The Younger Wife

I gave this book 5 stars for the sheer readability factor.
One of those easy-reading page-turners you don't want to put down and I read it in a day.

The plot twists are fairly easy to pick and there are trigger subjects throughout, but watching the lives of Pam, Tully, Rachel, the younger wife Heather and Stephen unfold is like watching a juicy soap opera.
You want to discover how it all ends.

”It was a long time ago.”“And yet I imagine it's not the kind of thing that ever really leaves you?”

This was the first Sally Hepworth book that I read and I can honestly say I absolutely loved this. Every single second of it.

The fact that it was set in Australia and written by a fellow Australian too just made it even better for me.

There were so many twists and turns in this book that was easy to struggle with who to trust which is what I love in books, especially ones like this.

Each character had their own struggles and secrets from the past or from the present. I felt like I was going on a journey along with the characters as they figured it out themselves.

I will definitely revisit this in the future.

What Is Reality? This is a phenomenal book that really brings forth the question: What is reality? In situations where you observe one thing but someone you trust says a completely different thing occurred - who can you trust and why? And what can happen if you trust the wrong person and/ or for the wrong reason? To me, this book worked quite well on all of these fronts.

Reading the other Goodreads reviews (briefly), it seems that there were massive edits in the ARC process. I can't speak to that. I can tell you that I originally downloaded the book way back in August 2021 - and only finished reading it nearly a full week after publication. (Such is the sheer volume of such reading I do.) I don't know if the back parts of the story - where apparently the subsequent editing was heaviest - were the edited versions or the original versions. What I can speak to is that I thoroughly enjoyed whichever edition of the story I read, and I thought this version did in fact work very well indeed.

But read the other reviews too. Read the book. And decide for yourself.

Very much recommended.

This was a book that I thought would be 5⭐ because the first half was sooo good and I was just sailing thru it, but the last half. I WAS SO DISAPPOINTED.
The writing def made the last half easy to read coz it was so easy and flowy.

My fav characters from the book were Rachel,Darcy and Sonny:)
Also this didn't feel like a thriller more like women's fiction with a side of mystery.

Read this if you love;
-Family drama
-Women's fiction which addresses a lot of important topics such as kleptomania and domestic abuse.
-Big little lies
-Interesting and unique characters

TW: Rape, physical and emotional abuse, and kleptomania.

Even thou Heather was the same age as Tully and Rachel when their dad was telling his daughters he was engaged I would have to agree with Heather about just meeting with the daughters for the first time and she didn't even know the girls to well when Stephen should have met with Heather months ago or a year then throwing the bomb at them. And I didn't like how Stephen told Rachel and Tully that he would divorce their mother when he was getting engaged to someone else maybe he should of divorce her before she lost her mind to dementia it was not right to do that. I think Tully was pretty rude and why doesn't Tully want to tell anyone that she and her boyfriend or husband or whatever he was to Tully that they were having money trouble? Maybe Rachel care about her job and people who work for her I'm not really liking Tully in the first part of the book. I think Heather is right about Stephen abusing her cause why would he give her pills when she told him that she was pregnant and the pills were for miscarriage and I was surprised that he didn't kill Pam when she was pregnant with Tully and Rachel and he was trying to make Heather was crazy and losing her when she was accusing Stephen but in the of it all Heather wasn't crazy about all of it and it seems like he was abused Fiona and Pam as well and towards the end of the book I didn't see that ending coming. Where who had killed Stephen and I'm not going to spoil who had done it and I had a feeling about I was right about how he did to Fiona, Pam and now Heather I am glad that he got killed. And I am going to give this a 3 stars is cause I didn't like the narrators for Tully and I am glad Tully had the chance to change her life around from stealing to finding a job.

Awesome as Always

Another novel by Sally Hepworth that I loved from start to finish MINUS one character!

Sally Hepworth's newest book, The Younger Wife, is a domestic thriller that follows the dysfunctional Aston family. Stephen Aston is a 63-year-old heart surgeon who is engaged to 34-year-old interior designer Heather. The only problem is that Stephen is still married to Pam, who is in a nursing home and suffers from dementia. Stephen plans on divorcing Pam so he can marry Heather, although Stephen says that the divorce is on paper only, that Pam will always be a part of his family. Stephen's two daughters, 37-year-old Tully and 35-year-old Rachel, are not too happy with this arrangement and as family secrets start to unravel, they are determined to find out who their father really is.

