Nellie Murdoch had everything. A beautiful home, a husband who was a successful businessman, and a garden full of beautiful flower. She was the picture perfect example of a 1950's housewife. But behind closed doors, Nellie was left bruised by her husband and restless on most days.

In 2018, Alice Hale and her husband buy a house outside of Manhattan. Alice has left her job in PR rather suddenly. As Alice learns more and more about the house's previous owner Nellie, she finds that secrets that wives keep from their husbands are often the most damaging of all.

Karma Brown has taken a premise (two time periods, 1950s housewives) and brought something darker, something more...meaty to this book. Nellie and Alice are both strong women who are being held back by husbands who think they know better and ...somehow, together, they both come out on top.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The premise of the book is Alice, a former working woman who has moved out to Greenville, a suburb outside of Manhattan with her husband Nick with the goal of writing a novel. She and Nick have been married for two years and everything is great. As long as she gets her way. It's an overgeneralization for sure but it crops up several times in the narrative when she's going through the basement, she finds a box labeled "Kitchen" from the previous owner, Nellie. Inside are old Ladies Home Journal Magazines and a Cookbook. Because she is procrastinating on writing her novel and has nothing better to do, she begins cooking, something she never did in Manhattan.


And this is where the story sours for me.


As much as I love the writing style and Nellie's character who we get to see through alternating chapters, the message in this book is dangerous. Nellie is in an abusive relationship, she is committed to not bringing children into a volatile environment and so miscarriages the babies. However, Alice is immature, noncommunicative and paranoid.


When there is a clear divide in the roles, man being the sole provider, there need to be standards met. However Alice never talks about what she needs, she never voices her concerns and when she is in trouble at work, she opts to keep secrets from her spouse instead of working through them together. There is a clear 'us vs them' mentality that sours even the best of relationships. I had no empathy for her because she was sitting around the house all day (There wasn't any mention of her sitting around watching television, which I thought was very unrealistic.). She wasn't working on her novel, she's actively lying to family and friends and to what end?


This book was good in its irony. By showing us the modern wife in Alice, we see all the things that we shouldn't be doing. All the things that we should strive not to be. She's selfish, ungrateful and manipulative.


The book is good. I raced through it easily. But I urge you to take it as a novel and nothing else.

Recipe for a Perfect Wife tells a story in alternating timelines spaced sixty years apart. We have Alice, a former career woman who moves from the city to the suburbs with her husband and the goal to write a novel in 2018, and Nellie, a '50's housewife with a seemingly perfect husband and marriage.

Although different, the two women share the same home as well as secrets, some of them sinister. I really enjoyed the read and the insight into the seemingly "perfect" lives of some housewives, along with the mystery of what happened to Nellie - an excellent read!

This book is absolutely amazing! I love the back and forth and I highly recommend it!! One of the best books this year!!

Well written dual narrative switching between 2018 and the mid-1950s. At the beginning of the contemporary chapters are misogynist quotes that are so outdated as to be funny. At the beginning of the 1950s chapters, recipes from the era. The two stories enter twine in a common house. Story a bit predictable but entertaining and well written.

Recipe tells the story of two different women, from two different eras. Alice is a modern-day woman, married to Nate. She's left her job in public relations and the two have talked about trying to have a baby. Nate is eager to move to the suburbs; Ali is less so, and this is the first problem. Alice doesn't tell Nate how she feels, about the baby or the move. Nor does she tell him what really happened with her job. Worse, she pretends to go along with his plans while secretly making moves to undermine them.
Nellie is a 1950s housewife, married to a man who seems perfect on the surface. In reality he's a control-freak who abuses his wife. Nellie is happiest when she's in her garden, or cooking. She plays the perfect wife in public as much as she can. She's keeping secrets but unlike Alice, her secrets are a matter of survival.
I liked Nellie and found her story compelling. At points I was impatient to get to the next Nellie-centric chapter. I found it harder to sympathize with Alice, perhaps because her lies didn't seem survival-related to me. She had opportunities to speak up for herself and she didn't take them. The ending was disturbing to me. All in all a compelling read.

