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Book Review: The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth
Summary:
Tully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their heart surgeon father’s money. They understand why he might want to date, given that their mother is in a care home due to rapidly advancing early onset Alzheimer’s, but it feels disrespectful that he’s going to divorce her to marry another. Meanwhile, they’re each struggling with a secret. Plus, Heather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses in all of them?
Review:
I have a soft spot for Australian psychological thrillers. This is the fourth Sally Hepworth one I’ve read. It ranks near but not quite at the top among her works for me. (My favorite being The Mother-in-Law). It’s pretty obvious early on that Heather is not the big bad, so then the main mystery remains – who is? And of course, what is Rachel’s secret? And when will everyone find out Tully’s secret?
We find out almost immediately that Tully struggles with kleptomania and that Rachel used to date but suddenly abruptly stopped. So the main issues surrounding the two sisters is when will others find out about Tully’s uncontrollable shoplifting and what exactly made Rachel stop dating. I thought the former was handled better than the latter. Tully seeks out therapy and her problems don’t disappear overnight. Rachel meets a nice guy and with him is able to overcome her trauma. That frustrated me a bit. Especially since Rachel is set up as being so strong. One can be strong and also find help in therapy. Or even in a support group structure. It shouldn’t all be on the significant other to help someone heal. So it was a little bit hit and miss for me with the two sisters.
I thought the main mystery of what was actually going on in the weird triangle of the dad, Heather, and the mom was quite well done. I especially appreciated the handling of Alzheimer’s. I do think this book falls prey to the old idea of alcoholism – that one can only have an alcohol problem if one is at rock bottom. Beating a spouse or getting delirium tremens (the shakes) when going too long without it. There are definitely characters in this book who display problems with alcohol, but the narration brushes off the idea that they might have a problem.
The structure starts with a bang – at the wedding, someone is injured, and we don’t know who. The wedding is put on hold, the police are called. We then flash back to Heather meeting the daughters and build back up to the wedding. This is a multiple point of view book. Rachel, Tully, Heather, even the mother get a turn narrating.
This book confronts the problem looming for a lot of new contemporary fiction – do we or do we not acknowledge the pandemic? This strikes a gentle balance of what to do. The characters talk about not shaking hands anymore, one character had a big career setback due to lockdowns, and another character’s marriage is a bit impacted by the work-from-home situation. No major details are mentioned (for example, masks are never discussed, no deaths from the pandemic are mentioned). I envisioned it as happening in 2021 or early 2022. Post lockdowns but not far flung future. I thought it worked fairly well.
Without any spoilers, let’s discuss the kind of gray ending. While it seems to be open to interpretation, for me it demonstrated how even when an abuser is gone, the impacts of the abuse continue. It shows how the voice of the abuser can live on in the mind(s) of the abused. Gaslighting from beyond the grave, but not in a supernatural sense.
Overall, this was a fun read with a different enough plot to keep me engaged. It was a little bit of a mixed bag, which is what kept me from loving it. I put content warnings in for this book over on Storygraph if you’re interested in those. I did wish I’d had them myself.
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 352 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
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October 2017 Reads – In Which I Read Only Books by Liane Moriarty
For more shots check out my bookstagram
You’ll notice I ended September with a chick lit book by the Australian author Liane Moriarty. Well that started a singular focused reading kick the likes of which I haven’t been on since the Sookie Stackhouse books in the early 2010s. I read every single Liane Moriarty book I could get my hands on. There’s just something about them where even if I ultimately wasn’t a huge fan of everything about the book the experience of reading it was precisely the stress relief I needed. They all are set in Australia. They all do a remarkable job of looking at an aspect of women’s lives but in a jazzed up way that makes it more fun. They just work.
First I read Truly Madly Guilty about a backyard barbecue gone wrong. I thought it was going to be something entirely different from what it was, and what it wound up being was just something that worked so much better than I thought. It’s about marriage and forgiveness and accepting that others make mistakes and not judging people based on appearances, but it’s all of that without being preachy. It also features a subplot about a character’s relative who hoards that was really well-handled.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: purchased)
Next up was Big Little Lies which has an award-winning miniseries based on it. I haven’t seen the miniseries. I can’t bring myself to watch it since it’s not set in Australia (and the Australian setting really makes these books for me). This one at first glance is about in-fighting among the moms whose kids all go to the same school but it ends up being about so much more. I really liked this one because at first you might think it’s one of those books stereotyping women to be catty but in fact it goes much deeper and shows how society can pit women against each other but we’re much stronger when we’re together…and we’re kind of inclined to be that way anyway.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: purchased)
Finally I read The Husband’s Secret. My own husband kept glancing over while I was reading it asking if the husband’s secret was making me freak out yet, haha. Yes, this book revolves around a secret and no, it’s not what you might think when hearing of a book with that title. I really like that this book looks at how well can you really know someone and considers the question of can one moment really determine who you are.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: purchased)
My total for the month of October 2017:
- 3 books
- 3 fiction; 0 nonfiction
- 3 female authors (but all the same one); 0 male authors
- 3 ebooks; 0 print book; 0 audiobooks
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Book Review: An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows (Series, #1)
Summary:
When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena, a magical realm on the brink of civil war.
