
Member Reviews

Do we really know our family members all that well? What secrets do they keep? How does silence effect relationships? All these theme are explored in this book as sisters Rachel and Tully grapple with a father that they think might be an abuser, a mother with dementia, a father that is about to remarry a much younger women, and so much more. Told from different viewpoints and faulty memories this is a riveting story of family secrets. Sally Hepworth has another winner in this book.

Sally Hepworth does it again with The Younger Wife. As always, I loved her characters, the storyline, and the mystery. Five stars!
Thank you to Net Galley, Sally Hepworth, and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to preview this book.

Wow! Wow! Sally Hepworth does NOT disappoint!
Hmm is Dr. Stephen Aston a bigamist? He is about to marry Heather Wisher, who is in her early thirties thus ‘the younger wife’ meanwhile he is still married to Pam, who is a few years older than he is so she is ‘the older wife’! Well it true that Pam’s health has deteriorated and she currently does not recognize any family member and is in a nursing home for early Alzheimer’s. Also true that Stephen is going to divorce her.
The plot starts with the wedding and then moves to the year earlier when Stephen first met Heather.
Then goes returns to present and lets us know what really happen at the wedding.
Wedding: We know that something seriously bad happened at the wedding. There is a female scream, blood, and the call asking if there is a Doctor in the House!
A year ago: Stephen and Pam hired Heather as an interior designer as they are remodeling. However, when Pam’s dementia is getting worst she has to be moved to a nursing home for care; Stephen soon finds that he has met his real soulmate with Heather. His plan is to divorce Pam.
Stephen wants his adult daughters Rachel and Tully (Natalie) to meet Heather and invites them to a luncheon. They are not pleased with this; Tully in particular believes Heather is after their father’s money. He is a heart surgeon and doing very well.
Stephen wants them to meet Heather and tells Tully to “put on her game face”.
• Smile
• Be Curious
• Keep it together
• Fall apart later at home when no one sees you!
Tully knows all too well how to “put on her game face”!
Her problem is the falling apart at home ~as she has some strange ways of coping.
Story is told from the POV of Heather, Rachael, and Tully
These three ladies have several things in common: reading their stories kept me turning pages.
Oh and there is also an unknown narrator who is giving us information about the wedding.
This all lead to a lot of drama.
This is my sixth author,: Sally Hepworth story ~ I am a fan. The other five novels were also excellent.
I am a big psychological thriller fan. I expect four things:
> Expect twists and twist and turns!
> Be suspicious of everyone!
> The most obvious person didn’t do it!
> There will be many secrets!
Yep all four!
We discover many of the secrets early on ~ Depression, Drinking, Abuse, Kleptomania, Poor Financial decisions.
Don’t want to give too much away. But didn’t that ending coming but it was great!!
I always enjoy reading the Authors and/or acknowledgements. As they typically give us the inside scoop to the story. Yep we find out Ms. Hepworth’s inspiration for this story!
Want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for April 5, 2022

Hepworth does it again! A page-turner that keeps you guessing and characters that are interesting and multifaceted! I thoroughly enjoyed this read and would highly recommend it.

I found my first Sally Hepworth book in London - 10 years ago - while traveling and I eagerly await anything new that she writes!! The Younger Wife did not disappoint!
The book is fast paced because you are anxious to understand what is going on! However you need to slow down and take your time with it because there are twists and turns and a lot of intricate parts of this family drama. Each narrator has her own story to tell and I loved getting to know them, changing my mind about them and then changing my mind about them again as the total story was revealed.
Thanks to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read early....I am recommending everyone I know put this on their TBR list!!

