When a Book Leaves You on the Fence: My Thoughts on My Husband’s Wife

My 2017 book reading year has seen a massive increase in audio books.  I can thank my husband for that as he is an avid fantasy audio book listener.  Honestly, I do not know what the heck my hang up was because audio books are the best thing ever.  My new love affair with audio books will be its own post at some point so let us move forward.

I just finished listening to My Husband’s Wife by Jane Corry.  I tend to gravitate toward thriller and suspense novels when I listen to audio books so this fit in to that.  I have noticed a huge influx of British female authors knocking out the suspense thrillers and this is another one.

So there are a few reasons why this book has left me on the fence.  It has an intriguing plot.  Here is a description: When young lawyer Lily marries Ed, she’s determined to make a fresh start. To leave the secrets of the past behind. But then she takes on her first murder case and meets Joe. A convicted murderer whom Lily is strangely drawn to. For whom she will soon be willing to risk almost anything. 

But Lily is not the only one with secrets. Her next-door neighbor Carla may be only nine, but she has already learned that secrets are powerful things. That they can get her whatever she wants. When Lily finds Carla on her doorstep sixteen years later, a chain of events is set in motion that can end only one way.

Sounds pretty interesting doesn’t it?  Thus the reason I decided to give it a whirl.  The beginning peaked my interest.  Then the story took a turn with the inclusion of Carla and her mother.  Then it just kept going in so many directions.  I was still intrigued because I kept thinking to myself, “all of these threads HAVE to come together”.  So I kept at it.  The listening time for this audio book was thirteen hours.  I soon found myself halfway through and the story was still adding more threads.  Then I was further along and things started coming together.  Then with only an hour left in my listening experience it all FINALLY came together.  WHEW!

My mixed feelings…my being on the fence…rest with the amount of time it took for everything to connect.  I knew that it was going to happen.  I knew that there was no way the story could not connect.  I suspected what the big secret was in the end.  I was correct in not trusting certain characters.  At first there was such promise in the direction the story was going.  Yet, all of that waiting…all of that build up…led to what I already knew was going to happen.  The book is 373 pages.  I waited roughly 300 pages waiting to get to the heart of the story.  The rest is threads that keep being added in.

Now, just because I feel this way does not mean I do not encourage giving this book a try.  No sir.  Because:

You may not share my opinion.  You may love all of that build up.  It is possible that you are not bothered by all of those story threads.  You could have a ton more patience than I do. This is a very real possibility because my patience level may as well be nonexistent. Those are all very good reasons to consider reading this book.  After all, this is only my opinion.  You should form your OWN opinion!