There, her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. But Leoden has allies, too, chief among them the Vex’Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest.
Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin, a secretive order of storytellers and mystics, the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic.
Can one girl – an accidental worldwalker – really be the key to saving Kena? Or will she just die trying?
Review:
A fantasy written from a queer, female perspective that explores race and social justice featuring the common trope of multiple parallel worlds.
The basic plot is an intertwining of two common to fantasy: 1) there’s multiple parallel worlds 2) political intrigue warring societies etc… These are both done to a level I appreciate. They make sense without overwhelming me with world building and pages of explanations of how a society that doesn’t really exist works.
Both of these basic plots are used to explore queer viewpoints, feminism, and race, all through the lens of social justice. How much you’ll enjoy this lens depends upon the reader. I think the queer part is fairly well-done with a broad representation including: bisexual (by name!), lesbian, trans*, and polyamory. I’m not big on polyamory plots but I thought its inclusion in a parallel world made sense and was clearly not written from a perspective intended to purely titillate, rather, the emotional aspects of these relationships was explored. I do think the explorations of race lacked some of the subtlety present in the explorations of queerness. The white Australian girl being thrust into a parallel world where the majority race is black who is guided by another “worldwalker” who similarly fell through but decided to stay because she’s black and this world is better than Thatcher’s England struck me as a bit heavy-handed and overly simplistic. I’m also not sure how I felt about the black character being put into a secondary role as guide. I kept finding myself thinking how I would have preferred to have read her story. (You quickly find out she stayed in the world, gained some power, joined a polyamorous marriage, had a child, and more! What an interesting life!)
All of that said, I don’t often enjoy traditional style non-urban fantasy, and this one did keep me reading and interested. It’s fun to read a book about political intrigue and multiple worlds dominated by women, touched by dragons, and with no male gaze. I doubt I will seek out the second entry in the series, though, because I feel I’ve already got everything out of the story I’m going to get.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 494 pages – chunkster
Source: NetGalley
A Second Trio of Disappointing Reads Reviewed in Haiku
On the Beach
By: Nevil Shute
Summary:
After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path.
Haiku Review:
Surely someone in
The last surviving nation
Would have kinky sex?
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Paperbackswap
Buy It
Finny
By: Justin Kramon
Summary:
Finny’s relationships with Earl and Judith open her up to dizzying possibilities of love and loss and propel her into a remarkable adventure spanning twenty years and two continents.
Haiku Review:
Attention ladies!
Selfish male artists are top!
Unlike all things femme.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Paperbackswap
Buy It
The List
By: Siobahn Vivian
Summary:
It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn’t matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.
Haiku Review:
Could’ve been a series,
Instead squished eight tales in one.
Outline with no depth.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Library
Buy It
New Release Friday: Adam by James Bushill (#scifi #thriller)
I am pleased as punch to be able to feature James Bushill’s brand-new scifi thriller on today’s New Release Friday. In addition to this being Australian lit (yay Australia!) with a smoking cover, James has been the nicest person to work with on this feature. Take it away, James!
Blurb:
2101. The asteroid Metis. A runner jogs along a silent tunnel, tracked by a pool of light. Then there’s a noise, a low rumble, and in the distance, another light, which becomes two headlights moving fast, the lights of an enormous mining truck. Its cab is completely empty.
Ten years earlier, Victor and his wife created Adam, the world’s first biological supercomputer. They dreamed of changing the world.
Now, Victor sleeps alone in a hospital corridor in the pollution-shrouded city of Missoula, Montana, his dreams in tatters.
He doesn’t think his life could get any worse.
But then he’s forced to return to Metis.
And when that mission becomes a desperate fight for survival amid the dark tunnels of the abandoned mine, he must finally confront the terrifying consequences of his past actions.
Genre: scifi thriller
What makes this book unique in its genre?
There are lots of stories about robots or computers that turn against their creators, but I think this might be the only one about a biological supercomputer.
What was your writing process like for this book?
“Adam” started life as a screenplay written during a screenwriting course that I took through UCLA. It’s changed a great deal since then, but it’s retained some of the fast paced, no filler style of the script. So there aren’t pages stuffed full of world building, or unnecessarily detailed descriptions of technology. Instead, there’s a thrilling science fiction story set in a dystopian future, with tragically flawed characters, and an ending that you’ll never guess.
Coupon Code:
But wait! Now through April 22nd get 50% off if you buy it through Smashwords using the coupon code: HC66M. That’ll give you this thrilling scifi read for less than $2. Buy it on Smashwords here.
Thanks so much for being featured here on Opinions of a Wolf, James!
Would you be interested in being featured on New Release Friday? Find out how here.
New Release Friday is a sponsored post but I only feature books on New Release Friday that I believe would interest readers of this blog. Book reviews are never sponsored. Find out more about the sponsored post policy here.
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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