That synopsis sounds more sinister than the book really is. While this was not a heart thumping read, it was a great mystery with interesting and relatable characters. The story opens with Stephen and Heather's wedding. The whole family is there including Pam. After the ceremony is over, they all go into the back of the church to sign the registry and it is there that someone is hurt. We do not know who is hurt, how bad or who did it. All we know is there was a scream and then the pastor comes out to ask if there is a doctor in the house and the pastor has blood on her. The story then goes back in time
Each of the three main characters are flawed and have secrets which makes this a page turner because you are invested in the development of the Daughters and even Heather and Pam.
Tully is married and has two small sons. Not only has her husband lost a substantial amount of money in an investment, but Tully is also a kleptomaniac. I had a lot of sympathy for her because she felt there was no one she could talk to while trying to be perfect for everyone.

Rachel was my favorite character. After an incident that happened when she was sixteen, Rachel has given up on men, that is until she hires a new delivery guy for her bakery business, named Darcy. Darcy is able to finally break down the walls that Rachel has put up.

Heather was a character I thought I was going to hate, but actually ended up liking. This is the third novel I have read by Sally Hepworth it will be getting a high rating just like the others. So, if you like domestic thrillers about dysfunctional families with lots of secrets, then Sally Hepworth's The Younger Wife is the book for you. # I Am Totally Obsessed!

This is a good one! Man's wife is put into nursing home for Dementia. Same man falls in love with much younger woman (Heather) and they decide to marry. The man's 2 adult daughters (Tully & Rachel) are in shock since their father is not even divorced from their mother in the nursing home!

The book is divided into small chapters, each chapter told by one of the 3 girls (They all have issues of their own also).

This is a fast pace book with a shocker of a wedding!
360 Pages
The author is now on my “Follow” List!
David N.

I just reviewed The Younger Wife By Sally Hepworth

Father and heart surgeon Stephen is excited for his two daughters to meet the woman he is going to marry. Interior designer Heather who came to help remodel his home... for his wife.
Pam, who has advanced dementia, ends up moving into an assisted living home as Heather moves into their marital home.
Tully and Rachel are blind sided at the “meet the girlfriend lunch” and do not take kindly to this woman, who is younger than the pair, coming and taking their rich father away from their sick mother but Tully and Rachel both have their own problems and their mother.... During her states of lucidity has sinister things to say about the girl's father which only intensifies when Rachel finds a large amount of money hidden in a hot water bottle belonging to their mother.
Is what their mother says about their father true or just the ravings of a lady who doesn't remember fact from fiction? Or is Heather a gold digger who moved in on a happily married man? Can they find out before it is too late to stop the wedding?

I have been so spoiled lately with how good the books I've been reading have been and this one definitely had me hooked from the beginning.
Every single character has a problem or 2 in their own lives and it was thrilling to watch them grapple with their own demons while they try to separate fact from fiction when it comes to their parents.

I didn't much care for Tully at first but the more I learned about her the more I found myself softening to her. The role of being a mother with her severe anxiety must be a challenge that leads her to getting up to things she shouldn't. I totally get it.
Rachel I found quite lovely and I knew right from the get go why she was the way she was, the author doesn't reveal the secret about her until over half way and you get a real understanding of her by then. The sister dynamic flexes and adapts as the book progresses and I really enjoyed seeing the women mend that fence.

You don't learn what is really going on with Stephen and Heather until the very end of the book and I was shocked I didn't guess it. It was a pleasant twist. While this book doesn't have intense twists, the twists it does have are subtle but intriguing. It made for a well paced but with a slow burn thriller that I found riveting and crushed in 4 hours.

If you enjoy a well written and fantastically well thought out book then this beauty is the book for you. 4.5 stars

Available to buy now! Thank you Netgalley and St martin's press for my free ARC copy in exchange for my honest review.

ok, it may not have been life changing, but at least I got out of the two star well of despair... through the sad lens of what abuse and gaslighting can bring out in people - spoiler: mental health issues and confusion galore - we see a whole bunch of events coming together and some good old sorority for a change. Way to go.