The instant New York Times Bestseller (January 2018)! “A fiendishly smart cat-and-mouse thriller” —New York Times Book Review“Buckle up, because you won’t be able to put this one down.” —Glamour “Jaw dropping. Unforgettable. Shocking.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“The best domestic suspense novel since Gone Girl.” —In Touch WeeklyWhen you read this book, you will make many assumptions.You … review)
“The best domestic suspense novel since Gone Girl.” —In Touch Weekly
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen’s The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage – and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
Read between the lies.
A 2018 Indie Next Pick | One of Glamour Magazine’s Best Books of 2018 | One of Hello Giggles’ 19 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018
Praise for The Wife Between Us:
“Fiendishly clever…in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. This one will keep you guessing.” —Anita Shreve, New York Times bestselling author of The Stars are Fire
“A clever thriller with masterful twists.” – Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of The Kept Woman
“The Wife Between Us delivers a whip smart, twisty plot in a taut, pacy narrative. It’s terrific and troubling. This is one scary love triangle where you won’t know who to trust. I loved it.” –Gilly Macmillan, New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew
“A twisty, mind-bending novel about marriage and betrayal. A gripping plot and fascinating characters; this book will keep you turning the pages and guessing until the very end. A must-read!” –Lauren Weisberger, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada
“This amazing story gallops along at breakneck speed, with an ending that smacks you between the eyes and takes your breath away. These authors are destined to become trail blazers in the field of psychological suspense books that explode in your hands!” —Nancy Simpson-Brice, Book Vault
“Like a house of mirrors, The Wife Between Us kept me guessing around every corner, delving into the complexities of marriage, friendship, and obsession.” —Javier Ramirez, The Book Table
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Thanks to Netgalley for an early copy of this book. I’ve been a fan of Sarah Pekkanen’s since her first novel and it was fun to see her branch out into domestic suspense here with her former editor. This book has a lot of twists, but at its heart it’s the story of a marriage gone wrong and one woman’s attempt to save herself from that marriage. The lengths she’ll go to, and the people who will get hurt along the way, are all part of this twisty journey. For fans of grip lit!
I just finished this fantastic psychological suspense novel and thought you might enjoy it.
The Wife Between Us is one of the most interesting domestic noir books that I’ve read for a while. It takes some of the most common tropes in modern psychological thrillers and puts its own spin on it.
If you like books that are slow-burners with lots of twists I think you’ll like this one.
Enjoy!
Sarah A. Denzil
Wall Street Journal bestselling author
Assume nothing!
This is a slow building, character driven, domestic thriller that had kept me continuously revising and recalculating my theories. This is not a book for those who love a book with a quick pace and lots of action. But for those who enjoy a slow revealing plot with subtle nuances and thought provoking subject matter, this will keep you quite entertained.
I listened to the audio version and highly recommend this medium. The narration was perfect and because this was a slower building plot, the audio really added to the experience.
If you like fast-paced thrillers, this is a quick read that’s getting a lot of buzz already — and doesn’t even hit shelves until January. This wasn’t my favorite thriller ever, but I appreciated that it’s packed with so many twists and turns, and I couldn’t stop flipping the pages. I don’t want to give away too much, but fans of The Girl on the Train or I Let You Go will recognize many of the themes.
We’ve got a supernova book here! Hot commodity! Steven Spielberg bought the film rights in 2017—two years before the book was finished! Shades of the movie Gaslight, and the books Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, this psychological thriller will have you asking, in the words of Aretha Franklin’s song, Who’s Zoomin’ Who? Four stars because I often had to re-read to keep the plot points and characters straight in my mind. A lot of alternating between points of view and past and present time, made this a labor of love. A lot of work, but well worth it!
After their wedding, the couple move from Manhattan to Westchester County, a suburb of New York City. Living the life of luxury, Nellie gives up her job as a pre-school teacher/ waitress, and devotes herself to the seemingly impossible task of becoming pregnant. As time goes on, Nellie becomes fat, bored and boring, and her beloved husband finds himself a prettier, younger, less complicated and needy (he thinks) replacement. Nellie is not taking this sitting down and obsesses over interfering in the new couple’s marriage plans. Nellie’s actions are overt and covert, but she is not the only behind the scenes, in your face, manipulator. The line forms on the right! Only Nellie’s best fried and aunt are as they appear. The rest of the cast have agendas and manage to keep their motivations and shenanigans hidden.
