I enjoyed Chandler Baker's first novel The Whisper Network and I was pleasantly pleased with her 2nd book The Husbands. The writing was excellent and I enjoyed reading Nora Spangler's story. Nora is a successful attorney, mother of 1 with another child on the way - she's hoping to make partner at her law firm but motherly responsibilities (without much help from her husband) are keeping her stressed and feeling a bit overworked and undervalued. Nora and her husband Hayden find a house in a subdivision called Dynasty Ranch and as Nora becomes involved with the women in this neighborhood whose lives seem too good to be true. What I liked about the story was that I wasn't sure exactly how everything was going to play out - I loved that it wasn't predictable to me. The audiobook version of this book was very well done - It is narrated by
Allyson Ryan who I must say really brought the character of Nora to life for me as I listened.

The Husbands was a riot in the best possible way.

I began this audiobook on an afternoon when nothing I picked up seemed to keep my attention -- I kept switching from book to book, couldn't read more than a few pages before getting distracted. I should have known Chandler Baker would come to my rescue. The Husbands is so compulsively readable, I looked up and I had read more than half of it.

This book is part meditation on women "having it all," part domestic drama, and part slow-burn suspense. That sounds like an odd combination but I swear it's juicy enough to keep the pages turning.

The story centers around Nora, an attorney who's running on empty between her long hours on the partner track, the exhaustion of being both pregnant and a mom to a young child, and needing to keep their household running. Could her husband just once drive their daughter to pre-school? Or do the grocery shopping? Or anything, really, to lighten her load? Without her needing to give explicit, detailed instructions, risking being called a nag or asking for too much, of course. Can he please just see something that needs doing, and do it?

I'd suggest skipping the synopsis; I went in knowing less than is explained there and enjoyed letting the story unfold. I daresay if you've ever been asked -- or expected -- to take on emotional labor, or found yourself frustrated by sexist expectations, this one's a must read.

I found myself chuckling at some parts.
The author clearly knows what it’s like to balance a career, chores, and motherhood.
Very relatable!
The pace is slow - nothing really happens until almost 50% through and at times I didn’t want to continue due to the slow pace…

LOVED The Husbands, enough that I immediately listened to the audiobook of Whisper Network, since this was my first intro to Chandler Baker. Sharp, smart, mysterious, boldly feminist, with an undercurrent of Twilight Zone vibes made this a book I would highly recommend.

This book was like the Stepford Wives but in reverse. A seclusive community where the men were made to obey the women and succumb to all their needs including the household and child duties. Every woman’s dream, right? What can go wrong? Nora and her husband, Hayden, are looking for a new home for their growing family. They come across this beautiful community where all of the women seem successful in their own ways. They put an offer on the house and when the women find out what Nora is a successful lawyer, they ask her to represent a wrongful death suit of the husband of one of their own. Nora and her husband are thrown into this group of women and strange things start happening. Throughout the book, Nora resents her husband for his lack of effort on the day-to-day duties. While this was a fun read, it really drew the line of what husbands do or don’t do and what wives are required to do. It may have been exaggerated but was done so to prove the point. I enjoyed this read, it was kind of cheesy and not believable but was entertaining. The story was told entirely from Nora’s POV. I smiled and chuckled at the ending of the book.

Firstly, I did not care for the narrator. Secondly, a very predictable plot. This book is nothing more than a beach read. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was incredible. As a full time working mom this touched on thoughts I Didn’t even know I had!!! I kept screaming OMG YES THIS IS SO TRUE!!! Icing on the cake - also a murder mystery. Cannot get any better than this book. Thank you netgalley. I can’t wait to buy a paper copy so I can go through and pick out all the quotes I loved!!!!

Never in my life has a book resonated with me so much. I can’t stop thinking about it. Honestly, I could spend my entire week reviewing The Husbands by @chandlerbakerbooks - I have that many thoughts.

