Kim is the number one bestselling author of sixteen psychological crime thrillers. She has sold over two million copies of her books worldwide. She has also written four Carnegie-nominated Young Adult novels as Kim Slater for Macmillan Children’s Books. Kim has an MA in Creative Writing and lives with her husband in a small Nottinghamshire village.
Publishers: Bookouture, Sphere, Grand Central, Audible Agent: Camilla Bolton at Darley Anderson
Grab your popcorn, 🍿🤓 hit the recline on your favorite reading chair, and settle in. Okay, let’s begin with the latest release by K.L. Slater.
Told from multiple POV’s.
The primary characters we hear from include: Liv - her husband Rich vanished 11 years ago, leaving her to raise her son Maddox on her own. But now that Rich has been declared dead, if all goes as planned, life is about to turn around! But hit the brakes Liv…there may be a wrench in that plan.
Kait - still settling into married life, pregnant with her first child. Curiously, her husband Daniel is suddenly acting strange. Is he having an affair? What is he hiding?
Maddox- now a teenager about to make some poor decisions and trust the wrong people.
A bit of a slow start as we get to know all the characters, but by 20% it all the pieces come together as it gathers speed!
Was this what I was looking for when I picked up this latest thriller from KL Slater? Yup! Though it’s not my favorite from her it was a good solid (light) thriller. Looking forward to her next!
The Married Man is following Liv who lost her husband eleven years ago. One minute he was there the next he was gone. But Liv is not the unknown grieving widow. She knows what happened to her husband as they both planned it. But now eleven years later it looks like Liv’s husband is not following the plan and is now married to someone else! He has broken the rules, and Liv is ready to make him pay the price for the deceit!
I love me a good family domestic tale and when I saw the blurb I ATE the drama that I presumed to ensue UP! The book starts of well with a good pace and I was hooked on what was transpiring. After a while it did start to falter a bit, and I was losing interest in the current story and the addition of a sub plot was making it slightly harder for me stay invested. I am glad that I did persevere as the last third of the book was twisted and unexpected. It was very farfetched and convoluted, but I enjoyed that the reveal wasn’t dragged out.
The story is told in five POVs and there is a lot of characters. I found 90% of them to be unlikeable and didn’t really connect much with the main characters Liv, Kait and Rich. There was no real character development with any of them and they all behaved as expected.
⋆。°✩WHAT I LIKED⋆。°✩ ➽ Short Chapters ➽ Multiple POVS ➽ Easy to read
⋆。°✩WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE⋆。°✩ ➽ Unrelatable characters ➽ Not very original plot ➽ Underwhelming ending
I think had there been more twists and turns throughout the book and not at the end then I would have enjoyed it much more. The author has a good writing style and a very vivid imagination, and I am excited to read more of her work.
3.5 ⭐
Thank you to Bookouture for sending me a gifted copy of this book
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ⋆。°✩pre read⋆。°✩ I'm in dire need of a gripping and addictive thriller!! And this is looking promising to deliver!! I have my fingers tightly crossed!🤍❤️🤍
I was completely invested in the story from the beginning. I liked the multiple POVs, the characters were intriguing, there was a lot going on, and I was looking forward to see how everything would come together in the end.
Things did come together in the end, but the last part of the story when everything is revealed felt very farfetched. There were too many twists and turns, and while unexpected they didn’t feel believable. Personally, I didn’t find the ending satisfying.
Secrets, lies, twists, and turns make for a gripping, thrilling, well thought out, and shocking thriller from K.L. Slater. I was fully invested and engrossed in this twisted tale of a missing husband, a teenage son, a worried and suspicious wife, and a woman who has been waiting a long time. K. L. Slater kept me turning the pages, guessing, and wondering how things were going to come together.
This book is told through the POV's of the main characters. I found this to be a very nice touch as readers become privy to their thoughts, motivations, emotions, and concerns. If this book feels slow in the beginning, hang in there as K.L. Slater sets the stage for what will be a roller coaster ride through secrets and lies. Woohoo!
The Married Man has a very detailed and complex plot which kept me engaged and fully invested. What a great psychological thriller. I'm always excited to read what K.L. Slater writes and I was not disappointed! Talk about being kept on your toes and wanting more!
Gripping well thought out, and shocking!
Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Well this was a very tangled web of lies, curve balls, twists and so much more. It kept me engaged as I had to find out what happened at every twist and turn. My head was going one way then the story would veer off elsewhere. It was a plot that made me wonder if the author K.L Slater had trouble keeping up with it herself.
It was a crazy ride that I feel is best left going in cold. On display was a couple especially the male trying to live above his means. None of which was a great idea.
He gets out of his depth and has to disappear. His wife is waiting for him with their son no matter how long it takes but it turns into 11 years and counting, is she waiting in vain?…
There is another couple with more in common than they realise. As there is betrayal, crime, revenge and people doing what they can to keep their secrets.
This story is far from straightforward, the main players had a voice but someone is trying to discredit two characters. I struggle to say which character I actually liked. With so many lies and secrets they have a tendency to come back to bite them. How will this be tied up?…
It’s entertaining enough but I accept when reading KLS that I’m boarding the train to crazy town. OTT plot twists but the ending is a damp squib. There’s always a LOT going on and some things frankly you just don’t need. Will I read her books again? Probably!!!!
After a challenging week and a few DNF reads it was such a relief to start a book by a go to author and know, just know it was going to be good
This my 21st read by the author and as intriguing, well written and readable as the 20 before
We meet a whole array of characters, some being honest, many not and all revolving around the mystery of what really happened to Livvy’s hubby Rich when he disappeared many years ago, some know some don’t but all want it to remain secret
Maddox, their son has always accepted the story told re his Dad’s disappearance until he discovers something that rocks his world and unknowingly is about to become a big player in the mystery
Full of twists, turns, lies and secrets this was as near perfect a psychological thriller as you can get
I’ve never read a book by the author I haven’t enjoyed so I knew I was in for a treat when I started this one. I loved the premise here, it was unique and there were so many questions raised right from the start and I was desperate to hear the answers to them. It starts off on the slower side, the groundwork is being laid for what’s coming up but by about a quarter of the way in things start to get faster and by the end things were even faster and my head was spinning at times. There are several points of view here and I was hooked by each one, many chapters ended on a mini cliffhanger which is a great tactic to keep me furiously turning the pages. Twisty doesn’t even begin to cover the turns this took, and they were smart twists too, definitely not the kind I could predict. Another super solid read from a trusted author, if you like well developed domestic suspense this was really good.
Eleven years ago, Liv was left alone when her husband Rich took their toddler son Maddox to fly a kite…and was never seen again. The police found Maddox, but Rich remained missing and was pronounced dead seven years later. Since then, it’s just been Liv and Maddox struggling to get by - but she knows their luck will soon change…she’s already guaranteed it.
Nearby, a woman named Kait is pregnant with her and her husband Daniel’s first child. They had a quick but happy beginning to their relationship, but lately Daniel has been acting strangely. When he starts staying out all night, Kait knows he is up to something, and wants to know what.
This story is on the longer side, so you’d think there would be more, but there isn’t (not without spoilers). Maddox is a young teenager now, falling in with the wrong crowd. Liv is drinking too much, and is constantly worried. Kait is stressing not only about her baby, but her new husband possibly cheating on her. Then, there is a whole other side story involving money, secrets and murder.
I find this author’s books to be hit or miss for me - looking back, I either give them five stars or three stars. I thought this book started off great, but then got too convoluted with all of the side stories and timelines and extraneous characters. This is much more action-based than I prefer, but it was still a good read. 3.5 stars.
(Thank you to Bookouture, K.L. Slater and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on November 1, 2024.)
It wasn’t that I didn’t like it - I did. It felt like she was still building on the plot and then boom, it was over. I was almost at DNF at 77% because of it. I’m glad others liked it more than I did though!
I’m typically a big fan of K.L. Slater’s books but this one just didn’t work for me. If it hadn’t been an ARC, I would have DNF’d it. It took so long to capture my interest & by the time things picked up, around 60% in, I was too frustrated by how much time I’d already invested to fully enjoy it. The characters felt flat & uninteresting. Although the twists weren’t predictable, they still fell short of being exciting.
★½ ROUNDED UP ⬆️⭐️ ——————— I want to thank NetGalley and Bookouture for the opportunity to review this book.
I wanted to love this but it fell completely flat for me. I continually thought to myself “what am I reading?!” And felt frustrated at times because this feels like a book that was rushed to complete.