I have been a fan of Karma Brown, ever since I was blown away by Come Away with Me. Her novels are powerful and thought-provoking. Recipe for a Perfect Wife has a different feel from her previous novels, as it is a dual narrative shifting between the 1950's and the present.

Both Alice and Nellie were interesting and sympathetic characters whom I cared about the entire way through the story. I couldn't put the book down because I just had to know what would happen for both of them. Their lives paralleled each other in some ways. Karma's descriptions took me back in time during the 1950's scenes. Everything was easy to visualize in both time periods without having to be overly descriptive. While I didn't like one of the choices Nellie made for herself, I understood why she did it, as well as why Alice made certain choices in her life.

This story speaks volumes about women's roles in marriage both in the past and present. It is a great story that will have readers captivated throughout.

Movie casting suggestions:
Alice: Alison Scagliotti
Nate: Brett Dier
Nellie: Chloë Grace Moretz
Richard: Alan Ritchson
Kitty: Sarah Dugdale
Sally: Jane Alexander
Miriam: Melissa Leo

I rarely find a book that constantly draws me to immediately pick it back up the instant that I lay it down, but this book is a winner!
When I downloaded it, I thought that it was mostly going to be about a struggling housewife's life, but oh....the twists and turns that kept me coming back! The characters were all interesting, and I loved the unpredictability of all the plot surprises. I have to admit that at the end, I audibly gasped, because even though I THOUGHT I knew how the book was going to end.....I....DID...NOT....SEE....THAT......SHOCK.....COMING!!! Well played!!!
BRAVO, Karma!!!! You succeeded in keeping me TOTALLY enmeshed throughout the entire book!!!

This is the first book I've read by the author. Based on the description, I was excited to check it out. I liked the past/present angle in this story. I enjoyed Nellie's story line more, as Alice seemed a bit selfish. It's a quick read, but I was hoping for a bit more. There was a twist, but it was a bit predictable. The book was just okay overall. Nothing really wrong, but nothing really original or "wow," either.

Alice Hale is a young woman striving for success at a high-end Manhattan publishing firm. Newly married, she has an adoring analytical husband, a nightmare boss and a top notch best friend. Overnight her world comes crashing down. With her career destroyed, Nate surprises Alice with a beautiful fixer upper in the burbs and all the time in the world to get pregnant and finally write her novel. Feeling displaced in her new home by strange noises and thoughts of the original owner, Alice discovers a box in the basement filled with the life of Nellie Murdoch, a 1950’s housewife. Upon realizing their lives reflect startling similarities, Alice begins to find solace in cooking her way through Nellie’s antiquated recipes; Baked Alaska, Jellied Salads and Tuna Casserole. When additional secrets bloom in the garden the truth for both women is shockingly revealed. Highly recommend this clever, phenomenal story of what it means to be a woman and how very far we have come (or not) in the last 50+ years. If you loved bestseller Julie & Julia, don’t miss this soon to be released awesome read!!

The kind of book that needs to be discussed, Recipe for a Perfect Wife is a comparison of young, married women who must adjust to life under the thumb of their husband. The early to midcentury recipes interspersed with tips from turn of the century books on marriage are expertly chose and woven through the story to highlight the issues of women that may take different forms, but persist from generation to generation. A bit of a ghost story that reminds us how women's issues of the past still haunt modern women.

I finished this book four days ago and have been thinking about it quite a bit since then. We have a story told in dual narrative, in two different times. One story, is told in the present. We have Alice, newly married, moving to the suburbs of NYC with her husband. She has left her career in PR with plans to write a novel, keep house, and start a family. The other story is about Nellie, a young housewife in the 1950’s, known for her cooking skills and unfortunately married to a not so nice guy. As we turn the pages, we quickly discover that Alice lives in Nellie’s former house and finds some of her old things.

I love stories told in multi-narrative because I like seeing the different perspectives. I also love a good story with a cooking/food background. Some of my favorites include “Julie and Julia,” “Kitchens of the Great Midwest,” and “Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love, and Food.” This book has plenty of “vintage” 1950’s recipes which were staples in kitchens across America, as well as being served at dinner parties. When was the last time you served Chicken a la King or Baked Alaska?

