The Ex-Husband is a brilliant mix of escapism and tense thriller as Karen Hamilton weaves together a very taut, nailing-biting story that had me on the edge of my seat throughout, waiting to see if Charlotte’s tormentor caught up with her.

The story follows Charlotte Wilson who is a former con-artist. She met her ex-husband, Sam, while working on a cruise ship and together they stole from their wealthy passengers. They were having the time of their lives until Charlotte developed a conscience and decided she didn’t want to live a life of crime anymore. Years later, Sam messages her to say he’s being threatened and when he disappears, Charlotte starts receiving similar threatening messages. Fearing for her life, Charlotte accepts a job onboard a luxury yacht to escape, but she soon discovers that the person threatening her is also onboard. 

I haven’t read many books that are set on a cruise ship and I found this one to be perfect in terms of descriptions. Hamilton beautifully describes the luxurious cruise ships and the stunning Caribbean islands, which, after a year of lockdowns, offered the perfect escape and left me itching to go on holiday myself. However, I would not like to be on any of the ships Charlotte and Sam were on!

I didn’t like Sam straight from the get-go and thought he was a really selfish person. Even the way he spoke to Charlotte was awful and I couldn’t see what she loved about him. He seemed to have an instant dislike for wealthy people and didn’t even bother getting to know anyone properly. While Charlotte started feeling guilty, Sam was too stuck in his ways and was never going to change.

Charlotte, on the other hand, I felt more conflicted about. I didn’t really like her, but I am glad she developed a conscience in the end as it did redeem her character a little bit. However, I couldn’t forget that she was right there alongside Sam, coming up with ideas on how to con people out of their money. She also paints herself as a victim, which I struggled to believe, especially when she still gets caught up in the thrill of it. Yes, there were a few moments when she almost fell back into her old ways so I wouldn’t say she has redeemed herself completely, or that she can entirely blame Sam for what she did. I couldn’t help but feel she deserved being exposed after what she put her victims through.

The pacing was slow for the first half of the story as Hamilton sets everything up – Charlotte meeting Sam, conning people, going their separate ways and then receiving the threatening messages – but it soon ramps up and I found myself racing through the second half. The chapters also alternate between the past and the present and I found the present-day chapters to be more exciting. Charlotte has to do a bit of detective work as she tries to figure out who is threatening her. I was pointing my finger at all the guests onboard the yacht at one point and it was fun trying to unravel their connection to Charlotte. Everything comes to a head in the last few chapters, and I was eager to find out Charlotte’s fate. 

The Ex-Husband offers a sense of foreboding throughout and will keep you on your toes waiting to see what happens. It’s a great holiday thriller packed with dark twists. 

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

In my opinion, this book was not great

Charlotte falls for Sam and becomes part of his life of working on cruise ships. They work as a team, fleecing rich travelgoers out of their money through various scams, such as convincing them to donate money to fake charities.

Their marriage ends when a scam goes wrong and Sam throws Charlotte under the bus, clears out their joint accounts and takes off.

Charlotte narrowly escapes getting caught for her criminal ways, and vows to go legit. She is gaining success with her business as some sort of events manager (it's a little unclear, to be honest), and ends up taking a job on a superyacht for some rich folk celebrating birthdays and engagements.

It's a good escape for Charlotte, because she is being threatened by a victim of one of her scams. She learns that Sam has gone missing and is presumed dead. However, once on the superyacht, with no means of escape, she realises that her tormentor is on board with her!

It's a good set-up for a thriller, but this sure is one laboriously paced book! It has the now typical "then" and "now" chapters, a trope that is just ridiculously overused these days. The "then" chapters detail how Charlotte and Sam met and fell in love, a bunch of the scams they ran, and how Sam was basically just another toxic, manipulative male.

The "then" chapters wore on my nerves. I understood they needed to be there so that we could get a smattering of red herrings as to which fleeced victim might be orchestrating events in the present, but it didn't achieve much. We meet these various targets in one chapter each only, so it's completely arbitrary as to which one might be seeking revenge. There's no real investment in knowing or finding out what the connection is!

And when the "then" chapters conclude, the "now" chapters just trudge away drearily. We get every detail of the holiday these people are on, and it was just boring! Anybody out there enjoy watching a slideshow of someone's photos while they were on holiday? No? Because that's what it amounted to here! The author occasionally tries to spice it up with sinister happenings to Charlotte, but they really don't make any sense in hindsight.

Similarly, there's no real investment in which superyacht passenger is stalking Charlotte. They are all interchangeable, and it's easy to forget who is who. Several of them don't even have any dialogue! Only Thomas, Lucy, Mariella, Josephine and Harrison have any sort of presence in the narrative. That also whittles down the enjoyment of figuring out who is doing what.

Then there is the convenience of some plot points. Oh, look, Charlotte worked on a cruise ship with Lucy once! Charlotte had a fling with Harrison when he and Josephine were having a break! I know we often say it's a small world, but that was a teensy bit too much!

And although Charlotte is supposed to be some sort of events manager or planner, that didn't seem to match what she was doing on this superyacht. She was more of an assistant to Thomas than anything, which makes it difficult to understand why she would be so eager to take on the job.

I'll give credit to the characterisation of Charlotte. I like a flawed character who isn't necessarily unreliable. Some of her actions and thoughts were really quite relatable.

Spoiler

I also give credit to any modern day thriller that doesn't cheat you with an I-was-lying-all-along ending.

Indeed, the ending here was a high point. A good climax, and a coda that leaves you wanting more! If only it hadn't been so excruciatingly dull getting there!