I thoroughly LOVED every bit of this book. From the pacing to the differing characters, everything about it kept me entertained and wanting to read more. When I finish a book in one or two sittings its a great one for me and this book delivered! I cant stop thinking about the immense amount of gaslighting and narcissism pictured in this book. It took my breath away and i really hope it gets people discussing in book clubs or in small groups - narcissism what it means and how it can impact someone on the receiving end of it. Brava! 5 stars for me!
Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for this advaced copy in exchange for my honest review

When Rachel and Tully discover that their still married father has a younger girlfriend, who just so happens to be the interior designer their mother hired, they are shocked. Their mother has dementia, but is still very much alive. So, when their father announces that he’s going to divorce their mother and marry Heather, the girls start to wonder about their childhood and their past. Heather is also dealing with her own childhood demons, and they all start to question what kind of husband and father Stephen really is. As the secrets pour out and the women all deal with their own issues, they begin to realize they have more in common than they want to admit.

The Younger Wife is an intriguing piece of women’s fiction that was hard to put down. Stephen starts out as a likable character, while Heather seems like an interloper. Soon the tables turn and we aren’t sure who to trust, sisters Tully and Rachel are complicated characters who don’t always help the reader know who to believe. Multiple narrators make for an interesting, if sometimes confusing read. This book is great for fans of Tarryn Fisher and Megan Miranda.

As school continues to ramp up, I'm left with less and less time for reading and it makes me so damn sad!! I don't want to learn about how to calculate annuities, I just want to bury my nose in a book! I'm learning to find ways to at least squeeze in some reading time, even when I don't have a ton of it to spare. I was beyond excited to get another ARC from my favorite @stmartinspress especially since this book is already out in Australia and I was suffering from a huge serving of FOMO. I want to thank @netgalley as well in exchange for my honest review.
I've gotta say I really never thought I would review a book that I didn't completely love or at least strongly enjoy. I wanted to use this page as more of a place to give recommendations than just review every single book I read, however this book has left me with the inability to keep to that and still try to review the ARCs I get.
Now, the good stuff - First, I absolutely love Sally Hepworth. If you want a laugh, go check out her Insta. Her 1 star reviews are just comedic gold. I have read almost her entire backlist and she has never let me down. She has a real gift of creating three-dimensional characters that just speak to you, and that was definitely the case with this one as well.
The bad- I'm sorry to say but I felt that after all of the work she did creating these characters, the ending felt very thrown together and didn't give me the solid ending I look for. Was the book good until then? Absolutely. I really wish this wasn't an ARC now so that I could have conversations about what other people thought of the ending. Hopefully I remember the ending until then. Unfortunately that brain space is going to be taken by things I need to know for school.
If you haven't read her The Mother-In-Law or The Good Sister, I would so completely recommend them. I liked this one, just didn't love it. I'm sorry.
#TheYoungerWife #slightlydisappointed #bookstagram #domesticsuspense

Wow, Sally Hepworth does not disappoint in this latest novel! Told from the perspective of three women around the same age - two sisters and their father’s much younger wife - a suspenseful family drama unfolds. With every twist the reader gets to know the characters on a deeper level, and I became even more invested in the outcome of their story. To say I could not put this one down is an understatement! I will be recommending this book to everyone.
Thank you to the author, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. #TheYoungerWife #netgalley

Great build up but that ending killed it for me. 3.5 STARS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There’s something amazing about an author who can write a great psychological thriller. They know how wind you up; keep you guessing; throw those tiny vague little snippets of clues like petals down the pathway. It is exciting to turn those pages to find what on earth is going to be next.
Hepworth is known for her psychological thrillers and when I cracked this book open I was waiting for all of those feelings. The amazing build up was there. She’s got the perfect story. People you love to hate that leave you suspicious of everyone. She does not shy away from topics that are touchy to write about such as rape, PTSD type reactions, abuse, intimidation, gaslighting. It’s a classic thriller buildup!
And then you get to the ending and you wonder what the hell did I just read. Unfortunately, this ending landed flat for me and it was really a letdown after the rest of the book. It’s sort of just killed the story for me. While all of the exciting build up was in place, for some reason the ending did not match.
The Younger Wife is a classic twisted family psychological tale that offers loads of twists and drips along the way but begs for that shock ending we crave!

This is the second book I have read by Sally Hepworth and it definitely didn’t disappoint. This is a great thriller/suspense and the ending will leave you asking “wait……what????”
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC.