Maybe for other people they’d love it- the premise of the book sounds unique and intriguing but I just didn’t love it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in change for my honest review.
This is the type of book where you read the beginning and the ending, because absolutely nothing happens in between/ The ending was such an exaggerated affair that it made it worse than better.
It needed a bloody good edit. It was so repetitive. Rich went missing then he was declared presumed dead but his body was never found. The phrase “legally declared as presumed dead” was used at least 700 times. Every chapter we are told this piece of information. We get it, just shut up. It’s not necessary to have every character tell every other character the same information.
The book plods along with Liv and Kate doing their thing, as the reader we know there’s more to the story but nothing is revealed, so for 80% of the book we have to endure these characters doing absolutely nothing, while we learn absolutely nothing. Then in the last 10% of the book, we get Liv telling the cops, the cops telling other cops, a dead character telling the reader, Kate and Liv telling each other, a dead character telling us a bit more via a letter.
There’s no story telling here. There’s just long winded monologues between characters explaining why they did what they did. This would have been so much better if the story had unfolded organically, without the author trying so hard to embed so much secrecy by all of the characters from the reader.
As it turns out the plot is so ridiculously ludicrous that there is probably no way to actually tell this story organically because nothing any of the characters do makes any bloody sense. They are all unlikeable with questionable morales. There’s no character growth. I mean they can’t even keep the amount of money straight. First it’s. 1 million. Then it’s 750,000. Now it’s 3 million. Oops, hold on make that 5 million.
3,5⭐ It's a comfort reading a book by K.L. Slater. Be they farfetched stories, easy or harder stories, I like reading them. What I enjoy the most is that her female main characters get themselves in situations that sound weird but they are so real, those are situations that can easily happen in real life.
I enjoyed The Married Man, I liked Liv and Kait and I felt invested in finding out what happened to Rich.
However, I found strange the reveals at the end. It's like they came from nowhere, it was all kind of without sense. I admire though, that the author treated the women's issues with sensitivity.
The first book I’ve read by the author and it was such an interesting read with different points of views and also from different timelines which built the story up and gave more information. Lots of twists and turns that had you guessing what was going on or going to happen. Definitely all is not what it seems with this story which I liked. Easy to read and understand too although I feel the ending kinda just felt a bit rushed and the whole book could of been slightly shorter but overall I would recommend
THE MARRIED MAN is a standalone psychological mystery thriller novel by bestselling author K.L. Slater. Having read and enjoyed her previous novels, I was anxious to start her new novel.by K.L. Slater.
Her Novels Include: Safe With Me (2016) Blink (2017) Liar (2017) The Mistake (2017) The Visitor (2018) The Secret (2018) Closer (2018) Finding Grace (2019) The Silent Ones (2019) Single (2019) The Apartment (2020) Little Whispers (2020) The Girl She Wanted (2020) The Marriage (2021) The Evidence (2021) The Widow (2021) Missing (2022) The Girlfriend (2022) The Narrator (2023) The Bedroom Window (2023) Husband and Wife (2023) Message Deleted (2024) The Married Man (2024) The Lucky Winners (2025)
This is my review of The Married Man.
Liv’s husband, Rich disappeared eleven years ago, after taking their three-year-old son, Maddox to the park to fly his kite. Now eleven years later he was presumed dead. Liv had waited these long hard years, her heart breaking for their son, who didn’t know his father was coming back.
But now Liv learns that her husband has a new wife. This wasn’t part of their plan.
Her husband made a terrible mistake and she had sacrificed everything to help him fix it. But now he’s put her son and her in danger again.
He had broken the rules and gone against their plan. But Liv and Rich are both hiding a secret.
The story is told from different POV’s in different time frames that gives us more depth into the intention of the main key players.
This is a well-written fast-paced novel with intense descriptions that heighten the suspense level, and give depth to the characters. The tension builds slowly with twists and turns to a satisfactory conclusion. This suspenseful thriller that kept me hooked until the very end…and an ending I didn’t see coming. A great read!
Many thanks to the author, Bookouture and Netgalley for my digital copy.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is my personal 5 star rating system because I’m too lazy to write a review for every book.
5 stars -> OMFG. I couldn’t stop listening. I was engaged from beginning to end. The story & narrator was amazing. I 100% recommend this book & author. I was able to clearly follow each and every character.
