we know that it's a tale of obsession but it's also filled with smoke and mirrors, so many twists and turns you'll think you're in that creepy maze from The Shining. But halfway into the book, we know what is really happening, or at least we think we do. And it's here when we can't help but be in awe of Hendricks and Pekkanen's talent for fooling us so deliciously and so deliberately, while we innocently fell for it … What's different in The Wife Between Us is that we never know the complete truth until we turn the last page, and this is not a hyperbolic statement.
The Wife Between Us bests The Woman in the Window in the didn’t-see-it-coming plot twist category, right on page 147. The remaining pages, while intriguing, never quite top that early jaw-dropper … The Wife Between Us is built around a deliciously clever premise, and it’s psychologically astute, if a bit dreary.
A slick puzzle box that seems to take the tropes of every Lifetime lady-in-peril movie and toss them in a Vitamix at a rough chop … The brief chapters go by quickly, with one true hand grenade tossed in midway, but there’s something faintly airless in the machinations of its paper-doll players; trapped in their toxic pas de trois, they can’t quite seem to transcend two dimensions.
Twists, twists and more twists. The Wife Between Us will keep readers off balance through the whole story. It may seem obvious what’s going on here. But keep in mind: nothing is obvious in this book. Vanessa was Richard’s nervous Nellie, the beautiful but skittish young woman he vowed to take care of. But now he’s replacing her with Emma. What was it that Vanessa did to push her handsome husband away? You’ll never guess.
Hendricks and Pekkanen take the unreliable narrator to a whole different level. For readers that are tired of stories about enamored, blinded young women getting snowed by abusive men, you’re in for a treat. These women are smart and complicated and are certainly not wilting flowers. The twists are seamless and very clever. Just when you think that you’ve gotten hit with the big one, you get walloped by another one.
...a jaw-dropping psychological thriller … This is not another eye-rolling story about the jealous ex-wife stalking her replacement, as readers will discover as Vanessa’s motivations are revealed. Unforgettable twists lead to shocking revelations all the way through the epilogue.
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 plot—maybe Hendricks and Pekkanen should have written a whole book about that. Easy to read, smoothly put together. A good airport book.