By the way, what is the significance of the title? Is there more than one wife? Which wife is between Character A and Character B? Is there a Character C and Character D with the same problem? Character E and Character F? Is this a theme that circulates from beginning, middle to end? Hmmm. Maybe, maybe not.
Sabotage, interference, surveillance, tapped phones, and confrontation go undetected or are sloughed off as the work of perceived enemies. Those who appear guilty are probaby not. But yet, we have Nellie and Richard competing for the role of injured party. Can you guess who the real victim is? Can you guess what motivates the perps? Can you guess how many times Richard has played out this scene? Do you know whose aborted pregnancy comes back to haunt her? Probably not. The plot is so complicated with red herrings and wild goose chases that the reader is taken off track, and must manually be put back. I’d still like to know how Steven Spielberg knew ahead of time that this would be a great book for a movie adaptation. Are the authors that good, or does Spielberg have the instincts of a bloodhound when it comes to these things?
I look forward to the movie. Any ideas for actors to play the roles? If you have anything to share, please get in touch.
I listed to the audiobook narrated by Julia Whalen, and can’t recommend it enough.
I freaking LOVED this book. First of all, I think this book is best going in completely blind, so I wouldn’t recommend reading reviews or even the back cover / description copy. For some reason I didn’t glance at the back cover until I was 50% in, and it would have totally given away a key twist, I would think.
Anyway, this book was a suspenseful read with several big twists, and while I guessed a couple of them ahead of the big reveals, others kept me guessing, so predicting some early didn’t diminish my enjoyment. I really admired the craft here — it was a very precise prose, describing the minute details about the protagonists’ actions and thoughts. Typically I’d find that tedious after a while, but something the writing was unsettling, adding to the suspense. The clues are masterfully threaded throughout the story, and I’m considering re-reading this one to see how certain lines and emotions can be interpreted in different ways (once you know all the reveals). I definitely recommend this to any suspense/thriller lover!
**************MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW**************
(You have been warned.)
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**LAST CHANCE TO SCROLL BACK UP AND AVOID SPOILERS**
Really guys, this is only for people who have already read the book and/or will 100% never read the book and just want to know what happens.
FINE HERE WE GO.
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OK so let’s dive into these twists. The midway twist is the one the back cover copy totally gives away, but since I avoided reading that, I actually only guessed half of it ahead of time. I knew something was very wrong with Richard — probably because sweet-perfect-boyfriend-turns-into-abusive-husband is a common suspense trope, and I recently read Behind Closed Doors — and I knew that Vanessa was trying to save his new fiancé from an abusive marriage (rather than being jealous of her and trying to sabotage their wedding). What I didn’t expect was that Vanessa and Nellie were the same person. I see that many other reviewers spotted this early, so I’m kicking myself; I read so many thrillers, how did I not see that coming?? Bravo to the authors, IMO.
The next notable twist was that Vanessa had basically arranged the affair between Richard and Emma in order to escape her own abusive marriage to Richard — often using his own manipulations to manipulate *him*. I didn’t see that coming! At this point, I was also impressed at how every detail of Vanessa and Richard’s marriage seemed to tie into this ploy of Richard’s to make Vanessa feel off-balance. That was very well done. One thing, though — I thought the party-with-the-missing-wine element was a little confusing, and you have to suspend disbelief a bit that the credit card statements would have been enough evidence to convince Emma that yes, in fact, Richard is a manipulative psychopath. If I were Emma, I probably would have looked at the statements like, WTF am I supposed to be looking at here? To her, it would have been a small detail in the span of the past year. BUT I still appreciated how everything tied together, and many that’s just me, so sure, I’ll accept that.
Then you have some minor plot twists as Vanessa convinces Emma that she shouldn’t marry Richard, but the next “big” one is that there’s some disturbing backstory between Richard and Maureen, his sister. I saw this coming a mile away, but I wish it was more fully explained. We’re left to assume she’s sexually abused him since she slips on Vanessa’s wedding ring. There’s also the detail that Richard’s father abused his mother, but I watch way too much Law and Order SVU, so that was very obvious to me. But since Vanessa says to Emma “Your eyes… they seemed so familiar,” I wondered how she didn’t speculate earlier whether there was some connection because Vanessa is presented as being extremely clever; clever enough to manipulate her husband into an affair with another woman so she could escape their abusive marriage.