4 stars -> It was pretty good. I would’ve rated 5 stars, But either the ending was lacking, I struggled to keep up with characters, or the story didn’t keep me fully engaged. The narrator was pretty good as well. I’m on the fence about recommending this book, It could go either way.
3 Stars -> It was boring at times & I missed chunks of the story. I most likely struggled to keep up with character developments. The only way I would recommend this book is if it was part of a series. The narrator was most likely average or just couldn’t fix a mediocre book.
2 Stars -> It was pretty horrible. I used it as background noise because I hadn’t had a chance to search for another book. The book either had a bad narrator, The character development was non existent, or the story was hot garbage. I would not recommend this book.
1 Star -> The absolute only reason I listened to this book was because i had no time to search for another one & I needed background noise. It was 1 step up from listening to the radio. I wouldn’t recommend this book to my worst enemy. Everything about this book was terrible. This is only recommended for people on death row and have absolutely nothing else to read.
More than a decade ago, Liv’s husband Rich went missing while on a kite-flying outing with their toddler son Maddox. Eleven years later, Kait is married to Daniel and pregnant with their first child when he starts acting strangely, being secretive, going out at weird times and staying out late, all the classic cheating husband nonsense. When Kait finds a note in Daniel’s pocket that contains Maddox’s unique pupil number, she knows her husband is hiding something big and she has to find out how Daniel is linked to Maddox and Liv.
The Married Man is what K.L. Slater does best: a twisty, complex plot full of secrets and lies that keeps you guessing the entire time. This nonlinear, multi-POV story grabbed me right from the prologue and is so readable and propulsive that I finished it within a day. Every time I thought I had everything figured out – oh no I didn’t! So suspenseful and surprising!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing me an advance copy of this book.
The Married Man by K.L. Slater is such a busy domestic thriller about money, secrets, murd£rs and surviving. It's so twisted that I feel my head is spinning now! Oh my, oh my, oh my! So many stories developed independently, and mad how nicely everything came together at the end! Wow, what a tangled web we weave!
Multiple POV's, jumping back and forth in time to create the suspense, and gives us a piece of the puzzle to build the full picture. Surprisingly for me, it was easy to follow, usually, I struggle when there are so many characters. Years ago, when I tried multiple K.L. Slater books, I struggled a lot, so I left them for a while, and it looks like I caught a good one, or, finally, is my time for K.L. Slater!
Rich took his and Liz's toddler son Maddox to fly a kite and was never seen again. He was pronounced dead seven years later. Liv and Maddox are struggling daily, but Liv knows this is temporary, as there is a bigger plan in place. Kait is pregnant with her and her husband Daniel’s first child, but lately Daniel has been acting strangely. Teenage Maddox is ready to change things, but he is not aware of the danger this world can be.
Big thanks to Bookouture for a copy on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The Married Man is the newest intriguing thriller from popular author K.L. Slater. Many years before, Liv’s husband Rich went missing leaving her alone with a young son, Maddox. Today, twelve years later and now declared officially dead, Liv can move on with her life. Until she meets Kait…. Kait is pregnant and her husband Daniel, is acting strange. She believes he may be having an affair. Now these two lives will collide with consequences and the truth will be revealed……. The plot and pacing keep you engaged, the cast are suspicious, there’s a surprise or two and a flabbergast ending. K.L knows how to draw the reader in and keep them there, while entertaining them with a gripping storyline. Get entangled with their lives and be stunned as it all unfolds…..
What you don't know can hurt you in the latest domestic thriller from KL Slater.
I saw some tough reviews on this so I wasn't really sure what to expect and I thought it might be confusing but I learned the characters pretty quickly and I was hooked in right away.
What would you do if you had to suffer 10 years for everything you'd ever dreamt of? That's the dilemma in which the spouses found themselves. He'd have to vanish for ~12 years but they'd end up having enough money to live how they'd like at the end of it.
Those 12 years are coming to a close and he hasn't been in touch. Did he change his mind? Has he started a new life and cut her out of the deal? What will happen to their son?!
Nothing is what it seems and this book delivers twist after twist. I thought it was a really solid story and it got me out of my audiobook slump! The narration was great too.
