Thank you to NetGalley, Christian White and St. Martin’s Pres s for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

This is another new author for me and I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into with this novel. But I loved it! I was immediately interested in this novel and it’s characters. I was totally shocked by all the twists in this novel and how different it is from other mysteries or thrillers I have read. It was extremely fast paced and I flew through it! I would definitely recommend and I can’t wait to read White’s first novel.

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is reprinted here with permission.

In this gripping thriller, John Keddie's wife and daughter are left waiting and confused after his flight home to Melbourne has disembarked and there's no sign of him. Calls to John's office reveal he didn't attend a palliative care conference in London. In fact, John also concealed from Kate that he left Trinity Health's employ three months previously, after the death of an elderly patient hit him particularly hard.

Hours away, on Belport Island, Abby Gilpin, her property caretaker husband, Ray, and their two teens are struggling through the tourist off-season. Abby doesn't think much of it when she finds Ray's work boots and clothes in the trash and she simply moves them to the salvation bin. But Ray's whereabouts have been a bit mysterious lately, and Abby recently heard him crying in the bathroom.

Kate and Abby's individual points of view begin to merge after Kate receives a call that an alarm has been triggered at the Keddie holiday home on Belport and a body is found at the island's ferry terminal. Kate and her father-in-law head to investigate, putting all the story's principals on the island, but Australian author Christian White has plenty of clues to toss into the mix before the true connections between The Wife and the Widow are revealed.

White, Victorian Premier's Literary Award winner for The Nowhere Child, maintains a steady flow even as he nimbly uses history and secondary characters to create multiple potential scenarios. Misdirects and a terrific reveal midway through the novel add to the pleasure of White's second standalone thriller.

I could not put this book down ! 5 stars for the author. This is a atmospheric mystery that is written to perfection with a island setting, two mysterious set of circumstances affecting two marriages and two women characters drawn together to find answers amid shocking revelations.. I literally read this from cover to cover. The writing is well crafted, the characters well drawn and the suspense builds to a exciting conclusion. This is a very enjoyable read. I highly recommend this book and look forward to further work by the author. 
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher.

Elegantly and intelligently written, this is a mesmerizing read, examining the lives of two women, a missing husband and how their lives entwine. Recommended.

The best part of this book is that you never really have it figured out. Each time you think you do, the plot quickly shifts and something new is revealed. I love that the setting of this book felt like a strong presence, and I enjoyed that it took place in Australia.  The dual perspectives was also really enjoyable for me!

Wow!  This was such a good book!  An original and very well composed story.  I read and reread a couple of parts, just to make sure I understood what was actually happening.   I loved the characters and the description of the area where the story takes place.  I don't want to give anything away on this one, but this is an outstanding read and I am going to get myself Mr. White's first book "The Nowhere Child", which also sounds like a terrific read.  

Thank you very much to Netgalley, the author Christian White, and the publisher St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this excellent book and in the bargain add another favorite author to my list.  This is my honest opinion.

First published in Australia in 2019; published by St. Martin’s Publishing/Minotaur Books on January 21, 2020

The wife in the novel’s title is Abby Gilpin; her husband is Ray. The widow is Kate Keddie, who was married to John before he disappeared. Their stories are told in alternating chapters. Christian White invites the reader to fit the two stories together in an effort to understand how they relate to each other, both temporally and in the overlap of their characters.

John Keddie was a doctor. He disagreed with Kate about the need to activate parental controls on the internet. In John’s view, if parents don’t talk about the monsters in the world, their children won’t be ready to handle them when they appear.

John has monsters of his own, as Kate eventually discovers. Her mission of discovery begins when John doesn’t come home from a two-week research colloquium. She learns that he didn’t show up at the colloquium. She is even more perplexed when she learns that John stopped working at the Center for Palliative Care three months earlier, after the death of an elderly patient to whom he seemed drawn.

Kate believes John appreciates the fact that she is “passive to the point of invisible,” but passivity won’t serve her well if she is to learn what happened to John. She gets her first clue when an alarm is triggered at their holiday house on Belport Island, a place Kate would never expect John to go. According to John’s father, John spent his teen years on the island in a state of spiritual distress. Kate and her father-in-law travel to the island to look for John. His fate is telegraphed in the novel’s title.

Belport Island is the home of Abby, Ray, and their son Ed. Abby is troubled because Ray has been acting strangely. He seems to have lied to Abby about the places where he claims to have been when he was supposedly working. The pile of gay porn magazines hidden in the basement fuels her suspicion that Ray is concealing more than the magazines.

The reader is asked to consider how John’s disappearance relates to the Gilpin family. Like Kate, the reader will ask why John kept an obituary of a murdered man named David Stemple in the holiday home’s attic. Who killed Stemple and why? As in any good mystery, the obvious answers to the questions that the novel poses turn out to be false.

Kate is a sympathetic character. She must overcome her passivity to survive the story. a transition that enhances her likability. Abby is less sympathetic, although her desire to protect her family might cause some readers to empathize with her. John and Ray are developed in enough detail to explain their actions, but the novel’s focus is on Kate and Abby. Neither husband is likely to earn the reader’s sympathy or empathy.

White tells a plausible, well-paced story. Its clever structure helps conceal the relationship between the wife’s story and the widow’s until the reader has an “ah-ha” epiphany. The ending brings the titular characters together for a satisfying conclusion, making The Wife and the Widow a good bet for mystery fans.

RECOMMENDED

What a shocking end, didn't expect that at all! This was a page-turner for me.

