soon becomes clear that Matt has been leading a double life. As the police dig deeper, two conflicting, yet equally plausible stories emerge from two women who allegedly have never met.
The wedding day never happened. But the funeral might.
“Jealousy was toxic enough, but unrequited love could be just as destructive; could drive the most unlikely person over the edge.”
The Vow by Debbie Howells is a scintillatingly secretive and dark novel swathed in questions, accusations and the need for answers.
In this novel, readers are introduced to Amy Reid, soon-to-be Amy Roche. With the wedding of her dreams just a couple of weeks away, her life is coming together in the most fairy-tale-esque way, and she couldn’t be happier. But isn’t it strange, how absolutely perfect something can appear to be on the surface, when beneath, that is most certainly not the case? Once-divorced, Amy already knows what it’s like to have her heart broken, to be let down in the most life-shattering of ways. Having come away from her first marriage, Amy and her daughter, Jess, who is at Uni, have managed to leave their past behind, and are ready to begin again, albeit with a new man in their lives. But in the space of just 24 hours, everything changes for Amy, and her soon-to-be husband, completely vanishes.
From the get-go, the mystery behind Matt’s disappearance was ultimately what kept me turning the pages, but further down the road, it became clear that there was much more to this novel than the disappearance of a soon-to-be married man. Peppered with snippets from the past, I was constantly kept on my toes, wondering who, what, where and why. I had so many questions, much like Amy, and as the plot progressed, I found myself becoming more and more impatient to have them answered. Once the police become involved, the story takes a much darker turn than I had anticipated, and it dragged me down even further, on -edge to find out where the author would take me next.
Being taken back to the past before being dropped back into the present day is something I adore when reading, and it’s even more sneaky and delicious when it happens within a premise like this. It’s sort of cheating, in a way. The reader gets glimpses of what happened before, and slowly, oh-so-slowly, you can try (emphasis on the word ‘try’) to slot the pieces of the past into whatever is happening in the present, unfolding story. It’s a fantastic way to deliver hints to the reader, and really fleshes out the backbone of the story, giving it a little bit more weight and realism. These flashbacks really got the cogs in my mind turning as I tried to put two and two together. I don’t want to give too much away, but there is so much more to discover within this book than simply what is set before you on the page.
The characters were believable and I enjoyed getting to know each of them. Jess, Amy’s daughter, was a particular favourite of mine. She seemed determined and tenacious and very driven whenever it came to her mother, and I found her to be one of the characters who stood out most to me long after I’d finished the book. Amy, a herbalist, was interesting and I found her to have a lot more layers to her than I’d originally thought. I was rooting for her, and when the plot takes a drastic turn for her much later on, I couldn’t believe what was happening. I really wanted some good to come her way, because I honestly felt that she deserved it. As for Matt, I felt like I knew enough about him to put together a good picture of what he was like. The sort of man women would do well to stay away from. Although not present throughout the novel, Howells did a great job of still managing to make him come to life on the page. There were a handful of others characters too, who really made the story take shape, like Mrs Guthrie and WPC Page, all playing a role in the search for Matt, no matter how big or small.
Overall, The Vow by Debbie Howells was a brilliant novel, with all of those key qualities that ensure a reader sticks with it. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey I was taken on while reading this book, and I would recommend it to any readers out there who love a good mystery/psychological thriller, emphasising the importance of trust and honesty in a relationship, because it doesn’t matter how well you think you know the person you love, sometimes you just don’t know them well enough.
The Book Babe is giving The Vow by Debbie Howells a rating of four out of five. I’d like to thank Avon Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this book. You can pre-order your copy of the book here.
Comments