I really enjoyed Chandler Baker's first novel, The Whisper Network, so when I saw a new book by Baker, I was definitely intrigued. The Husbands is part crime/discovery novel, part The Stepford Wives role reversal. Nora, a lawyer vying for partner in her firm, and her husband Haydn, salesman, are expecting their second child and are constantly haunted by an accident involving their first child (don't worry, she's alive). While house hunting to find a place large enough for a growing family, they happen upon Dynasty Ranch. You're immediately gripped by this group of successful women with husbands that are more than eager to support their wives success. This is the part of the book that reading the back of the book or a basic review will give you. What was compelling to me was how Nora reacted to the husbands. When all of the pieces start coming together and she gets deeper into their world, she must decide which instinct to follow: this is wrong and I shouldn't treat my spouse this way... or wow it's really nice to not have to do everything around the house myself. As a working mom, I loved the constant uplift of working moms and how moms in general need help. There's a lot of brain power that goes into maintaining your family life, and it was awesome for fiction to acknowledge that. Overall, a fun read with a just the right amount of malice. Thank you to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the advanced listener copy. Review posted to Goodreads.

Definitely a "be careful what you wish for" book!

Nora Spangler is tired. She's an attorney. A wife. A mom to a daughter. And is expecting her second child. Her husband works hard. Or so he keeps telling her. But why does she feel like she's doing it all?

They househunt and stumble upon Dynasty Ranch. It's sort of the Stepford Husbands there, but Nora is down for that. These men do it all - the groceries, the laundry, running kids to practice, etc. It seems too good to be true.

Nora starts to realize there is more to Dynasty Ranch and it may not be all good. The mystery draws her in deeper than she planned and it was one that kept me interested and listening! Nora (and I along with her) discover much more than I'm sure either of us ever saw coming.

Many thanks to MacMillan Audio and Netgalley for an advance audio copy in exchange for an honest review!

The Husbands is a story fraught with material that psychologists would have a field day with. If you have a fascination with Stepford Wives, then let me introduce you to their counterpart... Stepford Husbands.

Nora Spangler is struggling. She is a super successful attorney, but it feels like she is also the sole executor of the domestic side of her life. All she wants is for her husband to help, but every time she asks, she feels like he ignores her. Her husband isn't a bad guy, but when they realize that Nora is pregnant with baby #2, she knows that it's time for her husband to step up or shut up.

When Nora and her husband start house hunting, they come across a house in the elusive and exclusive neighborhood, Dynasty Ranch. The residents of the neighborhood include a tight-knit group of friends consisting of a CEO, a neurosurgeon, a therapist, and an author -- all women with super supportive husbands (like... on the creepier end of supportive). Nora envies these women with their seemingly perfect lives and wonders what would happen if she were in the same boat. As she is sucked into their world, she begins to see the cracks in their facade.

I did enjoy this book a lot. Listening to it gave me the illusion of the creeps, just enough to make me feel uncomfortable, but I didn't want to stop. There were definitely moments where I felt like there was an overt amount of details and backstory that may not have been necessary. I found certain parts just dragged on, and it wasn't until about 60% of the way through that it seemed that anything major happened. I wish that the pacing of the last quarter of the book was consistent throughout the first 75%. I did enjoy the feminist message that Baker was trying to convey, but would have liked to see it executed just a bit tighter. Despite this, be sure to thank the moms in your life today... They probably need it.

Overall rating: 3.5/5 (rounded to 4)

The Husbands will be available for purchase on August 3rd. Be sure to add it to your Goodreads shelf and see where it's available to buy. Also, be sure to check out Chandler Baker's website!

I was lucky enough to be able to listen to this Advanced Reader's Copy through my partnership with NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This was a really fun, semi-creepy critique on work culture, sexism, capitalism and social order. I loved it, even though I’m not married or a mom. I especially enjoyed the use of blog, social media, and internet posts and user insights—I’m hoping this are either real with the names change or loosely based on real posts. It adds such a fun, modern and realistic discussion to the topics of this book and it is a creatively interesting device. Every parent should read The Husbands, as I’m sure they’d relate even harder to the subject matter than I did.

Having been a female attorney at a male dominated plaintiff’s firm run by three male partners, I definitely still felt very connected to Nora’s plight, the sometimes childish opposition she faces from her male coworkers, and her daily toils as a young, female attorney looking to grow her family and her professional life in direct proportions.

There’s also of course the engaging and slowly-unfolding mystery of the wrongful death case Nora is investigating throughout the novel. Lots to hold a reader’s interest within the pages of this fun, fast read.

Release date is August 3rd. I highly recommend the audiobook as the narration was excellent and engaging.

Thanks so much to NetGalley & Macmillan Audio for this advanced copy audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

First off, this would make for a fantastic book club selection. So much for the ladies to talk about!
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Nora and her husband Hayden are looking for a bigger home to accommodate their growing family. They attend an open house in a neighborhood that Nora immediately is drawn to but Hayden is on the fence. As Nora get involved with the ladies of the HOA she is taken in with how accomplished they are and how perfect their marriages seem. Nora and Hayden are struggling with work/life balance and Nora is desperate for help. The ladies of the neighborhood are very eager to help and Nora is sucked in. Anyway, things are definitely not as they seem.
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There isn’t much more I can say without major spoilers. The book is a little dark and doesn’t have the most satisfactory ending. Nora’s life is better off but not everyone gets what they deserve. The struggles Nora has trying to do absolutely everything while facing tremendous gender discrimination was interesting. I can’t say eye opening because it’s not.
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I really enjoyed the book. It’s mysterious, a little creepy, and relatable. Thanks to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for an advanced audiobook copy of this book. This book will be released on 8/3/21.

My thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for allowing me to listen to this audio to review.

Nora Spangler is an attorney trying to work extra hours to make partner in her law firm while juggling her 4 year old daughter Liv, a useless husband Hayden who she is trying to get to step up and help more, working on a wrongful death case, trying to buy a new house in a gated community. Dynasty Ranch while trying to figure out while all the successful women she met have helpful husband's.

I got the feel of the Stepford Wife role reversal. I also felt like I was reading bits of The Whisper Network from the corporate feminist office part. This book was engaging, brought up topics that should be talked about and are relevant, and enjoyed the narrator, but on the fence with this. Nora was a character that complained all the time and was all about her.

A little slow to start, however it was a very entertaining and interesting read. There were some really interesting observations about the disparity in the roles of husbands/fathers and wives/mothers, but also a little harsh/unfair to some of the great men out there!

Yet overall, this domestic drama is slow to start and then over the top in the end. I pretty much saw where this was going right away and found it a bit frustrating that no one else (particularly the main character Nora) even had a clue. I get it, this is supposed to be overly dramatic in order to prove its point, but personally, I think that more humor and less weirdness would have gone a long way to make it more entertaining and engaging.

The Husbands by Chandler Baker (Author), Allyson Ryan (Narrator)

I loved this book! It brought up important conversations around the role married couples have in the household. Do you ever wish your spouse took more responsibility taking care of the home/children/pets or does this mostly fall on one person. Are you tired of nagging and being responsible for delegating tasks / holding the headspace for everything in all of your lives? This book tells the story when a group of women get fed up and change their husbands through creative means. It was very entertaining and also made me think, which is one of my favorite things about the author.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book will remain with me long after I finished listening to it. It’s hard to put this book into one category, It’s a thriller, it’s women’s fiction and it’s a mystery. With amazing characters, truths about motherhood and a real mystery I would highly recommend this book!,

What happens when a utopia for a working mom ends up being the meanest dystopia? Curious? Well, this book has answers for you! Nora is looking for a new place for her growing family and she stuck on this house in kind of a gated community. Women living there are bold. Doing their jobs without distractions and they achieve amazing things. And most importantly their husbands are incredibly supportive. They do anything and everything.

Pressure is building on Nora: she is about to pop another baby but this is also her year for partner promotion. What does her husband doing btw? Sending her videos of their toddler throwing tantrums?! Supportive husband that is… Nora is getting more and more tangled into this prospective neighbor group as she agreed to look into a fatal fire happened on the premises. But this relationship didn’t stop at the professional level.

While Nora is trying trying so hard to be accepted as part of this group, she started to recognize things that she was blindly ignoring for a good deal of time. Now it is up to her to how to react and be the super mom that she intends to be

The storyline of a gender flipped Stepford Wives is exactly the type of story I want to read. This was much more of a quieter, domestic drama and not as much an in your face thriller. I was expecting a little more of an overall unsettling tone. However, I still really enjoyed the story. I loved the commentary of gender roles and society today. The MC was full and I definitely grew to care about her journey. Her husband, and some other husbands, really drove me crazy and the book was definitely successful at triggering me and my feminist heart!! Highly recommend this to everyone (just do expect an in your face thriller). I have now loved both of this author's work and I am excited to see what she does next. This would make a great miniseries!

