I made all the assumptions outlined in the write up for this book. Glad I didn't read it prior to reading the book. For the most part the book is focused on bridging the past and the present. It's written in such a way that you actively are revising your thinking as you read. This, for me, is a sign of a strongly written plot that engages the reader in the process. Greer Hendricks slowly unravels the story, one page at a time. My only criticism is that I never fully felt the impact of the relationship. It built up to this huge crescendo and unravel, but left a lot on the cutting board. More depth in that section could have better captured the full impact. Overall a great read.

This was a great thriller...psychological suspense the entire way through. It’s sure be a hit when it releases, especially with those who loved The Girl on the Train. I know...aren’t we all sick of those comparisons on almost every even slightly suspenseful book? Yet I went there. If you enjoy books with an unreliable narrator; you’ll want to add this to your list! It will have you asking is she crazy? If not, what about her? Heck maybe it’s me...am I crazy?

One of the best books I have recently read. The twist between the characters was very unexpected and believeable. Highly recommend.

By now, in the era of Gone Girl and its progeny (which are legion), I think it has become nearly impossible to write a truly out-of-the-blue, unsuspected mystery about marriage and secrets... Even if you can't see the "surprise twist" coming from a mile away, you at least know from the beginning that *something* is coming. That doesn't necessarily negate the thrill of the chase or the surprise though - at least, not if the storytelling is done right. In this book, Hendricks and Pekkanen have done just that...

The back-and-forth narration format is not a new one, but it is still surprisingly successful when it is handled with finesse. Nellie and Vanessa provide a great balance of then-and-now, and their tales are full of little details that keep the reader engaged, sympathetic, and curious. And then, all of a sudden - BAM, the surprise twist. I knew something was coming, but never guessed what it was - and that is a serious credit to the authors. The Reveal is managed deftly, with a peek here and a whisper there. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, the various bits are revealed with agonizing precision and a masterful sense of showmanship. We get glimpses, dangled in front of us slowly, with just enough skin to keep you interested but never so much that you get the whole picture and lose interest...

The suspense is thick on the ground - but even when the narratives are relaying more prosaic information about the women's lives, the writing is still spot-on and engaging. I cared what happened to these women, and as a result was all the more drawn in by their misadventures and all the more fearful about how it would all turn out.

Incidentally, I'm not always a fan of partner-writing - it can feel choppy and uneven, with a sense that there are more cooks than the broth requires. There was no sense at all of that here. Despite the fact of a pair of authors, the story develops seamlessly and flows very well, with no disjunction. I hope to see more from these authors - they have a very fine writing style and tell a great tale.

If you are an avid reader of psychological thrillers, this book is for you. The two main female characters are written with a depth and clear separation of personality that the keeps readers moving quickly to understand their plight. The authors write in a style that pulls the reader into the characters' compulsions and impulses such that even when you'd advise differently--sitting comfortably in your favorite reading chair--you close your eyes and say: "oh, no, don't do that"--yet, you're also completely aware of the motivations to do the ill-advised action that is sure to lead to danger and not sure you'd do otherwise yourself. Well-done.

I really enjoyed this book, it was a real page turner. I loved the twist and had such empathy for the heroine. Clever and well done!

Wow....so many twists that I just didn't see coming!! This book was great from start to finish.
Many other readers are comparing it to The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl and I loved both of those books. I am totally in agreement on this and I heard recently that it is already in the works to become a movie. I am excited about this. Enough about the plot though. I can't comment much on it without including a spoiler, just to say that it flowed well and was hard to put down.
The only thing I didn't like about this book was character development. Except for the protagonist and maybe one other character, I didn't feel any real depth from any of the characters. Their personalities closely followed a typical character sketch of the person they were trying to be and they were easy to see through early on. I wasn't shocked by the behavior of most of the characters.
However, that didn't take away from my overall impression of the book.
Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me the opportunity to review this book.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen is a masterfully woven tale. Like plaid, where the reds and blues overlap in some parts and are separate in others. What a great book!

Let's start with Vanessa.

Vanessa lives with her aunt. She's an emotional wreck, reeling from her divorce to the wealthy, benevolent, and charming Richard.

Richard becomes engaged to his new lovely, and Vanessa is borderline stalking her! Woe is Vanessa.

Now onto Nellie.

Nellie is a sweet, loving, preschool teacher who still has nightmares about a long-ago incident. Her new fiance Richard provides her with a haven, loving arms, and warm fuzzies. She is beyond ecstatic to be marrying this wonderful man.

