This was not good. It took me forever to get into even a little of it, and then when I did I was immediately disappointed with the utter lack of story development. At one point an interaction between two characters was so poorly executed and out of nowhere that I assumed it was a dream sequence. When I discovered it was not, I lost complete faith in this book. Not sure how it got so much hype.

It took me a few days to write this review. I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I loved the story and the characters were so complex and made the narrative work well. But the ending? Not so much.

The Wife Upstairs is exciting, thrilling and full of twists and turns. I honestly don't want to say too much about it, because I feel the less you know, the better the experience will be. But if you love well written suspense books that will keep you on the edge of your seat, I highly recommend this one! 

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book really took me by surprise and I loved it! I’ve read from this author before and have enjoyed her work, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well her first foray into mystery/thrillers went. The plot lines were well balanced, the characters were fascinating, and the plot twists were truly shocking. Will definitely be reading more from this author, and I hope she writes more in this genre!

Wow! This book was incredible. Full of interesting characters, vivid detail and twists and turns. I would highly recommend this one to anyone that loves a good thriller! 4.5/5 stars!

Great book!  Couldn’t wait to read it, and it didn’t disappoint!  Grabbed my attention within the first two chapters, and then I didn’t want to put it down.  Excellent character development - I think that every reader will find a character to whom they relate.  I enjoy books where there is character development, and then also a surprise, and this book provided both!  Looking forward to reading more from this author!

Definitely took me a bit to get into it, definitely a slow burn kinda book. But it was worth it. A new twist on an old classic that you are sure to love.

Rachel Hawkins has done an amazing thing here- she took Jane Eyre, a great gothic novel on its own, and twisted it into a fresh, 21st century Southern gothic that had me riveted. Jane is a dog walker in the upscale Birmingham neighborhood Thornton Estates when she meets the intriguing Eddie Rochester, whose wife Bea mysteriously disappeared six months earlier. There are twists and turns that I did not expect and I loved every minute of it!

Meet Jane. She has just arrived in Birmingham, Alabama and is looking to make a new start. Luck has brought her into dog walking in a gated community, Thornfield Estates, filled with McMansions and bored housewives. It’s the kind of place where Jane can pocket a piece of jewelry or tchotchke without anyone noticing. Things start to look up for Jane when she meets Eddie Rochester, the neighborhood’s most mysterious resident and recent widow. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies never recovered. As Eddie and Jane fall for each other, Jane can’t shake the haunting feeling Bea left behind. Jane must decide if she can look beyond the ghost of Eddie’s former wife and move forward in her relationship.

THE WIFE UPSTAIRS is a modern day retelling of JANE EYRE that perfectly embraces the atmospheric suspense of the classic story, while shifting into a current timeline. As a massive fan of JANE EYRE, I have to tell you, I was a bit apprehensive when I heard about this book, but decided to take the chance. What I found was quite impressive despite already being aware of the path the story would ultimately take.

How does one bring JANE EYRE into 2021? Well to start they must find the most dramatic, Southern, wealthy neighborhood filled with a cast straight off of one of those real housewives shows. Holy cringeworthy! In comparison to this crowd, the reader instantly likes Jane despite knowing she’s not being completely honest with the reader about her past. I loved the juxtaposition between the two worlds and how Jane finds herself acclimating to her new surroundings. 

The setting and the cast are in my opinion the strength of THE WIFE UPSTAIRS. As a long time thriller reader and fan of the classic this book is based on, I was able to put a lot of the pieces of the puzzle together ahead of them happening. In no way did I feel this was a negative, but I do think the element of surprise would be stronger for someone else. 

Overall, I was very impressed with THE WIFE UPSTAIRS and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a domestic thriller to read! 

Bonus: This book is excellent on audio!

This one kept me on my toes! I can usually guess what is going to happen, but the final thrill kept me guessing until the end.

The audiobook kept me on the hook the whole time. Great narration.

I received a copy of the audiobook to listen to from the publisher via NetGalley.