I'm always on the look-out for clean secular fiction, and this one almost made the mark.

Thank you Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC. This is my honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview this ARC of The Wife and the Widow.

This is a saga of two families on a remote and eerie island.  Both of their lives are torn up with troubling news, news that may bring them together.  What double lives have been brought to the surface?  

This was a fun book, lots of creep factor.  It's intricately and well written, you are never quite stable as to what is really going on.  My kind of book!

Most likely one of the few, so called thrillers, I will read this year. It has been getting some terrific review, and I was curious, so decided to read. I was enjoying this, it was different, set on an island, and I liked the format, two narrators. Totally flummoxed for the first two thirds. Everytime I thought I had it figured out, a new revelation would derail my thoughts. 

So, was thinking this was definitely a four star read. Until, that is, the ending, which descended into typical thriller, an over the top ending. Plus, I don't buy the who in the ending who done it. Not if one takes into account what came before. Keep in mind, I am very hard on thrillers, and many have loved this, including many if the critics.

This book is a triple hitter!  The cover drew my attention then the story synopsis said "Read Me", so I did and WOW!  While the story line may not be an original one, Christian White's twists on the "woman done wrong" story is definitely original.  Set on a small sparsely populated island, suspects are limited when murder comes calling.  Yet readers will find themselves engrossed in the story and surprised when it ends.  So, like the synopsis said....READ ME!

Wow! What a great read!
The Wife and The Widow is my first novel by Christian White and now I must read his debut novel, The Nowhere Child!
This unsettling thriller is told from 2 perspectives: Kate a widow who quickly learns and is compounded by her dead husband's secret life, and Abby a wife whose world is torn apart when she is forced to confront the evidence of her husband's guilt. Only when these women meet can they discover the entire story about the men in their lives.
Nothing is quite as it seems as this captivating story unravels.
Highly Recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/Minotaur for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This has been one of the best books I have read so far this year. I enjoyed the plot twist which I did not see coming! Once you start reading you will not want to put it down!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest opinion.

Kate Keddie is a stay at home mom. She has one daughter, Mia who is ten years old.
She and Mia head to Melbourne International airport one evening to pick up her husband John from a business trip, but he is not on the plane.
Abby Gilpin works part time at a shop in Belport, a small island town off the coast of Victoria, and does taxidermy as a hobby.
She has two teenage children, Lori and Eddie, and is married to Ray, a caretaker and landscaper.
Alternating between Abby, the wife and Kate, the widow, Kate is trying to find answers into the brutal murder of her husband.
He was supposed to be in London for a conference, but was found dead on the island where they have a vacation home.
Abby is consumed by true crime stories and begins to suspect her husband Ray is a killer.
This gripping, sinister and atmospheric psychological thriller was tough to put down.
A suspenseful, skillfully written story with a surprise ending I did not see coming!
Thank you to St. Martin's Press Minotaur Books for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

LOVED IT! Did not guess anything until the second twist and the unfolding was perfect and the ending was OMG! I hate slow builds, but know they are worth it. I hope everyone who reads this gets just as shocked because it was SO good. Christian White was a new to me author and now I have backlist and future books to add to my ever growing TBR.

I mean with a title like this how could you not want to dive right in?! My first novel from Christian White and I already cannot wait to read more! Honestly this will capture your attention as soon as you start the reading the first page.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Wife and The Widow.

Wow did this book throw me for a loop!! Kate (the widow) goes to the airport to pick up her husband who’s returning from a business trip except he never shows. She finds out he never actually went on his business trip and starts digging into his life and what he hasn’t told her. Abby (the wife) starts to suspect something is up with her husband when he starts acting strangely after a dead body was found near a known “lover’s lane”, you could call it, for men. The entire book you are guessing and making assumptions about how these two women’s lives could be intertwined and I was actually dumbfounded once I reached the first big twist. I actually had to go back and re-read a few things because I was like “wait, what just happened???” A lot of my recent reviews have been about some great books that were just missing that big shocker that I so thoroughly enjoy and this book gave me exactly what I crave for when reading!!

The Wife and the Widow by Christian White is an unsettling thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside when she’s forced to confront the evidence of her husband’s guilt. How are their stories connected? 

This was SO GOOD. The chapters are short and end on cliffhangers, making this very much a 'one more chapter' type of read. This book brings the two women to come together to discover the story of the men in their lives and the answer is brilliant. The misdirection was fantastic and I was rethinking the breadcrumbs as soon as I finished. The characters are very real, flawed, and believable. I loved that Abby's hobby was taxidermy, it was extremely fitting. I cannot wait to read the next by Christian White.

The Wife and the Widow was a page turning experience. as Christian White ends each chapter (which is a speedy 10 pages or so long) in a cliff hanger, not allowing you to put the book down. The suspense factor is amazing in this one, and I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller. Set in alternating chapters between two different women (the wife, and - you guessed it - the widow) who have not met but are connected by an unsolved murder.
This book had me guessing throughout, and near the end I was able to piece everything together, which is the only reason this wasn't a complete five star read for me. I had beeen hoping for White to throw one more big twist at the end. This may be a bit greedy of me, because there were plenty of twists and turns in his story. I am now a Christian White fan, and will be picking up his first novel, The Nowhere Child asap!
Thank you to St. Martin's press and Netgalley for the early copy of this wonderful, 4.5 star read. My favourite of 2020 so far!
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This ended up being good but not great. There was one twist that I really enjoyed...otherwise this felt like a story/mystery I'd ready before.