Lastly, there’s the twist that Emma is the daughter of the professor Vanessa was having an affair with in her college days. I know some reviewers didn’t love this, but I thought this was extremely clever — and I loved how Emma was out for vengeance, and then slowly came to realize that Vanessa had been a victim all along, and found forgiveness for this woman she’s harbored resentment for since she was like 12.
As you can see, you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief for some of these twists, but they really made me think and appreciate the craft behind the setup and reveals. And I just enjoyed the ride so much. So, five stars from me. I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments below. Agree? Disagree?
“The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen was intriguing from the beginning. This well-written, fast-paced novel kept me guessing until the very last pages when an explosive ending caused my jaw to drop. Highly recommended.”
DISCLAIMER: This fascinating story does contain mild language and situations that might make some readers uncomfortable.
Loved the multiple surprise twists I didn’t see coming at all! Once this story picked up, I couldn’t put it down!
I don’t know about “jaw dropping” and all that, but his was a super solid book. I’ve been burned by thrillers lately and was waiting for this one to drop the ball and it never did. Like any good mind messer, it made me stop and retrace my steps, which I appreciate. And while the ending was a bit of a bow on top, I liked it a lot. Overall great read.
From the prologue to the epilogue this thriller provides unforgettable twists. It makes you believe that we have the strength, deep within ourselves, to come out of a bad situation stronger and smarter than we were going into it. Relatable characters took me on a journey and I enjoyed the ride. Great story.
I lost most of yesterday listening to this book, which made an otherwise dull, routine day much more entertaining. It’s not 100% perfect, but much closer than so many others. Definitely worth a read for the unique structure alone!
First of all I have to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for the honor of letting me read this awesome, wonderful, touching, tense, story.
Vanessa came to New York to escape her past. Her home life was not good. Her mother had bad issues and things happened in college that she wanted to forget forever. One she would never ever forget. She blamed herself for it.
She meets a smooth talking, well dressed, well mannered man on a flight from FL to New York and so the story begins…
Richard, all any woman would want in a husband. Good looking, well mannered, well dressed, hard working, attentive, loving and anything else you might think of. He swept Vanessa off her feet. They marry and things slowly start changing. Who is this man, this stranger she has married?
Emma, Richards soon to be next wife. Why won’t she listen to Vanessa. She only wants to save her the same heartache. She only wants to help. Will she before it’s to late?
Maureen, Richards sister. She thinks he can do no wrong and does not believe anyone is quite good enough for him. She is maybe the only person that can get through to him. What secrets does she know about Richard’s life as a young boy that made him who he is? Is she trustworthy her own self?
Kate, Richard’s first wife. Not a lot here except she gave up more than anyone to be free. To live her life in peace. To make a life.
This story is told from Vanessa’s point of view. It’s one that you won’t forget soon. It’s probably one of the very best books I have read in it’s genre in such a long time. From the very start I was pulled in to this story and couldn’t stop until I finally read the very last word. I hated so bad for it to end. It’s a great book with so many twists and turns. So many ups and downs. To me it was not a real sad book. Not in the sense that you will just cry reading it. It has some parts that made me very angry. I wanted to crawl into the story and hit someone, hard. Hurt them for the things they were doing to a good and decent person.
Abuse is never acceptable. Never. Not at any age. This story touches on that and on dominating and controlling. I went through abuse from a guy I dated at a young age, 17, and when I got out of it I swore I would never let anyone treat me that way again. I never did either.
This is truly a good book. One you will love from start to finish. The ending blew me away. I did not see it coming. I had many thoughts, many ideas of what I thought, but was pleasantly surprised by it. You will love this book. I promise.
I gave it a 5 star rating a it deserves way more…..
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“In my marriage, there were three truths, three alternate and sometimes competing realities. There was Richard’s truth. There was my truth. And there was the actual truth, which is always the most elusive to recognize. This could be the case in every relationship, that we think we’ve entered into a union with another person, when, in fact, we’ve formed a triangle with one point anchored by a silent but all-seeing judge, the arbiter of reality.”
