The concept of polygamy did not interest me so I was hesitant to pick this one up. But you know, it's classified as a psychological thriller so of course I was intrigued. Just when you think you know where this is headed, it does a 180 and you're scratching your head like "did this really happen"? I was stunned by the ending and never expected that wrapup! I look forward to reading more works by Tarryn Fisher.

I 100% don’t know how I feel about this.
Spoilers ahead I’m sure.


Man-hating. This is what I felt reading this whole book.

Weak heroine. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to like her (I didn’t). She was very naive and annoying. And a doormat. She continued this way through the whole book. There would be short flashes of a strong woman in there but sadly it was short lived.

Mental illness. I’m feeling some kind away about how this was written and I’m pretty sure it’s not positive. At all. Seriously. I don’t think this is quite the way to bring awareness if that was the point.
Was men making us crazy the point to the book? Cause it fits with the man hating theme running throughout.

Anything can happen to us to make us break at any point. Tragic loss being the main one.

I don’t know how I feel about this book. The writing was okay. I wanted to see what happened. But idk. It wasn’t for me. It didn’t “work” for me.

I loved this! There were tons of twists and turns and you didn't know who or what to believe! A great readalike for Gone Girl, Girl in the Window, and Girl on a Train!

I was instantly intrigued by the polygamist story line and dived into the book head first. I definitely thought it was strange how the wife Thursday tells us she only sees her husband 1 to 2 nights a week and couldn’t imagine that situation for myself. She seemed stable and happy until she started to over analyze a receipt for a doctors appointment in her husband, Seth’s, pocket. This leads her down a deep path of wondering who the other wives are, where do they live, what do they look like, who are they etc. She eventually starts incorporating herself into Hannah’s life (one of the other wives) and befriends her! It all goes down hill from there.

This book had me guessing every situation and I thought I had it figured out but I didn’t AT ALL! It was craziness even down to the very last page! It was super twisted and I loved it so much. The more twisted the better,. 5 stars from me!

Whatever this may say about me as a person, I enjoy a book with suspicious ex-wives and unreliable narrators. If you enjoyed The Wife Between Us or The Last Mrs. Parrish Lies She Told then you will likely enjoy The Wives.

It's hard to get a handle on what exactly is happening in this book after about 40% in- with new reveals about our main narrator throwing everything into question. I don't want to say to much for fear of spoiling anything, but I will say that the twists and turns are interesting, even if it doesn't feel as though everything is sorted out in a satisfying way by the end. There's enough in terms of reversals and mystery to make it worth the ride though.

In typical Tarryn fashion, this book was a total mindfuck. Characters you love as much as you hate, villains disguised as heroes and heroes disguised as villains. I LOVED every second of reading this book, and I can't wait for everyone else to experience this twisty psychological thriller.

In true Tarryn Fisher fashion The Wives is a nail biting rollercoaster of emotion. Fisher excels at leaving the reader questioning everything. Deceit is rampant in The Wives.

The story of Thursday, Seth, and his other wives stayed with me long after I finished the book. I found myself drifting off in thought, putting myself in Thursday’s shoes, retracing her steps. Always ending up at the same place. The place of awe and reverent applause for the immense talent it took to weave the blanket of lies and mystery that is The Wives.

Truly one of a kind and unapologetically unhinged The Wives will take you on a ride. Buckle up because Thursday isn’t playing anymore.

Tarryn Fisher always leaves me feeling unsettled after I finish her books. This book is my absolute new favourite she has written. The whole time I was torn between Seth and Thursday. What is real and what is not?! The wives is a book that I could read 100 times and not be sick of it! If you love thrillers this book is for you!!

Another book that absolutely gripped my attention front he beginning and held on until the end. I’m never disappointed when I read Tarryn and The Wives was no different.

The Wives' premise starts off strong: a woman who knows her husband has two other wives finds a piece of information about one of them decides to track her down. And once she does, it raises all sorts of questions about who her husband really is.

