The Younger Wife – ARC Book Review

The moment she laid eyes on Heather Wisher, Tully knew this woman was going to destroy their lives.

Tully and Rachel Aston are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn’t even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Announcing his plan to divorce and then remarry, the news of Stephen and Heather’s engagement sets a chain a family implosion. With their mother unable to speak for herself, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the truth about their family’s secrets and what this new woman really wants.

Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win over Tully and Rachel, all the while carrying the burden of the secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, they are all hiding something.

A garage full of stolen goods. An old hot-water bottle stuffed with cash. A blood-soaked wedding. And that’s only the beginning . . .

I was super excited when I got approved for the ARC of Sally Hepworth’s book–The Younger Wife!

Honestly, I haven’t read any of her books yet but I have heard so many raving reviews about her books that I was curious about it.

Tully and her sister Rachel gets a surprise when their father introduces Heather, who was a therapist for their mother Pam who had dementia. It was a whirlwind of divorce followed by the unexpected announcement of wedding plans and engagement. Both Tully and Rachel decides to find the family’s secret when Rachel comes across a bottle filled with money and the name of a woman named Fiona Arthur. And they want to find more about their new younger stepmother, Heather.

The story is told from Tully, Rachel and Heather’s points of views. Each character has a unique characteristic and is going through some trouble–Tully’s husband Sonny became bankrupt and Tully suffers from being a kleptomaniac, Rachel loves baking and Heather had come from an abusive family. The story starts with a scene of the wedding, narrated by a mysterious person who is the uninvited guest and who noted down the expressions of Tully, Rachel and Heather. After the ceremony, a scream is heard and then the story shifts to one year earlier. The scene changes back and forth to the past and present, past told by the perspectives of Tully, Heather and Rachel until to the day of the wedding. All three of them are complex characters and the two daughters seemed to have a complex relationship with their father. This was also fast paced thriller as we have no idea who got hurt at the wedding and who screamed and the author did a good job of putting the reader to the edge of the seat as the reader would want to know what was going to happen next. There were twists with secrets revealed and the ending…boy the ending was completely unexpected! Totally blew me away!

If you like a really good psychological thriller that will put you at the edge of the seat, then this one is for you–worth 4.5 stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.