But what happens next?

Then their two worlds collide, like the red and blue intersection in the plaid, you WILL go back and look at some of the stuff you've already read. I guarantee it. I saw what was coming, and I STILL had to look back.

Even though I saw what was coming, it did not ruin the book for me. My reaction was more like a fist pump and a proud proclamation of "I knew it!"

The Wife Between Us was still a 5-star book in my greedy little eyes. I devoured this book with a ravenous appetite for more. I wanted to suck all of the words out of the book and into my head with a vengeance.

The ending is what dropped a star for me. It was supposed to be "shocking," "jaw-dropping," and "unforseeable." I just wasn't shocked or wowed by the big reveal at the end; I felt as though it was a bit cliche'. Not much different than another book I had just read. That said, I did like the ending, but I just kept waiting for the unforseeable.

All in all, I HIGHLY recommend The Wife Between Us to anyone who loves dysfunction, mental illness, spousal strife, and twists. It's clear by many of the other reviews that the ending was a fantabulous and shocking reveal for them, and it probably will be for you too. If I hadn't read a book with a similar finish recently, I probably would have been blown off my rocker also.

A very high 4-star rating, I loved this book.

Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and the fabulous authors for a pre-release copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Copy furnished by Net Galley for the price of a review.

Perfect husband. Perfect wife. Perfect life. You do not want to be the one who mars the perfection. Richard intends to protect his fairy tale with any means necessary. Make no mistake, he is very particular. He's always with you, whether physically present or not.

Note the excellence of the beautiful bride and groom cake topper. You don't know how very fragile it is, nor how hollow. A disconnect, then isolation, a replacement, a vacant wedding gown. Older sibling, Maureen, looms in the background. Is she friend or foe? And what is her stake in all of this?

This novel is due out in January. Get on the list now. I predict it is going to hit the ground running.

I enjoy challenging books. I always try to guess figure out what will happen at the conclusion and o analyze the main characters in the novel.. The Wife Between Us by Gear Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen always kept me thinking and trying to understand Richard and his partners character and motivations. I was eager to read until the end and thought I had everything figured out. But much to my surprise there was another twist in the plot. I recommend this book.

Holy twists and turn Batman! The Wife Between Us is a wild rollercoaster of emotions. Think you feel anger? Pity? Compassion? Think again. You’ll be left not knowing how to feel. Who are the victims? Is anyone innocent? Truth and lies become so blended in this novel by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen and you are left on the edge of your seat. So many questions and the need to know the answers resulted in flying through this book in one day.

When Vanessa finds out that the woman her husband left her for is now engaged to him her world comes crashing down. Her one concern becomes stopping the wedding. She cannot marry him. She will not let that happen. She’s in a downward spiral after he left her with nothing. Seeming to have the same mental issues as her mother and drinking too much to boot, things are not looking good for this poor desperate woman. But something just doesn’t seem right. There’s a tiny voice in the back of yourmind starting to connect the dots and just when you think you have it figured out there’s another twist.

An absolute page turner and a wonderful mystery, I highly recommend this one, but be prepared to cancel all the plans you had that day because you will not be able to put it down!

All of the Stars!

Unreliable narrator? Check.

Breath taking plot twists? Check.

Fast turning addictive page turning? Check. check. check. check. check!

I found myself up into the early hours of the morning reading this book. An excellent psychological thriller that is sure to be a best seller!

The book starts off really good and their are a lot of twist and turns. The authors does a nice job of explaining everything at the end.

DNF - Did not flow. The writing styles didn't mesh well. Please advise if you want me to still post a review.

Wow, wow, wow!! Talk about a suspense filled read!! This is a story of love, betrayal and revenge. It is filled to the brim with twist upon twist upon twist! The main character is Vanessa and you just don't know if she is crazy or what the heck is happening. Every time that I thought I knew what was going on, there was another twist to the story. The three main characters, with Vanessa being the most prevalent, are, of course Vanessa, and also Richard and Emma. The ending will simply blow your mind! You can't even see it coming! The story grabs you from the first page and doesn't let go at all. You have to keep turning the pages.You have to know what is going on. You will never even guess it. That is not possible. The flow of the story is great. It is broken into three parts and that works quite well. The characters are well developed and complex. You will feel the fear and the anguish. You will feel the tingle up your spine. You will feel everything. This is an absolute must read! I highly recommend this one for fans of suspense!