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By now, in the era of Gone Girl and its progeny (which are legion), I think it has become nearly impossible to write a truly out-of-the-blue, unsuspected mystery about marriage and secrets… Even if you can’t see the “surprise twist” coming from a mile away, you at least know from the beginning that *something* is coming. That doesn’t necessarily negate the thrill of the chase or the surprise though – at least, not if the storytelling is done right. In this book, Hendricks and Pekkanen have done just that…
The back-and-forth narration format is not a new one, but it is still surprisingly successful when it is handled with finesse. Nellie and Vanessa provide a great balance of then-and-now, and their tales are full of little details that keep the reader engaged, sympathetic, and curious. And then, all of a sudden – BAM, the surprise twist. I knew something was coming, but never guessed what it was – and that is a serious credit to the authors. The Reveal is managed deftly, with a peek here and a whisper there. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, the various bits are revealed with agonizing precision and a masterful sense of showmanship. We get glimpses, dangled in front of us slowly, with just enough skin to keep you interested but never so much that you get the whole picture and lose interest…
The suspense is thick on the ground – but even when the narratives are relaying more prosaic information about the women’s lives, the writing is still spot-on and engaging. I cared what happened to these women, and as a result was all the more drawn in by their misadventures and all the more fearful about how it would all turn out.
Incidentally, I’m not always a fan of partner-writing – it can feel choppy and uneven, with a sense that there are more cooks than the broth requires. There was no sense at all of that here. Despite the fact of a pair of authors, the story develops seamlessly and flows very well, with no disjunction. I hope to see more from these authors – they have a very fine writing style and tell a great tale.
My review copy was provided by NetGalley.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read and review this book!
The Wife Between Us, by authors Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen is a suspenseful and psychological thriller about a marriage gone wrong. I enjoy this type of thriller when you really think you have it figured out, and then TWIST, there is a different view to consider! It is a very good book, and is an engrossing psychological suspense tale which interweaves two women and one man. The problem with the relationship is obsessive control, and at the end of the story you may wonder who really had the most power to control the marriage. Have I got you hooked yet? Some of the storylines may be a bit perplexing. Just keep reading.
There are some things about the story which I felt were unclear after I had read the book. I found myself rereading chapters and scenes in the book just to make sure I had read it correctly. I don’t want to post spoilers, but Nellie/Vanessa does seem to have some emotional insecurities which would make her very susceptible to deceit and abuse.
I suppose my question is this: If Vanessa felt so hurt by Richards divorce, then why did she scheme to ensure there is a ‘replacement’? Ok, now you really want to read the book, right?!
Wow. This book was such a pleasant surprise. It had great twists and a satisfying conclusion. I won’t summarize the plot because that would give too many details away. It’s best to go into this book without a lot of information.
That being said, there were a couple of things that disrupted the flow. The segue from part one to part two confused me. It felt awkward to me, and did not make sense. However, since the rest of the book was excellent that may just be me and the state of my mind as I was reading. Also, there were a couple instances where the twist was not as shocking as it could have been. I understand why they weren’t, but it did detract from my overall enjoyment.
It’s hard to find a thriller these days that truly keeps you turning the pages. The market is glutted with them, and for every one I truly enjoy there are five I put down after a few chapters. This one grabbed me, like a great hook in a pop song. I look forward to reading more from these authors.
This book was SO GOOD. Addictive, engrossing, and yes, twisty! More than once I came to a “wait, what?” moment, and had to flip back a couple of pages to confirm, at which point the “ah ha!” would set in and I’d continue on my merry way. I don’t want to give away too much, so I’m being purposefully vague, but the one clear takeaway from this review is that you should add this to your to-be-read pile immediately. ASSUME NOTHING.
Thank you to the authors and to St. Martin’s Press for the advanced reading copy!
I LOVED this book! With twists, and puzzles at every turn! Fascinating! What does a prince of a man do to the women in his life? READ THIS BOOK!
Who is the wife between?
This book begins with two perspectives. The second discarded wife of the handsome wealthy Peter and the younger naive woman preparing to marry him again. You will think you know the story and where it’s leading. You will be wrong. Never assume anything as suddenly your perceptions change and you are rethinking everything you have just read. The book has you now and you will remain firmly in its grip all the way to the final shock and unexpected last page.
I loved this book. It took turns I never saw coming. I had to go back and immediately reread it from a new perspective. The main narrative voice of the wife between makes you feel her sadness, desperation, humiliation and determination to (figuratively) survive the end of her marriage to a prominent businessman and her growing obsession with the younger woman replacing her. The story remains solid even as it takes such incredible turns.
It’s a book you’ll be eagerly waiting for your friends to read so you can talk about its twists and turns. I received an ARC copy of this book in exchange for a voluntary review and it has been my pleasure to read and review this story.
Only a dozen pages in, but this is the fast-paced book you’ve been waiting for, I promise!