I was hoping for a fast paced, burn-down-the-patriarchy thriller, but ultimately the Wives is a book about gaslighting and mental illness. Its conclusion is neither surprising nor satisfying...a real shame.

This is my first Tarryn Fisher book. I have heard and seen many great reviews of her books, but I am thinking that maybe I should not have started with this one. The psychological thriller really messed with me and I am still not recovered. Perhaps that was the author's intention, but I'm not super excited to go back and read her backlist... Don't get me wrong, the book was good enough, but I wasn't mentally prepared for this super twisty journey.

3.5 stars

Imagine your husband has two other wives.

You’ve never met the other wives, and because of your “unconventional arrangement “ you only get to see your husband on THURSDAY.

You don’t even know their names until one day, by chance, you find mail addressed to Hannah.

You get curious.


For the first 50% I was completely intrigued as “THURSDAY” explored her feelings. Her husband, Seth has told her that he loved his wives all differently, but equally. But, what does that mean? Who would he choose if he had a gun to his head? It’s impossible not to compare...

She just HAS to find out more about each of the other two wives. Do they share her same insecurities?
How does Seth’s life differ on MONDAY, and TUESDAY? I would’ve liked to hear more about that.

BUT, despite an original premise, and a strong start...it ended up being just a “middle of the road” psychological thriller by the end because once the truth is revealed, it just wasn’t as interesting to me, as the first half of the book was.

Thank You to Netgalley, Harlequin-Graydon House Books and Tarryn Fisher for the digital ARC I received in exchange for a candid review! This title will be available on Dec. 30, 2019.

This was a wild ride! I read the whole thing in an evening. Our narrator, Thursday, is a nurse and the wife of Seth, a man who also has two other wives. He splits his time between the three, so Thursday only gets to see him one day a week, and she’s never met or even learned the names of the other two. When she finds a receipt in his pocket with a woman’s name, could it be another wife? Can she help tracking the woman down and befriending her anonymously?

The first half of this book is really solid. Tense and twisty and dark. The second half is more uneven, and I didn’t love all of the plot choices. But it definitely held my attention, and I already passed it on to someone else who also read it in a day. So I think it’s got the potential to grab readers who loved Gone Girl or Girl on the Train, etc.

The premise of this book was great. I haven't really read anything concerning a polygamous relationship and was intrigued how Seth had created his existence with 3 different "wives". Everything seemed very tightly woven and although not overly believable it was definitely entertaining. Until the end. I really hope the author/editor have time to re-work the ending before this is released. There is so much potential for a fun, twisty ending but it did not work for me the way it is. I do appreciate the ARC of this from Netgalley/Graydon House and would definitely read other novels from Tarryn Fisher as I enjoyed her style of writing.

This book was AWFUL.
Filled with weak, vindictive women there is absolutely zero redeeming value in *any* of the characters. Especially not Thursday, the main character. Try as I might and no matter how hard I looked, Thursday is just a horrible human being. Right from the first chapter you can tell how childish she is when the husband comes home for dinner and she walks into the kitchen in a way to give him "a little hip with dinner."
Gross.
Shouldn't it be "fries with that shake" or "a little leg to go with the lamb"?
Either way, it's immature, lame, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth. And that's within the first few pages, folks!
Further, the work promises to be a fast-paced thrill ride. It isn't. Instead, the reader is left feeling like *they're* the ones going insane and let down at every turn. Our "hero" is also a constant disappointment, resulting in a lingering headache of "ugh..." Top that off with a bunch of spelling errors littered throughout the work and we almost have a migraine on our hands.
So dear readers, if you are looking for a book that portrays women as psychotic, unhinged, vindictive, immature, yielding no common sense whatsoever, and just horrible human beings, then The Wives is definitely for you. If, however, you want your hero to have some small shred of humanity with at least a tad bit of redeeming value then RUN. Don't walk away from this terrible novel.