I received a complimentary copy of this book "The Younger Wife" and all opinions expressed are my own. Definitely one of my go to authors. This book was awesome! I could not put it down, a page turner.

Fun easy to read book, but really more of a domestic drama than a thriller. This is why the ending falls flat. No big reveal. Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my review.
The well-respected surgeon, Doctor Stephen Aston announces to his two daughters that he is getting married again, despite the fact that he is still married to their mother. The new, younger wife was hired to redecorate the home for he and his wife, but before it was completed his wife's dementia became so severe that she had to be placed in a home. He then fell in love with the decorator, who, by the way is about the same age as his daughters.
When the new fiancee, Heather, moves in, strange things start happening to her. She has blackouts and wakes up injured but not remembering how the injuries happened. Meanwhile, Stephen's older daughter, Rachel, finds a hot water bottle among her Mother's possessions which contains almost $100,000! Whose money is this and why was her mother hiding it? The younger daughter, Tully, has problems of her own - her husband has lost most of their money in a bad investment and her shoplifting habit is becoming more of a problem.
No one is who or what they seem, and who is Fiona Arthur?

I waited to review this book, even though it was one I received from the publisher several weeks back. There were other books being published more quickly, and I needed to get those books read and my reviews published before I could read Sally Hepwirth's novel, The Younger Wife. Waiting to review The Younger Wife was a bit like waiting to open a much desired gift and being rewarded for my patience. This was the first Sally Hepworth book that I have read, but I know that I have discovered her, I definitely need to look for more books by this author. The Younger Wife is filled with twists and turns, and in the end, Hepworth asks us if we should disregard what we think we know, if we should disregard what the characters tell us, and if we should disregard our intuition. What is the truth? I spent a lot of time thinking about this book when I finished it. Hepworth forces readers to question the evidence and their own judgment. I love books that do not offer easy solutions, and The Younger Wife is certainly a book to love. The appreciate having been access to an ARC of The Younger Wife. thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley.

This tale of a family trying to find their way through difficult life situations was a great read! I loved how the author showed each family member dealing with their issues in their own way. The family members didn't always agree with the way others dealt with their situation or issues, but they never disowned them. I loved watching the sisters grow closer together as they tried to work their situation with their mom and dad. It was hard to put the book down because you never knew where the twists and turns would lead you.

Sally Hepworth likes to bring you down a path full of subtle twists and turns. This time, the subject matter underlying the plots were quite heavy and easy to figure out early on for me at least. What I thought would be the ending was well played out, and then the book continued for a few more chapters and unraveled everything that had been built up. So does this mean the reader and the females in the book are crazy or delusional? Or is it all truly about how there are 3 sides to every story and the ending was the 3rd side - the truth? It all left me a bit frustrated, and given that it was well past midnight when I finished the book, I was not that happy.
Overall a good read, but the ending just left me discombobulated.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

A slow burn domestic suspense/family drama with elegantly drawn characters that are intriguing, compelling and flawed. The story is character-driven, so don’t expect lots of twists and turns or explosive events. Most of the suspense comes from the structure. The story starts from an unknown person at the wedding of Stephen and Heather, his much younger new bride, at which time something shocking happens that the reader doesn’t know yet. The plot then moves between the wedding and the drama that took place within this family prior to the wedding. What elevates this story is the exceptional writing. Well done to Sally Hepworth for this uniquely told story.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read The Younger Wife, by Sally Hepworth, in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of the book is the relationship between a family. Pamela has advanced dementia and is married to Stephen. They have 2 adult daughters, Tully and Rachel. Tully is married with 2 young boys of her own, while Rachel has not dated since she was a teenager.
Each chapter is a different person's perspective. It starts at the wedding of Stephen and Heather (she's introduced later), all of the family is there, including Pamela.
As you read through the story, you capture bits and pieces of everyone, and their perspectives. There are twists and turns throughout. I have laughed out loud, and gasped out loud! I came to the end of the book and sat there with my eyes bugging out because of the twist.
Sally has blessed us with another fantastic book!