A delicious twist on a Gothic classic, Rachel Hawkins's The Wife Upstairs pairs Southern charm with atmospheric domestic suspense, perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Megan Miranda.
Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.
But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie––not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for.
Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past––or his––catches up to her?
With delicious suspense, incisive wit, and a fresh, feminist sensibility, The Wife Upstairs flips the script on a timeless tale of forbidden romance, ill-advised attraction, and a wife who just won’t stay buried. In this vivid reimagining of one of literature’s most twisted love triangles, which Mrs. Rochester will get her happy ending?
Review
Thank you Netgalley for an audiobook and Saint Martins Press for a physical ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Jane, a girl who is hiding from her past but doesn’t realize that when she finally thinks she has left It behind her, found a wealthy man to help her out of the dump apartment she shares with an even creeper man, that she would be walking right into an investigation. That the house of that wealthy man isn’t only lavish but holds a secret no one knows in the hidden room in the attic.
The background for this book it set up so well. We don’t know Jane’s past, but we know she Is hiding from it, that she will do anything to leave the past behind. She changes her name, moves away, get an apartment and walks dogs for the wealthy people in Thornfield Estates’. You can feel the anxiety and stress of Jane’s past in the narrators’ voice.
The narration was really good and engaging. There were 3 narrators each for the 3 main characters in the book. The narrators used different voices for each character, so you knew who was talking even before they read the words on the page that told you who. The narration not only had different voices, but they put feeling into each one. If the character was supposed to have an accent, then it was portrayed. The narration was also really good at putting the emotion and feeling into the reading. If the person was saying something sarcastic, you knew by the twinge in the voice. Mainly the narration for Jane, you totally felt the judgmental tone when needed. You could tell who Jane was and how she was thinking and feeling just by the way the narrator spoke. The narrators kept to a good pace that added tensions and suspense when needed. Most audiobooks go to slow for me but this one was perfect.
As for the story, most books take me a little to get use to the writing and to understand the world and characters before enjoying the book but for this one I right away was engaged. I didn’t need to let it play out for me to have enough information to understand what was happening. Even though it started off by being easy to understand and follow from the very beginning you know there was something you were missing, which added the suspense that kept me reading.
I wasn’t bored during any part of this book. It wasn’t fast paced action pact the whole time but between those moments, where the thrill and the suspense came in, the book still had a captivating story line. The main problem I had with this book is that it cursed way to much, which threw me off from making a higher rating. Other than that, I don’t think there was any plot holes. I think that all the characters had a background that was slowly revealed which made you piece certain information together you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I love that it had those small details that seem insignificant until you know the truth and realize it was everything.
Of course, it wasn’t the most mind boggling, psychologically manipulating book. The truth wasn’t hard to piece together which I like and dislike. I like that is was simple enough that I still understood the truth once revealed, but it could have been more confusing to an extent. I wasn’t totally dumb founded or surprised when I knew the truth, but over all I really liked it. I will definitely look back on this book and remember how fun it was to read.