Fran Hal has a glamorous job at a London magazine, close friends, and is recovering from the breakup of a relationship with Nick Jason. He is a handsome, bad boy who owns a nightclub. For a while, Fran enjoyed the flash and excitement of that exciting life with Nick but she soon became disenchanted. She became fed up with his shady deals and even shadier business associates and broke off their relationship. At a dinner given by her BFF, Jo, she meets Nathan and her world is turned upside down. They are totally attracted to each other and have a whirlwind courtship. In two months, they are married and Fran is pregnant. When their daughter Emme is four years old, their son, Ben, just four months old, Nathan talks Fran into moving to rural Oakenham to a rundown farm that Nathan bought at a very cheap price. He tells her he had grown up not far from there and thinks it will be a new beginning for them, their family, and their marriage. Nathan is often away from home on business, telling Fran about the many conventions he has to attend for his building business. When he is home, he goes out alone frequently. He is very controlling, secretive and mysterious. He keeps Fran at home, isolated and alone. Promises to fix the house go unanswered, her pleas to return to work are unacceptable to Nathan, and slowly their relationship cools, especially their sex life.

One night Ben's crying awakens Fran and she reaches for her husband and he is not there. Looking at the clock she is amazed at the time, gets up and begins to search the house for him. She goes outdoors and finds his bloody body in a ditch. He is very cold and very dead. Two inspectors answer her call for help and the investigation by two uncaring, mean, and harassing law officials begin and become a nightmare for Fran. She is their only witness, and they are convinced she murdered her husband. Under constant police scrutiny, I was upset by their constant unannounced appearances and their manner toward Fran was shoddy and disgusting. Gossip runs rampant in this tiny town, and stories about Fran having an affair with a man surfaces and convinces the inspector that Fran is guilty. Fran holds many secrets and slowly but surely discovers the lies, and betrayals from her husband who she finds she did not know at all. Who is the murderer? Why? It's a plot that leads in so many directions and each is filled with more questions.

Christobel Kent writes a suspense-filled domestic thriller. While I did not care for Fran and found her to be weak and naive, the rest of the story is filled with so many characters, clues, twists and turns to keep you guessing. It is hard to put this book down. The ending, however, is unexpected and the killer never entered my list of suspects. Some of the sub-plots are weird and those characters are nasty. On the top of my list of characters who you love to hate are the chief investigator, Doug Gerard, and his assistant, both of whom act without any regard for Fran and many times in an illegal manner. This wasn't my favorite read because many of the characters were hard to like, but I will say there were some interesting parts to the story. Enough to continue to read and look forward to more books by Christobel Kent.

Book Summary

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Be careful, Fran,” the man said quietly. “About what you think you know.”

In a dilapidated farmhouse out in the vast waterlogged plains of the English Fenlands, Fran awakes groggily to her baby’s cries one February night and finds the bed empty beside her. Her husband, Nathan, is gone.

Moving uneasily through the drafty rooms, searching for her husband, Fran soon makes a devastating discovery that upends her marriage and any semblance of safety. As she tries desperately to make sense of what happened to Nathan, Fran is forced to delve dangerously into the undercurrents of his claustrophobic hometown and question how well she knew him in the first place. Fran, increasingly isolated, grows paranoid—but Nathan isn’t the only one hiding something. Though she can’t tell a soul, Fran is shielding a damning secret of her own: a hazy, dreamlike memory from the night of Nathan’s disappearance that might be the key to it all.

From the bestselling author of The Crooked House comes an utterly gripping psychological thriller spanning the traditions of Daphne du Maurier and S. J. Watson. Christobel Kent’s The Loving Husband is spooky and skillfully written, dragging readers deep into the unsettling world of the Fens and into a marriage of half-truths and past lives, where no one can be trusted—especially not your spouse.