I tried to like this book. I was intrigued by the premise and was looking forward to a fresh take on the story. 

However, I dislike Jane so much that I couldn’t finish the book. I so was put off by her that I really didn’t care what her secrets were.

I received an e-arc from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book.

triggers: abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, fire, murder, imprisonment, alcoholism

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins is a 2021 release and a retelling of Jane Eyre, following a young woman who enters into a relationship with a wealthy man to avoid her past and ends up uncovering the unsavory details of his own.

I’ve not read Jane Eyre. A few months ago, I DNF’d it for the third time (after never getting past the first chapter) and decided to just cut my losses and move it over to my read shelf (because it matches my edition of Frankenstein and I think they look nice together). But it was a thriller by an author who I had enjoyed in the past. Admittedly, I had loved her contemporary sapphic romance and not anything in the vein of this book. But, nonetheless, I requested the book and wanted to love it.

My main issue with the book is the wasted potential. It is a book ripe with the chance for intrigue or the chance to say something or both. The book starts strong if not a bit slow. There’s a slow ease into the tension. At the very start, it could very much be a contemporary but the tension builds slowly, in part due to the fact that everyone by now knows the twist of Jane Eyre: the wife is the attic. It was a masterful use of the fact that no matter what this book did, the big twist was already laid out on the table.

However, after the slow start, it speeds up incredibly. There is no ever-creeping building of tension. There is no time for the reader to sit down in the discomfort. It just speeds through it all in favor of giving cheap thrills rather than offering a truly lasting and engaging story. I finished the book minutes before I started this review and even now, the middle is already blurring, not more than a few vignettes that never accounted to much.

The plot itself is not too strong. I am not one to criticize thrillers for being predictive. It’s in fact something that I seek out but this book, despite being unlike most other things I have read, felt formulaic. Reading it, especially the ending, reminding of books I liked more, books that actually engaged and entertained me. I thought of Gone Girl. I thought of my Lovely Wife. And then I was just sad I wasn’t reading those books.

There also is not a plot twist to save this book. If anything, the plot twist is what ruined it. It is not something that is built up to. Barely was there any foreshadowing for it. I think, had it been handled better, it might’ve saved the book for me. But the plot twist did not solve any puzzles I was trying to piece together. Instead, it presented me an entirely solved puzzle and expected that to be fun for me.

Another source of wasted potential is the characters. There are three characters we focus on—Jane, Bee, and Eddie. Of the characters, I would say that Jane is the most compelling, and she is the character that we spend the most time with. While we get points of view from the other two, she remains the primary POV and the character that anchors the story. From the start, it is teased that she has a dark backstory and once the reveal comes through, it’s so incredibly boring and lackluster. It was built up and up and then there was nothing much to it.

Bee and Eddie do not have much going on. They are manipulative and murderous and in love with each other. Their entire characters are based around a relationship that is not built within the story itself and that is barely shown in the book itself. Throughout the entire book, there is never a clear image of the relationship and thus never a clear image of the characters themself.

By the end, I was simply disappointed. If you want to read this book, I won’t try to stop you but for me, it was a largely unsatisfying and frustrating read.

The Wife Upstairs is a thriller that follows Jane who just moved to Birmingham, Alabama. This story leaves you wondering what is going to happen and if Jane is going to smarten up about the guy she's seeing. Their relationship moves to fast which I think he finally understands towards the ending of the book. 
So, this book is actually a retelling but I never read the original book. I think that helped a lot when I reading the book because the story line didn't seem familiar to me like it did with a lot of other readers. It helped a lot with me really enjoying the story line of the book and not exactly being able to guess what was going to happen next. The ending is really surprising. I won't say exactly what happens but I really want to know what happened to certain character in the book because their ending is sort of left open for the readers. I think that's actually what surprised me the most when it came to this book
There are two things that I wish was different. 1) I wish we got more background on Jane. I get why her background is a secret through most of the book. I understand that. But I do wish that the readers could get to know her more at least later in the book. Because the was done like this I ended up not really being able to connect with her at all. And 2) This book saying that the plot has southern charm is misleading. A bunch of snooty women who judge way to much does not classify as southern charm. And that's coming from someone who actually lives in the south and deals with southern charm on a day to day basis. 
Despite these two thing I ended up really enjoying the story! I can't wait to read more books by Rachel Hawkins!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am a huge fan of the classic, Jane Eyre, and anticipated reading this much talked about. January release. Rachel Hawkins presents us with Jane, a dog walker in Thornfield Estates, who meets the mysterious and handsome Eddie Rochester. The pair's whirlwind courtship sets the neighbour gossip machine into overdrive and as Jane desperately attempts to keep her secrets in the past, it is soon apparent that Eddie has a few of his own. And they're about to come knocking.

