My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.”
----Dave Meurer
Jane Corry, an English author, pens her debut psychological thriller, My Husband's Wife that narrates the story of a couple who goes through ups and downs in their newly marital life, through many years, but their past mistakes and their involvement in the life of a notorious and sly criminal and a sweet little girl, comes haunting back at them ages later, and that can either destroy their relationship or can kill them.
Synopsis:
It's the perfect love story.
Lily meets Ed at a party, and on their second date, he proposes. She's a lawyer, he's an up-and-coming artist. They own a small but beautiful flat in London and mix with all the right people.
But Lily has a secret. Something from her past, that is soon to collide with her present. And she thinks her new husband is hiding something too...
The vows they made will soon be tested to the very limits.
'Till death us do part...'
Lily believes that she has finally be able to move on from her hurtful and dark past memories as she vows to be with her perfect husband, Ed. But the newly weds have no idea about each others' secrets that can destroy them. Lily has just begun her job as a solicitor after a week long of romantic honeymoon in Italy, and Ed is doing well at his advertising firm as well as with his part-time painting dreams. Lily is assigned to a case of Joe Thomas, who has appealed to the court, accused of murdering his girlfriend, but with the progress of the case, Lily somehow connects with a criminal in an emotional level. Moreover, both Ed and Lily also gets involved into the lives of their neighbor, an Italian woman with a little daughter, Carla. But little did they knew that, meddling with other people's lives, might force them to pay a heavy price may be with the cost of their marriage and their life.
Talk about layers! This is the one such book that I came across in quite a while, which is so high in multi-dimensional layers not only within the story line, but also in the mystery and also among the characters. Right from the very start, the story begins pulling me into its deepest, darkest and craziest maze of mystery, and till the midway into the story, I could not afford to turn away my head from this book. The author did a great job in playing games with my mind as well as twisting my mind into so many knots that I finally had to rely on the author's power to unravel the mystery layer-by-layer.
The author's writing style is articulate and is extremely deep with suspense, drama and tension that will not let the readers move from the edges of their seats. The narrative is highly arresting although at times, too much depth will leave the readers confused and puzzled, so this book demands for a lot of patience from a reader's end to enjoy the story thoroughly. The pacing of the book varies from being very slow at times to being very swift near the end.
A multi-layered story is always good for a human brain, but too many layers can mar the charm of the book and slightly that what went wrong with this book. From the start, everything was going good, unpredictable twists kept me rooted and anticipating, but midway through the book, everything mixes with one another as the author introduces more twists which are completely unnecessary to the plot of the story, leaving me baffled and forcing me to skip few lines.
The characters are really well-developed, especially the two female protagonists, where both of them evolves through life's difficult challenges even though they are psychologically flawed. Lily will appear as someone very weak or meek right in the beginning with all her past secrets, but gradually she gains power when she sees a way to win her very first case, although her insecurity over her husband's trust and love never once left her side, and that might annoy a few readers. Carla is a helpless little child who is subjected to bullies mainly because of her outlook and the fact that she has no father, but few years later, due to some incidents, she turns into a cunning and calculative woman who would pounce on her prey no matter what. The male characters, like Ed or Joe, are not at all well-etched out, as they not only lacked depth but also lacked from their backbone or strength or realism in their demeanor.
In a nutshell, the story is quite riveting as well as poignant at the same time, that begs its readers to stay glued to its very heart of the story and this book is a must read for those who fancy a powerful domestic and psychological thriller that has innumerable layers.
Verdict: A promising as well as intriguing thriller that you need to look out for in the month of August.
Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Jane Corry's publisher for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
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Author Info:
Jane Corry is a writer and journalist, and teaches creative writing all over the world. Recently she spent three years working as the writer-in-residence at a high-security prison for men.
Visit her here
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