The short synopsis is that Nora, a pregnant working lawyer mom, is house hunting in an exclusive neighborhood when she gets to know the other female residents and is asked to represent a resident whose husband was recently killed in a house fire. The mystery surrounding the house fire was done in such a perfect suspenseful way with red herrings, twisty revelations and that feeling of trust no one.
But what impacted me so much was Nora’s life. Most of you know that I am a working mom. I am an attorney and my job is anything but 9-5 - it is nights and weekends, no days off, all of it. Reading about Nora’s frustrations was a punch in the gut. The mental load of a mom is tremendous but the mental load of a working mom is off the charts. Nora talks about how she has to work every night and weekend while her husband has downtime at night because of the time she spends dealing with every day kid stuff, how she can’t possibly do a single thing for herself or spend time with friends because there just isn’t time, how her brain is overloaded between work and kids, how her husband doesn’t think about what is needed for school, parties, pediatrician appointments, play dates, even though she too is working full time… how it is all her responsibility and when she tries to pass stuff off, she is seen as a nag. How women have fought to have it all but in doing so, have taken on too much and are drowning. Her exhaustion, frustration, stress and anxiety was so completely spot on. When she needed to work late but her nanny had to leave was like a snapshot into my life. Working moms are required to do it all and in doing so, have to sacrifice so much. @chandlerbakerbooks you are my absolutely hero for writing this book. This book perfectly encapsulates the pressures of working moms in the most realistic and honest way ever done.

Nora Spangler is an attorney and working in the year leading up to her chance to make partner.  Her life is frantic. She has an active four year old daughter, she’s pregnant with her second child and a husband who feels he is contributing to the responsibilities of the household.  Nora, however, feels like she is always working harder.

When the couple begin house hunting they find themselves looking in the  exclusive Dynasty Ranch neighbourhood.  The realtor explains that the there are many other highly regarded professional women who live in the area, but they don’t have a female attorney yet.  Nora meets several of these women and is asked to handle one of the women’s wrongful death case resulting from a fire in which her husband was killed.  Nora is intrigued to find that  these women seem less frazzled and appear to have plenty of time on their hands despite being busy professionally.

As Nora begins working through the wrongful death case, she begins to unravel an explanation as to why these women seem to have it all . A husband that takes on more of the household responsibilities may just be worth killing for.

The Husbands was a highly engaging read.  The characters were well developed and interesting.  The underlying theme that many women feel they have to do it all is one recognizable to many.  It was fascinating to see the lengths these women would go to in order to have husbands that were willing to take on more.  Ironically, the imbalance of workload represented was such that the men were taking on more than their fare share of household responsibilities.

It was interesting to see thriller elements in the last third of the book.  The book reads more like Women’s Fiction with a sense of mystery and setting reminiscent of Desperate Housewives.  The story is told from multiple points of view which is used well to create great depth of characters.  Without giving anything away, I enjoyed the robotic feel to some of the characters which is explained later in the book.  All in all, this was a very good read and one that is sure to stay in my memory for quite some time.

I listened to the audiobook version of The Husbands which was narrated by Allyson Ryan who  gives a great performance. The tone of her voice, and her cadence made this book easy and enjoyable to listen to.  I would not hesitate to recommend the audiobook version of The Husbands to those that enjoy this format.

Thank you for the early audio copy of The Husbands. Unfortunately this one did not work for me.

The synopsis sounds really intriguing but with such a slow build on the story, I stopped listening at 40%. At nearly half way through the book, nothing had really happened, and I honestly lost interest.

My biggest issue with this book was the main character Nora.

Nora is a terrible character, she has such a negative attitude and blames everyone around her for her own problems. She takes every opportunity to complain about her life, job, and husband..and then wonders why no one wants to be around her. She is a realistic character, I know plenty of people like this..but I don't want to read about them.

This is my first book by Chandler Baker and I don't know if I would pick up anything else from her as the writing was so lackluster.

Unfortunately, this “The Stepford Wives gender-swap” thriller was not for me.

I usually read for three reasons: to escape, to learn something new, and just for the pure joy of reading beautiful prose (this usually applies only to literary fiction novels).

