The younger wife

Pamela Aston isn't locked in the attic like Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, but she has been confined in a care facility for dementia. Her husband, Stephen, divorces her to marry a woman younger than one of his daughters. Tully, his older daughter, is extremely neurotic and a kleptomaniac, and the younger one, Rachel, literally feeds her self-destructiveness with her fancy cake business. The bride-to-be, Heather, is a self-made woman, clearly trying too hard to disguise her unfortunate background. Her father is in prison for strangling her mother. Is that why her hands are always shaking? Everyone in this story is impulsively dangerous to themselves and everyone around them, Stephen included, and they are sitting on a powder keg of toxic secrets. A warped tale, moving back and forward in time, full of "what is really happening here?" moments, Hepworth's seventh offering (after The Good Sister, 2021) is perfect for fans of her fellow Australian writers, as it boasts Jane Harper's multilayered characters and Liane Moriarty's wealthy suburban world saturated with lies and deceit.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With each domestic thriller, best-selling Hepworth shines brighter and draws in more readers.

In this appealing domestic suspense novel from bestseller Hepworth (The Good Sister), Pamela Aston's two adult daughters, Tully and Rachel, are already reeling at the swiftness of the Melbourne, Australia, homemaker's deterioration with early-onset Alzheimer's when their cardiac surgeon father, Stephen, blindsides them with another bombshell--his plan to divorce Pam, who's soon moved to a nursing home, and marry interior designer Heather Wisher, who's younger than either sister. Further shocks await Rachel, a gorgeous plus-size baker who by her own account eats her feelings, as well as Tully, the always anxious mother of two little boys, as they try to figure out how seriously to take Pam's occasional utterances suggesting that life with Stephen may have had a darker side. Meanwhile, the surprisingly sympathetic Heather starts to question her wedding plans--and possibly her sanity--now that she's living with Stephen full-time. The toxic secrets each woman has been hiding, a surprise romance, and the small fortune Rachel discovers in her mother's hot water bottle nicely complicate the fast-moving plot. This often funny and affecting outing should win Hepworth new fans. Agent: Rob Weisbach, Rob Weisbach Creative Management. (Apr.)