This book was a pleasant surprise for me, as I felt like I'd read a lot of the Gone Girl/Girl on a Train types of books that are so popular recently and had encountered many that ultimately didn't hold up. Though this book had a lot in common with many of these previous reads (a woman with a mysterious past! a husband who isn't the person he appears! shifting timelines and POVs!), it actually hooked me from the beginning and kept me interested.

I liked the writing style and I enjoyed how each transition into the next part of the book came with a new twist or plot reveal. At times it felt like there were almost too many twists and turns. The concept was fun, but I felt at times it seemed to take away from the story. (a twist! a twist! another twist! look over here! look at this!). There were lots of little clues that seemed like they were going to add up to something significant, but they kind of got breezed over later and seemed to mostly be distractions.

Overall, I found this to be a fun read that kept me interested and curious. Thank you for the opportunity for the early read!

I do think part of the reason I didn’t enjoy this more was because of the formatting. A scene would be going along…doing okay…then suddenly, with no formatting changes, it’s in the future and it’s very confusing. There is a twist in the middle that I did not expect, and I always appreciate those. However, in this instance, I didn’t really get the full effect from it. You see, when it comes to twists, there is one contemporary book that everyone goes back to: Gone Girl. EVERYONE says, “it has a twist like in Gone Girl!” or “This is the new Gone Girl!” The fact is that a twist like that can rarely be duplicated. In Gone, Girl, you are going along in the book, trying to figure out this mystery, but what is being given to you are facts: this is what is happening, this is what is going on, this is what the husband found, what does it all mean? Then BAM, you’re hit with this twist and you’re thinking, “Ohhh…okay….WOW” but you can continue to read the book. With a twist like the one in The Wife Between Us, you read it, think, “Oh…huh…” and then feel like you need to go back and reread the entire first half of the book, which you don’t want to do.

Secondly, this book just felt like it was all over the place. There would be the briefest one-sentence mention of a dark-haired woman, and then nothing for 100 pages, and then it’s brought up again and you can’t remember why this was important. The epilogue felt completely unnecessary. It added nothing to the story. I mean seriously, nothing. When confronted with the facts in the epilogue, even the characters are essentially like “oh okay. Yeah. Good to know. Peace out.”

After reading the entire book, I do understand why there was this build-up of clues as to what happened to the protagonist in college. Unfortunately, these kinds of clues in a novel have been ruined by Cathy Lamb (sorry, Cathy, but it’s true). I can no longer read her books because of this. From page one, you’ll get these sentences like, “I was going to plant radishes and turnips and potatoes and carrots and peas…but not corn. Never corn.” And then that sentence would repeat with this weird mentioning of corn throughout the novel and you’re thinking, “OK, I get it – wtf is up with this corn thing???” and then you don’t find out until 200 pages later. In another book, it was, “…but never red.” The whole damn book, it was, “but never red.” It drives me nuts after a while because she does it in almost every book. In The Wife Between Us, there were clues as to what happened in college, and you really just want to know wtf happened in college, and then you realize that plot point A led to plot point B, and if you had taken out the entire thing, it probably would not have impacted the book that much. Looking back on it, I feel like it was setting up a gaslighting situation, but in such a roundabout way that it never felt cohesive – the entire book just never felt solid.

I’m giving it a 3 out 5 because I did finish it in one night, and it’s a pretty easy read, but I don’t think it works for what it’s trying to be.

I don 't regret reading this book. In fact, up until part 2 began this was going to be a 4 star. Great description, beautiful cover, and a story that not only promises, but actually delivered twists In fact, it bears a striking resemblance to the UK show, Dr. Foster which I am currently watching on Netflix. Infidelity, a love bordering on obsession, and a cast of CRAZY women. Many authors have been compared to Gillian Flynn and I felt that, in this instance, Greer Hendricks actually comes fairly close to walking away with that title.

But I became bored with the extended back story of the main protagonist. I think the epilogue could have been the twist in part 3 and escalated the momentum. I don't want to go into a whole lot of detail because it might be too spoilerish. Suffice it to say, as a reader, I felt it began to play a familiar tune that I am a bit exhausted from reading about.

All in all, the first 40% of the book makes me feel that I will be on the lookout for future books by this author.

Great twists. Just when you think you know what's happening....wow! Great read, I kept reading well into the night to see/read the outcome.