The novel tells the story of a polygamous family. Not a legal family in an area where harems are looked upon as something that fits a certain norm but on the west coast of the United States where marriages are between two people or they are not legal. Ms Fisher utilizes a woman named Thursday as the first person narrator and in so doing treats the reader to one of the most amazing character analysis I've read. Thursday is married to Seth, but she only sees him two days each week. The other days are divided up between Seth's other two wives. Thursday makes the point that she tolerates this arrangement because she is very much in love with her husband even to the point of living in an arrangement of sharing him with two other women. The other two women are kept confidential by Seth and no discussion is held about them or what they do in their time with their joint husband.
While doing laundry one day Thursday finds a note outlining a meeting for a woman named Hannah in one of Seth's shirts. Knowing the name Thursday decides to meet her and exchange ideas about their husband. She does so and also continues in the same vein meeting the other wife. Ms Fisher is a definite wordsmith and has no trouble getting her readers completely immersed in the plot and following the action with a great deal of interest. The ending is logical but not telegraphed and supplies a great capstone to an extremely engrossing and well written book.

*Contains spoilers*

2.5 stars

At first glance this is a thriller involving a polygamist family but underneath the surface it is a dark and twisted psychological thriller about the dangers of patriarchy and mental illness. I was immediately drawn into Thursday's narration. Her care and attention to detail, the ways in which she anticipated all her husband's needs, her competitive need to be loved best of all, and her burning desire to know the other wives created a fascinating window into the psyche of a woman who justifies her husband's blatant unfaithfulness. But at just over the midway mark, the story begins to loose steam. After a violent confrontation with her husband, Thursday wakes up in the hospital, and her unstable mental state is slowly revealed. But the plot begins to unravel at the same rate as her mental health, and it never gets quite back on track. I was left feeling unsatisfied with the fact that Thursday's deteriorating mental state was the explanation for the confusion and mystery surrounding the other wives. More ambiguity would have lent the second half of the novel some much needed intrigue. I felt there were some plot threads that were never fully resolved, and Thursday's unhinged mental state is too convenient an excuse to explain those away. In some ways, too, it feels a little stale. The same tropes that made the genre so popular a few years ago have become overused; the unreliable narrator, the alcohol and pills, the unfaithful husband and his beautiful new wife no longer deliver that zing of shock and surprise.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have a difficult time knowing what to rate this or how to describe it. If you would like to read it, read the back cover copy first and that's it.

It was quick enough to get into, it doesn't slow down until a little later in the book (for me, anyway) and then I struggled with a lot of "wait, what?" In a thriller/suspense/mystery book, saying "I don't really know what's going on or who is telling the truth" sounds like a good review, but in this case I found it to be a bit of a weakness. There isn't one sympathetic character (the father maybe) and no one is telling the truth. Like, even people who don't seem to be involved in anything tell lies. Perhaps that's realistic, but I prefer my thrillers tightly crafted. The truth of the situation seemed to change all the time, and not at the plot appropriate points, either. As the reader, I could tell the main character was wrong about some of her assumptions, but the plot doesn't follow up the clues with that truth quickly, it instead moves on to other things, but in a mystery or thriller I only want to be at most one step ahead of the narrative. I purposefully try not to guess twists and endings as I read, so if I figure something out I usually assume the author intended me to figure it out and is guiding me through the book.

There are triggers for pregnancy loss and possibly mental health issues.

A suspenseful thriller with many twists and an ending I wouldn't have predicted. It's difficult to describe without spoilers -- suffice to say that it's a story about marriage, jealousy and revenge. Beware the unreliable narrator!

Whoa! After reading the final sentence of this book, everything I thought about the main character just sort of took a nosedive. Tarryn has a way with writing a suspenseful story and creating tension between characters. This was a fast-paced book that I would highly recommend to fans of psychological suspense and psychological thrillers. Readers will empathize with the main character, Thursday, even though she is a bit of an unreliable narrator. I won't give away much of the plot because you just have to read it and find out for yourself. I am definitely in a book hangover state after finishing this. I don't even know how to put into words the shock I feel after finishing. Good work, Tarryn. I look forward to reading more of your books.