Thrillers typically are pure escapism for me. Unfortunately, The Husbands, did not provide any escape at all. In fact it kept me obsessing about my own real life problems nonstop. Seriously, it felt like reading about the early days, right after I had my son and went back to work full time. Now THAT was a proper horror not even a thriller if you ask me. Also, I felt like listening to some of my female friends talking about their day to day life problems.

At the heart of The Husbands is the issue of gender disparity in household labor. Today this disparity is actually even more severe than what is described in the novel thanks to COVID and all the related closures. Households have even more work to do at home, and it disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders. Add homeschooling on top of that and you can clearly see a mental health crisis just begging to happen. Some survey data shows that mothers working from home spend nearly six hours doing childcare and homeschooling on a typical work day while men spend 4 ½.

So yes, the topic is important, but the problem with books like The Husbands (very ironically) is exactly the same as with most of the self-help books on the subject. As Cornelia (the psychiatrist in the book) so cleverly pointed out: this is the type of book that only women will read. And so, it is not very helpful. We already know all of this. We know how much work we do, how much we give up as far as our career aspirations go – now how to solve this? Unfortunately, the book did not really provide any insight. If anything, this book kind of depressed the living crap out of me. I kept listening because I was hoping for some kind of satisfying resolution. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed by the ending. I cannot really explain without the spoilers, but let me leave you with this: it’s just one of them “that’s it??” endings 😐

I had no issues with the audio, in fact I thought that Allyson Ryan did a phenomenal job narrating it. But while the idea was great, the execution, in my opinion, was lacking.

Triggers: PTSD, child neglect, long term stress, domestic inequality

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and the author for gifting me this ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to #macmillanaudio #netgalley & #flatiron_books for providing me with this advanced listener audiobook. I enjoyed this different feminist thriller with the intermittent mom perspectives within blogs and columns. Although I’m not a mom, I enjoyed the insight and perspective of moms who feel overworked and under-appreciated in their households. This one lost me toward the second half of the book that took an unrealistic turn into more of a horror story and I was really rooting for none of the characters 😂 overall, I enjoyed the concept of the book but this one fell flat for me.

Let me preface this review with the fact that have 5 children, I’ve worked full time, part time and been a SAHM so I get the demands of motherhood in so many aspects. I get the imbalance in most households. But this book drove that point home so hard it felt like one giant whiny bitch fest at some points. I wanted to scream at Nora to organize her life a little better. And if she’s an attorney and so intelligent why did she seem like such a dimwit on half of what was going on around her? It just didn’t strike home with me. I stuck with it because I was curious how it would wrap up but that left me rolling my eyes. Not for me.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this early copy for review.

Nora's life is a mess--not only is she struggling to juggle her daughter, an underwhelming husband, and a demanding job as an attorney, but she's also expecting. Oh, and they're house hunting! It is while touring houses that Nora meets the women of Dynasty Ranch. Powerful, successful, and all sporting incredibly helpful husbands, Nora knows she has found her people. In an attempt to get in with these women (and save her job), Nora takes on a seemingly cut and dry case involving a massive house fire and an unfortunate death.

The premise of this story was very interesting to me, and I was pumped to listen to it (thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of the audiobook in return for an honest review). However, I was fairly annoyed with it. The story is solid, but the style was grating due to its negativity (which, I know, is the point because Nora is unhappy).

It had so much going on. Themes I can definitely understand if not relate to fully. The patriarchy and society's assignment of gender roles has brought a group of women to the point of dog training their husband's to be better men. It all sounds somewhat harmless until one figures out what is going on and winds up dead. What seems like a win for women actually takes on a nefarious side and Nora has to choose what to do about it.

This is the Stepford Husbands. Is this really feminism? I don't think so. It is every man's worse nightmare and yet what does it really say about the state of gender relations if the only solution to the problem of gender inequality is lobotomize men and train them like dogs.

Women in this book are upper middle class and can afford to hire help (unlike most women) and yet their solution is to dog train their husbands instead. What about women in the lower socioeconomic sphere (blatantly absent from this book) that can't afford any of these options)

I think the author raises good questions but doesn't really offer any viable solutions or food for thought as to alternatives.