Although I don't really think you have to read the original to get an idea of what the story is about, I enjoyed seeing many of the original characters step into this contemporary reinvention. Although did poor little Adele deserve to be reincarnated into canine form? This book did have me transfixed from the beginning, but I just didn't like how it all ended. Finally, Jane Eyre is just one of those literary characters I am extremely hellbent on protecting and I didn't like Rachel Hawkins's characterization of her. That's just me! Overall, I felt it was worth my time and I glad that I made the decision to request the title.

Publication Date 05/01/21
Goodreads review published 26/01/21
Also reviewed on Facebook and Instagram

Fantastic, fantastic!  This is one of those reads you will not be able to put down.  Full of twists and turns through the very end.

Blog: The Life & Times of a Book Addict.
Posted on January 26, 2021.



REVIEW:


Jane, Eddie, and Bea were very interesting characters to get to know. From pretty much the beginning, I was interested in Jane’s background and what she could possibly be running from. Then once Eddie and Bea came into the picture, I wanted to know more about their past…specifically Bea’s. The story seamlessly shifts between both present and past. Uncovering more of Bea and Eddie’s life as well as Jane’s past in the process. none of these characters were very likeable to me, but I think that is the point. However likeable or unlikeable, they all added something to the story and made it all the more intriguing. 

I’m one of those weird people that like to occasionally switch between listening to an audiobook and reading the book. Oftentimes I will read the book during lunch and then listen to it when I get home or vice versa. The writing and pace of the story was done well. It never felt like anything lagged or became boring. The narration was good too. All three of the narrators did a good job of bringing the characters to life and making the book even more enjoyable. Listening to their voices tell the story, it was easy to get lost in the book for several hours.  

The Wife Upstairs was a quick and easy suspenseful story to get sucked into. The more I read, the more my curiosity grew, and I had to find out how it all ended. This was the perfect book to read while I was on vacation. I look forward to seeing what Rachel Hawkins comes up with next. 



RATING: 3½ -4 OUT OF 5.

I was hooked from page one. Jane Eyre was one of my favorite novels back in high school and when I heard this was a modern retelling I was sold! I thought I had the book figured out when all of a sudden  the pov switched characters in the middle of the story. I was left guessing at ever turn and that ending! So so good

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book was fabulous. Very twisty storyline that I wasn’t expecting. Characters that I sometimes sympathized with, but we’re also pretty unlivable at times. Highly recommend.

Jane Eyre is my favorite book so I'm always a little wary going into retellings, but Rachel Hawkins delivered with The Wife Upstairs. She stays true to the source material while also delivering a story all her own and I had so much fun spotting little nods to the original novel. She also pulled off some neat little twists that I sort of saw coming, but felt surprised by anyway. Fun and thrilling, this is one I'll be recommending to my library customers.

Modern day retelling of Jane Eyre that made me think again about the characters from my favorite book. If you put those people in modern day, would I still like them? The answer is mixed-they were definitely anti-heroes but yet they got what they deserved in the end (this is no spoiler as it's not necessarily the same ending as the original story). This book had lots of twist and turns. Some I could see coming just due to knowing the story of Jane Eyre but the author definitely added her own spin. Great story!
Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC in return for my honest review.