Blog Tour: Wilderness by B. E. Jones #bookreview #Wilderness @bevjoneswriting @TheCrimeVault @damppebbles #damppebblesblogtours

Two weeks, 1,500 miles, three opportunities for her husband to save his own life.
It isn’t about his survival – it’s about hers.
Shattered by the discovery of her husband’s affair, Liv knows they need to leave the chaos of New York to try to save their marriage. Maybe the road trip that they’d always planned, exploring America’s national parks, just the two of them, would help heal the wounds.
But what Liv hasn’t told her husband is that she has set him three challenges. Three opportunities to prove he’s really sorry and worthy of her forgiveness.
If he fails? Well, it’s dangerous out there. There are so many ways to die in the wilderness. And if it’s easy to die, then it’s easy to kill too.
If their marriage can’t survive, he can’t either.

💜💜💜💜

First of all, massive thanks to Emma Welton for inviting me on this blog tour and to Constable (Little, Brown Book Group) for providing me with a free eARC via NetGalley!

Olivia’s husband Will is a cheating bastard. I’m really sorry, pardon my French and all that, but he is. He has forgotten that when he took Olivia for his lawful wife and promised to have and hold her for better or worse, it was only supposed to be Olivia, he was not supposed to add some skinny girl at work to the mix. Liv found out, was furious but decided to give the hubby and her marriage a second change. Except that the hubby went and forgot all about his promises all over again and now… Well, Liv has had it and who can blame her?! It’s said that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Liv is that woman if ever there was one. While she’s going through various stages of grief, feeling like the Will she knows and loves is gone, she eventually realises getting over her grief would be a lot easier if he was actually gone for real. And she starts to think that maybe she could help fate a little with that. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time she exacts revenge. But a little wrath goes a long way, sometimes a much longer way than anyone could foresee…

I loved Olivia as a character. Yes, she’s so furious that she spends half her time seething and plotting and calling both her husband and his mistress names whenever she thinks about them (which is pretty much constantly), but I couldn’t really blame her. The more I found out about her though, the more I began to suspect that she has perhaps a bit of a psychopathic mind. I felt I could never quite grasp her true nature and it had me tapping my e-reader as fast as I could. Liv as a character really carries this story, and it’s trying to figure her out as much as the suspense in the story itself that made Wilderness a very enjoyable read for me. One definite WTF moment there as well; you may all see it coming, if so then kudos to you, but I sure didn’t. I had stopped reading at a pivotal point in the story and I thought I knew what had happened and what would follow (so blasé, I know). The next day, I continued reading and found out that I had known diddly-squat! My jaw dropped and I went back to reread the previous chapter, had I missed something?! I hadn’t, Ms Jones had fooled me fair and square!

One last shout-out: I adored the setting! Ms Jones and her husband went on a road trip in South-West USA, it was where she got lots of ideas for Wilderness, and it really shows. The hubby and I have been on a similar road trip (for the record, neither Ms Jones nor I fantasised about offing our husbands!), and I recognised lots of what Olivia and Will encounter. The vivid (but to-the-point!) descriptions of the scenery, locations and situations brought back some very fond memories.

A suspenseful story in a gorgeous setting, recommended!

Looking for a second (third, fourth, …) opinion? Check out the other stops: