A good friend of mine RAVED about this book so I thought I would absolutely love it. We're normally in agreement on most of our thrillers. Sadly, we differ here. I really wanted to love this one, but it just wasn't for me. I am DNFing it at 60%. I don't feel invested in the characters or the storyline at all. Are the people in her life gaslighting her or is she really suffering from a mental illness? I don't find myself "needing" to get back to this book to find out. I'm giving this three stars because I don't hate it; I'm just not loving it.

Holy gaslight Batman! Was this a psychological thriller or was this a book about narcissistic men syndrome? The world will never know!

The premise of this book depicted an anxiety prone, maybe crazy female main character who wants to find out what happened to her friend, Abby. You see, Abby disappeared under mysterious conditions and on top of that, Abby’s fiancé is acting all blasé about it. Did I mention Abby’s fiancé is the main character’s brother in law? So now she’s left with no friend and is questioning her brother in law’s hands in her disappearance. Only when she starts digging, she uncovers that he’s had a very big string of bad luck with women in his past.

So… this novel. I liked it. I really did. A solid 3.5 star read. I didn’t enjoy the entire “woe is me” thing the main character, Elise, had going on though. But I will say that the author did a really good job of providing description to the main character. She was fully developed even if I didn’t enjoy her as a character.

Another con is all of the inner monologue the main character had going on. It’s like she was writing in a diary all of her thoughts and feelings and we happened to be reading it. I feel if the author did a little less inner monologue then the novel would definitely hit a 4 star rating.

Did the novel give me the psychological thriller vibes? Definitely. It’ll keep you hooked until the end until the author tied everything up in a perfect bow.

I received this ARC from netgalley for an honest review.

This was another entry in the "wealthy, married white lady might be in horrible danger because someone she trusts is up to no good... or she might just be imagining things because she's drunk or had a head trauma or is some variety of mentally ill" cannon.

I don't mean to take it all out on this specific book, but I just cannot do the gaslighting/maybe mentally ill women books anymore. The main character in this book is suffering from PTSD and anxiety and had a seemingly short-lived, minor pain pill problem that she's gotten through fairly unscathed. This apparently justifies her husband (A Very Handsome and Important Veterinarian) doubting every single word she says and dismissing her EXTREMELY VALID concerns about his stupid little brother's missing fiancee because she must be overreacting because she's CRAZY and he's so smart and his brother is just unlucky and don't forget: SHE'S CRAZY. AAAAAAAAGH.

And the big reveal was something that I wrote a note about early on saying "if xxxxx is xxxxx, I am going to lose my mind." Surprise! xxxxx was xxxxxx.

Also, the kid in this book sucked.

This was clearly not the book for me, but plenty of other people liked it, so I'm maybe alone in my exhaustion with this business.

This book was a wild ride. Just when I thought I had it figured out, Darby Kane comes in with a twist! I loved her first book and this was equally engaging and well done. I'll definitely be watching for future releases!

Elisa and Harris are your typical husband and wife along with their son Nathan. However, Harris and his brother Josh lost their parents at a young age and it’s been up to Harris to play father to Josh. Josh is heavily involved in their lives but as of late has been dealing with a terrible tragedy. His fiancé, Abby recently took off and has not been seen or heard from in almost a year. Elisa had a close relationship with Abby and finds it hard to believe she would just disappear and not get in touch. One day when Josh comes to Elisa and Harris’s home to introduce them to his new girlfriend, Rachel, Elisa is in shock. She starts thinking the worst of Josh and starts looking into Abby’s disappearance even more and what she finds is earth shattering.

My thoughts:
This was a great thriller read with so many twists and turns. There was various points of the book when I thought I had the mystery figured out only to find out I was completely wrong. The author did a fantastic job of making you second guess the motives of all the characters and who was truly the bad guy or girl. I could certainly see this book becoming a movie that would be thrilling to watch. Highly recommend you read this if you are into domestic thrillers.

This novel was a great read! I really enjoyed the characters, the plot, and the all around world building. Definitely worth picking up!

Reading books like this, I have to constantly remember to unclench my jaw. I have a hard time with the “hysterical woman” narrative, where no one believes her and thinks she’s losing her mind. It can be incredibly frustrating. Both the choices the narrator makes that don’t help her case and the dismissals of her concerns.

This is one of those middle of the road stories for me otherwise. I kept reading and getting sucked into figuring out what was going on. But I wasn’t fully invested in the characters or the plot, just the knowing of what was happening. Which is totally fine too.

This book left me on edge and was definitely a good pick for an October read but sadly after the first half of the book I felt bored and the plot fell a little flat for me. This book wasn't my cup of tea but if you find the plot interesting then I would definitely recommend you try it. I know that my friend also got an arc for this and she personally loved it so it honestly just depends on the person.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

Elisa has a loving husband and an amazing son. She also has a murderer for a brother-in-law. The Replacement Wife tells the story about one woman who is on a quest to find out what happened to her brother-in-law's missing fiancee while trying to navigate her own personal tragedy and mental health.

This book takes the reader on a roller coaster of what is true and what is not true. As a reader, it's difficult to figure out what is truly happening in the story so it's a fun guessing game of what is actually going on. I felt sorry for Elisa throughout the story because of how people just disbelieved what she said right off the bat especially her husband. I thought the book was well written and well paced. This book was a quick read for me and one that I enjoyed.

Elisa's best friend, who also was engaged to her brother-in-law Josh, has disappeared and no one else seems to be worried. Elisa is convinced Josh did something to her, especially since he already has a dead wife. The more Elisa tries to figure it out, the more unstable she appears. When Josh shows up with a new girlfriend Elisa know has a new worry, that something will happen to her. Will anyone believe her before something else happens?

Elisa is certain that her friend Abby and brother-in-law’s fiancé would not just disappear, yet she did. Elisa starts to ask questions which lead to finding a dark past for her brother-in-law Josh. Josh seems to be setting up situations where it looks and feels like her mental health is unstable. So how many dead wives does Josh have?

Thank you to NetGalley and Darby Kane for this E-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback and review.

Elisa is our unreliable narrator. She is married to Harris and has a wonderful marriage and child. Elisa is determined that her brother in law had something to do with his fiancé's disappearance. Abby and Elisa were best friends so she knows there is something going on that she is unaware of. When Elisa starts diving into Josh's love life and finds secrets is she really finding secrets or is she paranoid?

I was very excited to receive this ARC. I am a huge fan of Pretty Little Wife. It had me hooked. This one did not hook me as fast. I found myself putting it down and picking it back up over weeks. It did not captivate my attention like Pretty Little Wife. I'm very happy to have read this though. I like reading from the view of an unreliable narrator. I found myself questioning my own sanity at times. When a book can do that you know it's good. I look forward to what else Darby Kane gives us in the future.

The Replacement Wife had such a great hook: Elisa's brother-in-law Josh has a dead wife and a missing fiancee, so when he brings home a new girlfriend, Rachel, Elisa is understandably concerned about Rachel's safety. Making matters worse, Josh says and does things that seem to cast doubts on Elisa's sanity, and even Elisa's husband Harris seems inclined to believe his brother over her. Set-up-wise, there are so many things about this thriller that hooked me right in.


Unfortunately, the execution fell flat for me. I like that the author set up multiple examples of how Josh gaslights Elisa, and I like that the author sets Elisa herself up as an unreliable narrator, so that even we, as readers, are sometimes unsure whether or not we should believe Elisa's version of reality. However, after a while, the story started to feel repetitive. The series of incidents were intended to escalate the tension, but mostly, they made the book feel long, and at times, even boring. Part of it may be that I never really believed that Elisa had lost her grip on reality, versus other novels with unreliable narrators, for example, Girl on the Train, which really kept me off-balance throughout. So I felt there was little doubt from the start that Josh was a bad guy, and while I shared Elisa's frustration that Harris couldn't see it, I felt more impatient than anything.

I did like the bit of uncertainty the author set up about another character, and whether they were friend or foe to Elisa, but again, I was disappointed by the way this plot line played out. The reveal felt convoluted, and the resulting fallout felt rushed. It got to a point when even I wasn't sure whether or not Elisa believed the reveal, and while I'm all for twisty and suspenseful climaxes, in this case, confusion just removed me from the story. Elisa's behaviour during the big climactic confrontation made no sense to me, given the build-up, and while the eventual resolution did tie up loose ends, I just ended up frustrated at Elisa herself. The ending felt like a cheat, and not in a good, twist-filled way that leaves me breathless. Rather, it all just felt messy, and worse, the build-up to it wasn't even gripping enough to make the ending all that disappointing. 

It wasn't a horrible book. It felt a bit slow, but I was interested in finding out what happens to the characters, and whether the friend-or-foe character actually was friend or foe to Elisa. Up until the climax, I would've considered this novel a solid, if somewhat underwhelming, 3 star thriller. But the ending just took me right out of the story, and I wish it had been handled better.

+

Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

This book has been such a joy! There were a few twists and turns and unexpected situations that led me to keep flipping the pages! The book had me interested right from the beginning. I loved the character development, the dramatic family moments, and the few twists along the way.

This author had a nice engaging writing style that left me wanting more! I'm looking forward to reading others from Darby Kane!

Special thanks to NetGalley for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

What infuriates Elisa Wright the most about her brother-in-law Josh is that he has begun dating again even though his fiancée has been missing for seven months in The Replacement Wife by Darby Kane.

Josh maintains that Abby left him, practically abandoned him at the altar, but Elisa is not buying that because Abby was her friend, who would not have disappeared without a trace if she was just breaking up with Josh. Besides, Josh has one dead wife to his name. Wait, make those two dead wives, reveals Elisa’s husband Harris when he is forced to come clean about his beloved brother’s marital history.

Elisa’s feeling that Josh is a murderer is almost enough to knock her off balance when she has already had a horrible trauma in her life. Last year she witnessed the murder of her boss and was grazed by a bullet herself. She is fragile enough dealing with the post-trauma of that incident let alone being devastated about Abby’s disappearance.

Elisa’s resurging panic attacks and a strange illness cause Harris to believe that his wife is headed for a full-blown breakdown. How can he prove to his wife that Josh is not a murderer? How can he convince her to go back to her therapist for help before all of this impacts their marriage and family further?

Darby Kane is a former divorce lawyer turned author who debuted her first novel Pretty Little Wife in 2020. The Replacement Wife is due out on December 28, 2021.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting October 14, 2021.

I would like to thank William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

What would you do if someone in your family might be a murderer? Someone who has been in your home, someone you trusted?? That’s exactly the question the main character is dealing with in The Replacement Wife by Darby Kane.

Elisa Wright is a wife and a mother who now suspects that maybe her brother in law is a murderer. Josh had once been married until his wife was died one night by a mysterious fall. The death at the time had been ruled an accident but now Josh’s girlfriend, Elisa’s good friend, has gone missing.

Elisa has found some incriminating evidence hidden in Josh’s home that leads her to believe her friend did not just pack up and leave. To top it all off Josh has also begun dating yet again. With a new woman in Josh’s life Elisa becomes even more determined than ever to find out just what her brother in law has been hiding.

The Replacement Wife is Darby Kane’s second book and having read her first, Pretty Little Wife, and enjoying it I was looking forward to this one. Just as with the first book I found myself easily drawn into the story in The Replacement Wife and completely engaged. The narrator in the story is the unreliable type so I of course had my eye on all kinds of outcomes which is always fun. There were plenty of twists to keep the pages turning and after finishing and enjoying this second novel I will certainly come back for more from this author in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Elisa experienced a recent trauma that has sent her on a crash course. Shortly after the trauma, her brother-in-law's fiancée goes missing. Elisa was the one to introduce Josh, her brother-in-law, to Abby who is now missing. After some thought and investigation, Elisa is convinced that Josh is a murder. Just months after Abby goes missing, Josh is involved with a new woman. Elisa becomes very worried about this new girlfriend's safety and begins to really dig into Josh's past relationships. This quest leads her to have more questions. While investigating this, she is still dealing with the effects of the recent trauma. The premise of this book is great......but for some reason, it didn't hit the mark for me. I really enjoyed Darby Kane's debut novel so I was very excited to dive into her second book. Unfortunately, it left me wanting more. I felt there was a lot of build up with a fast wrap up to the story. Sadly, I didn't find any of the characters likeable or relatable. Thank you to NetGalley, Darby Kane and Custom House for the ARC.

Another great read from Darby Kane! If you loved Pretty Little Wife, you will most certainly want to read The Replacement Wife. Elisa is an amazing character. She is set on digging into her brother-in-law Josh’s life. It became increasingly clear to me that Elisa was on the edge of a vast canyon and the drop could be fatal. I absolutely loved everything about her. This story is well paced, and the twists and turns will keep you guessing.
I highly recommend reading The Replacement Wife. Kane has quickly become a must read for me.

Elisa Wright is the typical wife and mom living in a nice quiet town. However, she is very concerned about her brother-in-law, Josh. He has a dead wife and a missing fiancée and Elisa suspects that Josh killed both of these women. After some grieving, Josh now has a new girlfriend named Rachel, and now Elisa is terrified for Rachel’s safety. Did Josh really commit these crimes?

Overall, I really enjoyed the premise of this book. I felt it had good pacing and some great twists throughout the story. The writing style was a bit different and a little bit hard for me to get into. But in the end it was a good book with a great ending!

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be posted to my Instagram Blog (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.