Overall it was entertaining but not quite satisfying.

The idea that I could change my husband is intriguing. To NEVER hear him complain about the chores I didn't finish or the tasks I'm "nagging" him to do could be heavenly. But this book takes manipulation to a whole new, insane level.

Nora and Hayden are like most of us-- they have busy lives of work, childcare, and home life. Nora feels her husband doesn't do his fair share, just like lots of wives stuck with the majority of childcare and home life.

In an effort to change their lives, Nora and Hayden go house hunting in Dynasty Ranch, where families seem PERFECT and husbands are working double time to make their wives' dreams come true.

But this neighborhood isn't all it seems. Getting what you wish for is something which to be careful.

Chandler Baker has successfully updated The Stepford Wives to fit the lives of so many women today. You'll be drawn to the perfection of Dynasty Ranch... and, like Nora, realize what the cost is too late.

I’m really unsure how I feel about this one. The plot sounded cool but I just don’t know if it was executed well. It was really slow to start and with no real direction. You really only begin to understand what it was all building up to at the end. This book just really didn’t hook me in at all. The ending was also a little confusing??

5/5

Let me start by saying, I feel seen. Seriously I could have been Nora. A pregnant Suburban mom, with a husband, and 4 year old, having to do all the things, and everything she was feeling and going though. The daily married life arguments, had me wondering if Chandler Baker had my house bugged.

I was listening to this while walking in my small, closet knit development, although much less Stepford Wives feeling than Dynasty Ranch where Nora and her husband were looking at an open house.

If you can’t yet tell, this book had me HOOKED! I did not want to stop listening, as it was so suspenseful and I felt like I needed to hang onto every detail and moment as it was a clue to what was going on in these peoples lives.

The narrator did an amazing job and her narration made me want to keep going. She made it easy to listen and distinguish between characters and wasn’t over the top with anything.

I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and McMillion Audio for the chance to review this book.

Oh man, do I need to make my partner read this book! The Husbands was an extremely highly anticipated read for me, because I loved The Whisper Network. It certainly lived up to expectations, and I liked it even more.

I was able to guess the overall plot pretty early on, but there were still other twists along the way that I certainly didn’t see coming. I thought everything was incorporated really well and especially loved the ending.

The reader can definitely feel the frustration of these overworked moms, both Nora and those posting on the message boards and interviewed in news articles throughout the book. It makes me wonder whether the author’s husband has read this book, and what he thinks! I can see The Husbands easily becoming a huge hit, given how easy it is to relate to this MC. I’m not married yet, but my boyfriend and I live together and even I could relate.

The audio version was perfect, and I feel that it really put me right inside Nora’s head. I loved her inner monologue.

This book was fast-paced and compelling throughout--I didn’t want to put it down. I would highly recommend both of Chandler’s books.

The Husbands is an interesting twist on the Stepford Wives. I liked how this book discusses gender roles and norms. Quite often women are the ones that are working full time, but also handling the household full time. They are the ones that know when picture day is, who their child's pediatrician is (and when their next appointment is), who their child's friends are, etc. etc. This is true and many of the things that Nora, the main character, complained about are true about a lot of relationships.

She then encounters the women of Dynasty Ranch, a small upper class housing development filled with successful women and the men that support them. These men are all SO proud of their wives and appreciate how hard they work. Seems to good to be true?

Alas, read on. There was a fire that killed a man in the development... he burned alive in the fire. Was this a wrongful death or just an accident? Nora is a lawyer and the women of the neighborhood ask her to take on the case. She does and finds out all kinds of things about this group of women.

Don't go into this book expecting a thriller. Rather it is a slow burn drama. Some of the slow burn is to a fault. For example, Nora constantly references an "accident" regarding her daughter. Through 2/3 of the book, we still don't know what happened. Nora also doesn't seem to put together what is off about this neighborhood as quickly as she perhaps should have, but overall, it is interesting to follow along in her point of view throughout the book.

The audio of this book was excellent - the narrator was very good and easy to listen to. The change in voices throughout really added to the story.