I loved the whole premise of the book and how the two female characters found themselves in traditional housewife roles. I like how Alice discovered Nellie’s story and the development of that character. However, beyond that, I’d have to say that I like Nellie’s story a lot more because she came across as more authentic. I feel that Alice made her choices out of selfishness. Beyond living in the same house and both being housewives, there really was no other comparison of the two characters.

I would love to discuss this book in a group setting as I feel it would generate some interesting ideas and thoughts.

This is a quick read, and entertaining, but it left me hungry for a little more. Thanks to #Netgalley, and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest, unbiased opinion.

I received this advanced copy book in exchange for my honest opinion.
I really enjoy this author and have read all of her previous books. This one fell flat for me.
I did like the dual story line between two women in different timelines.
As with other Karma Brown books, there is a twist near the end. But this was pretty predictable.
Quick read and enjoyable chick lit.

Recipe for a Perfect Wife was a interesting read! I love how it’s a modern day woman reliving the not so modern day woman’s lives. The 50’s housewife has always interested me. But what I loved most about this book is the focus on women support women that Karma Brown filled the pages with. I really enjoyed this book!

3.5 stars

“ A modern woman who is of the contentious type is often amenable to love and reason. If she will only listen quietly--a process that is painful to her--you may firmly, rationally, and kindly convince her she is not always in the right.” Walter Galichan, Modern Woman and How to Manager Her (1910).

A reluctant housewife in the present finds herself drawn to a housewife from the 1950s in Recipe for a Perfect Wife.

In the early 1950s, Nellie, an early 20 something has married Richard, a man in his mid-thirties. Richard swept Nellie off her feet and she thought that she had found her prince charming, but as their marriage progresses, Nellie realizes that she married a controlling and abusive man who cares more about appearances than his wife.

In 2018, Alice and her husband, Nate, move from NYC to a suburban money pit. Ali, who was fired from her high profile job, decides she will play the doting wife to cover up the lies she told her husband about the demise of her career. Once she and Nate move into their new home, more and more lies are told throwing their marriage into a tailspin.

Each chapter starts with an excerpt from books written from the late 19thc. To the early 20th century with advice on how to be the perfect wife. I loved reading these little snippets, they were horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Other chapters begin with a recipe, some of which sound disgusting, and other delicious. These were my favorite parts of the book.

The narrative switches between Nellie and Alice's POV's. I loved Nellie’s story and character, but Alice’s character wasn’t fully developed. Her storyline was predictable and filled with cliches. I also felt Nellie’s story could have used another chapter. Overall, I think the plot could have been more complex and nuanced.

Even though this was fluffier than expected, in the end, it was an enjoyable and entertaining read.

“The average man marries a woman who is slightly less intelligent than he is.That’s why many brilliant women never marry. They do not come in contact with sufficiently brilliant men, or fail to disguise their brilliance in order to win a man of somewhat less intelligence.” Dr. Clifford R. Adams, Modern Bride (1952)

A great story with a couple of twists. Not a perfect ending, which I loved! We will buy this and promote it!

Recipe for a Perfect Wife is an interesting view of a modern woman reliving (through magazines and letters) what it means to be a 1950’s housewife. Part memoir with a focus on woman supporting each other and learning who they are in both current and past times.

**I received an ARC from NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Alice Hale & Nellie Murdoch would appear to have nothing in common with the exception of the house they live in. Alice is a modern woman who just left her publicity career in NYC to live in the suburbs with her husband - Nellie Murdoch was a 1950's housewife who left behind plenty of artifacts from her life including an old cookbook. Both women's seem to have secrets & Alice soon becomes consumed by the cookbook and the life of the woman who once owned it. This intriguing/troubling story will have you thinking about feminism and living in a patriarchal society.

This was a bittersweet little read. I definitely didn’t agree with choices characters made but the story was interesting and the characters were easy to latch on to.

Well this certainly took a turn I wasn't expecting! I'm still not sure how I feel about that turn. I definitely liked the shift from present day to the 1950s and comparing and contrasting the main characters lives.