Review by New York Times Review
At first, it looks as if Hendricks and Pekkanen have written a book that's more romance than thriller. "The Wife Between Us" alternates between two points of view. One belongs to a young and apparently innocent preschool teacher who has been swept off her feet by a rich man - a hedge fund manager, no less. The other belongs to the man's hardbitten ex, a saleswoman at Saks resentfully catering to the spoiled matrons who used to be her peers. The rich man - lynchpin of the triangle - says laughably "intellectual" things and looks good in both a suit and a pair of jeans. Although the sinister elements may begin on the pale side, they soon suggest all sorts of gaslighting and bluebearding. When the rich man first meets the teacher on an airplane, he strokes a lock of her blond hair and says: "So beautiful. Don't ever cut it." Later, seemingly out of the blue, he buys her a house. And he insists that their honeymoon destination be a surprise. Meanwhile the ex-wife, who has a family history of mental illness, broods over her replacement. Not even the preschool teacher is exempt: She's trying to suppress memories of a night in Florida that ended with "police sirens and despair." The novel is halfway over before the first reveal, but it's worth the wait, if only for its singularity. Then the twists come fast and furious. Not everything makes a lot of sense. That stuff you thought was local color? A surprising amount of it fits in somewhere. Those characters with walk-on parts? A couple of them offer their own surprises.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 11, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
Notable women's-fiction author Pekkanen teams up with former editor Hendricks in this seamless thriller that will keep readers on their toes to the very end. At first glance, poor Vanessa appears desperate to stop the impending marriage between her ex-husband and his new young lover, Nellie. Richard is a powerful and demanding man, and Vanessa is determined to save Nellie from the fate Vanessa endured as a controlled trophy wife. But things aren't always as they seem. Is Vanessa crazy or cunning? What's her endgame? And is Nellie who is suspiciously similar to Vanessa in both looks and supposed background as innocent as she comes across? What is Richard really after in all of this? To say anything more about the myriad plot twists, red herrings, and unreliable narrators would give it all away. Readers will enjoy the dizzying back-and-forth as they attempt to figure out just who to root for and as the suspense ratchets up to one hell of a conclusion.--Vnuk, Rebecca Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Voice actor Whelan rises to the challenge of narrating this psychological thriller by Pekkanen and Hendricks, which is told from the perspective an unreliable narrator named Vanessa Thompson. She appears to be a scorned woman with an alcohol problem and a disturbing fixation on the younger woman who is engaged to her ex-husband. Even though by now there have been enough novels with unreliable narrators to reduce the element of surprise, the authors use plenty of literary trickery to provide at least three genuine jaw-droppers. Since one of them is more easily hidden on the page than in audio format, reader Whelan is faced with the problem of keeping the secret while playing fair vocally, a task she carries off so subtly it's unnoticeable until the big reveal. She provides the proper voices for Vanessa, the hot mess of an ex-wife, the about-to-be-wed buoyant Manhattan preschool teacher Nellie, and the man in their lives, Richard, a hedge fund manager who sounds a little rigid. It's worth noting that, after twisting its plot to the breaking point, this ultra-deceptive novel ends with the advice that "the truth is the only way to move forward." However, Whelan's proven ability to coyly project deceit leaves listeners with no guarantee. A St. Martin's hardcover. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Nellie is about to marry her dream guy, the one who makes her feel safe and will give her the life she always imagined. There's only one problem-his crazy ex-wife Vanessa, who can't seem let go of the past. With Vanessa's borderline stalking behavior, Nellie and her fiancé find themselves in an unwelcome love triangle. But is it really that easy? Is Vanessa simply the older, rejected, and replaced first wife who is unstable? Hendricks and Pekkanen have crafted a domestic thriller in the style of Gone Girl, which keeps the reader intrigued and guessing. Some of the twists are quite clever, even gasp-producing, and expose the depth of the characters, particularly Vanessa. Narrator Julia Whelan does a good job with this increasingly emotional narrative, focusing on telling a complicated tale that alternates among protagonists and various time spans while keeping the voices clear and distinct. VERDICT Despite a few unnecessary twists that leave listeners wanting, overall this is a suspenseful and worthwhile work that adds to the genre of psychological thrillers. Readers who enjoy BA Paris and Gillian Flynn will enjoy this title. ["Readers...will love the skewed psychology and shifting perspectives of this domestic thriller": LJ 10/15/17 starred review of the St. Martin's hc.]-Nicole A. Cooke, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An angry ex-wife is stalking a young, innocent fiancee who is a carbon copy of her former selfor so it seems.The use of a multiviewpoint, chronologically complex narrative to create suspense by purposely misleading the reader is a really, really popular device. Two words: Gone Girl. While we are not the fools we once were and now assume immediately that we are being played, the question is whether we still take pleasure in the twists and revelations that follow. Pekkanen (The Perfect Neighbors, 2016, etc.) and Hendricks' debut collaboration falls into the first wife/second wife subgenre of this type of story (e.g., The Girl Before, The Last Mrs. Parrish). In all of these, an unbelievably handsome, wildly successful, secretive, rigid, orderly, and controlling husbandhere it's Richard, a 36-year-old hedge fund manager with "a runner's wiry build and an easy smile that belied his intense navy-blue eyes"marries the same type of woman more than once, sometimes more than twice. Of course, he's not who he seems. Perhaps the female characters are not, either. Here, we meet Nellie, an adorable New York preschool teacher who is not quite sure she wants to give up the fun, shoestring, highly social lifestyle she shares with her roomie to move to a sterile suburb with Richard. But the wedding dateof course he hasn't even told her the location, just "buy a new bikini"draws ever closer. Something bad happened to Nellie in Florida a long time ago that has made her anxious and hypervigilant. Meanwhile, Vanessa, the spurned wife, lives with her artist Aunt Charlotte (a great character), is boozing heavily, and is about to lose her job at Saks. She's stalking Nellie, determined to prevent the marriage at all costs. Since you know there's got to be more to it than this, the fun is in trying to figure it out before they tell you. We didn't! One of the subplots, the one about the bad thing in Florida, was fresher than the main plotmaybe Hendricks and Pekkanen should have written a whole book about that.Easy to read, smoothly put together. A good airport book. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