The narrator of the book was perfect and fit the MC's voice and personality perfectly.

A successful lawyer is trying to balance home and work life without much help from her husband gets pulled into a group of women at an exclusive neighborhood who seem to have all the answers - except what have they done to their husband? This Stepford Wives twist follows Nora who feels like she works a full-shift at work and then comes home to start her second shift of taking care of the house and her child (while being pregnant) and her husband does nothing (she's not wrong.) When househunting, the couple stumble upon Dynasty Ranch, where some high profile women live with their super supportive husbands. Nora agrees to help with a wrongful death lawsuit with one of the women and soon starts wondering how far someone would take it to have it all. Is murder out of the question?

This is a biting critique on gender roles and the current domestic situation in which women also take on the bulk of the family life at home while also working full-time jobs. I felt like if Nora's husband could have shown a tiny, itty-bitty initiative, I could have been more into this, but he doesn't. He is literally an annoying lump who does work a job, and that's about it. If he's asked to do anything, he whines and if Nora brings up anything he accuses her of having a "tone." Frankly, I started wondering if Nora is doing everything (and she is) then what exactly does she need him around for? He doesn't need Stepford Husbanded, she needs to dump him!

I liked the narrator for the audiobook and the story is definitely engaging.

This non-stop, cautionary tale is part exposé, part cautionary tale. Listening to this audio book evoked feelings of sitting across from a best girlfriend sharing her deepest darkest secrets only to find out they are yours too--if you had the guts to actually verbalize the inner-turmoil. The most haunting part of this tale is asking oneself how far a person might go to realize a more balanced life and gender equality. Suburbia and mothers having it all just took a really dark turn in this scintillating story! I couldn't stop listening.

Like her previous novel, this one also involves women and how we try and juggle everything. I really enjoyed the main character and could relate to her daily grind and found myself nodding my head to many things Nora would go thru and feel. Loved the ending and look forward to more stories from this wonderful author!

I enjoyed the audiobook of The Husband very much. The narrator did a fantastic job with portraying the different characters.

The Husbands is a complete twist on The Stepford Wives, placing the husbands right where women have been for centuries. Baker creates a riveting world where it's possible to program men to take the brunt of the parenting and domestic duties, so their wives can do what it takes to make it with successful careers. The setting is a housing community in Austin, Texas, ruled by an HOA of strong women, in all different fields. They have one thing major thing in common: they are successful and their husbands do everything possible to support their careers. The story is told from the perspective of a newcomer, who is feeling the strain of trying to make partner in her law firm while caring for a toddler, and being pregnant. She is drawn to the women and their seemingly perfect lives, but the more she discovers, she may be in over her head.

This is a look at what women really endure to have it all - and the price. I loved the great perspective of working moms in this book and the acknowledgement of how hard it really is. This was a fun, fascinating, and cathartic read!

This book pulls you in from the beginning and doesn't let go. At the beginning we meet a seemingly normal couple Nora and Hayden, who have a toddler and a baby on the way so they start house searching. Nora falls in love with a home in a community called Dynasty Ranch. But more than just the home, Nora falls in love with the community and her potential neighbors, so she is blinded by the weird things that keep happening.

The narrator was fantastic. The perfect voice to keep you hooked. She made it hard to put this audiobook down.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to review this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the early listen. What an amazing, captivating and thrilling story. The narrator did a phenomenal job with tell the story and giving each character to have their own voice. The author and narrator both hooked me from the very beginning. Highly recommend!

Creepy and terrifying, this was a wonderful and surprisingly thought-provoking book. A captivating read with amazing character development. I enjoyed the strong female leads as explored the secrets behind the perfect housing development and the couples/families that live there. Allyson Ryan's narration is captivating and provides the perfect tone for this twisty tale. Highly recommend!

When Nora and Hayden see the home for sale in Dynasty Ranch, it feels like a dream come true. When they meet the neighbors, it seems almost too good to be true--high achieving women, the best in their chosen fields, and husbands that shoulder more than their fair share of the household responsibilities, so their wives can concentrate on their careers. As you can surmise, there is more to this neighborhood than meets the eye. The Husbands is a suspenseful mystery, a modern-day Stepford Wives. ​

Every working mother will relate to the second shift, and will empathize with the strong women
​in this book who have found a 'solution'. Though there are not a lot of surprises, the book was an enjoyable read, and kept my interest to the end. The audio version is excellent, with a narrator whose voice adds depth to the characters, and fits with the personalities.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing an ARC of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.