Well to start off what can I say, an absolutely fantastic read. Lots of twists! The plot is brilliant nothing like I've ever read before, kept me guessing, how did Rich, Maddox's dad go missing? I thought he died?! I love how the characters are portrayed, they are described well. I could really feel for the characters through the pages and especially for Maddox the teenage boy he must've felt so confused and hurt by the whole thing. The book made you think about the other characters are they lying? Are they telling the truth. I saw straight through Kait and wasn't sure on her from the beginning she was introduced. At the end I really felt for Liv, she got dragged into it all. The book was a little bit too much of a slow burner for me at the beginning and it did take a while for me to get into but there were many points of view to get through and once that was done the plot thickened and sped up!
Really glad I read this book and would definitely pick up another K.L Slater book again! Thanks very much to Netgalley for approving me to read this book.
This was my first book from this author and will certainly not be the last!
I fell in love with the writing style instantly. The descriptions and the character development was very well done. If I was to judge this book based on the cover and the title I probably would’ve thought it wasn’t for me (perhaps I’m not the target audience for marketing to) but the actual content of the book and the plot was right up my street.
I loved all the different POVs and then/now timelines and never felt they were difficult to follow or were switching too much.
Thank you to Bookoutre and the author for an advanced copy of this book.
Many thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for this free eARC.
A slow read with LOTS of characters and time jumps and poor execution
The premise pulled me in. As did the author, as K. L. Slater is one of my faves. So it devastates me to say I did not enjoy anything about this book. I’d expected to love it, and I feel so let down. Although I see lots of five stars for this read, I find myself in the minority of people who didn’t like it either, and firmly so.
Not one line lent itself to a pull quote to show readers how much I loved the narrative. All of my highlights showed filler words, split infinitives, tense changes—all over the place!—and extreme passive writing, which when written in the present tense always seems worse to me.
None of the characters made me care about them or connect, and the plot went all over the place. Usually, I don’t mind POV and time shifts, but this time none of it gelled at all for me.
I loved the premise and have enjoyed books from this author previously; however, The Married Man gets a soft 2 stars from me.
***
NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.
5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.
When I see a new book by this author immediately run for my kindle.
In my opinion this is this authors best book to date! I have never seen so many twists. Right till that last chapter the twists kept coming. I kept thinking right thats what’s happened I’ve worked it out but then suddenly something came along and completely shocked me.
The storyline itself is very good. I’ve not read any like it before. I was excited to see how it was going to end and what would happen.
There are a lot of characters in this book, at first I found it a little hard to remember who was who and how they fitted into the story but bare with it because it doesn’t take long to know them.
Absolutely terrifying and addicting you will not be able to put this down.
Liv’s husband Rich took their son three-year-old son Maddox to the local park to fly a kite, but he was never seen again. Maddox was found sheltering in a dugout some other kids has built in the park. After Rich has been missing for seven years, he was pounced dead. But his body was never found. Fours years later Kait’s husband Daniel is acting suspiciously. Kait thinks he is having an affair until she drops a note with a set of numbers on it. When Kaits sister deciphers it. They found out that it’s a unique pupil number which happens to be Maddox’s who is now a teenager. Why does he have these numbers. Meanwhile Liv has had a hard life since Rich has disappeared. Taken on several jobs to make ends meet. But not for much longer she things as she looks at a bank account waiting for money that she has been promised by Rich who drew up a plan when he disappeared. But nothing ever goes to plan. I have read all the books from this author, and she never disappoints. This has a quite a slow start and I must say a more complex storyline than her previous novels. This is a good, gripping read but although it tied up loose ends at tend of the story, I felt it a little flat. 4 stars from me.
Rich, Liv’s husband, had been missing for years after failing to return home after a trip out with their son. She believes her luck will change soon.
Kait lives with her husband, Daniel and thought things were good until she finds a note that has fallen out of his pocket. She knows something isn’t right. Will she find out what’s going on?
This is my second book by this author and having enjoyed the last one I knew I needed to read this. I’m glad that I did pick it up as it ended up being a complex and very twisty read. It took some time to get going but once it did it became very intriguing and I was desperate to work out what was going on. There were lots of points of views which jumped around quite a lot and some narratives I was less interested in. Even though I didn’t fully connect to the story, I did enjoy the majority of this thriller and I really enjoyed all the little twists. 3.5 stars rounded down. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in return for an honest review.