Thank you #Netgalley for the advanced copy! I could not put it down, finished within 24hrs!

We follow sisters, Tully and Rachel, and their soon to be stepmother, Heather (who is younger than them). We learn about each of their secrets and how they are scared to share their past with each other, even though they are family. The sisters are obviously weary of their soon to be step mother and her motives of joining the family. When the sisters reach their breaking point, for their own reasons, they share their secrets with each other and their bond becomes even stronger. During this time they learn more about their mother, who is unfortunately struggling with dementia, and their doctor father. While they investigate the past, Heather is coming to similar conclusions about her soon to be husband but doesn't know what to believe. This book is filled with secrets, money, and makes you question who to trust up until the very end.

Sally Hepworth does it again!! So well written and a pleasure to read. But don’t be fooled when you think you have it figured out! Twists and turns until the very end! Great storyline and amazing characters!
Highly recommend!
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the chance to read and review The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth. Sisters, Tully and Rachel are about to participate in their father's wedding. Problem being, Heather, their step-mother to be, is their age. As the wedding unfolds, both Tully, Rachel and Heather must resolve many issues that they have been harboring over the years and figure out how they can move on. This book will be a good beach read for anyone that enjoys stories that involve family dynamics and the ability to seek out the answers as to why.

I loved this book. I loved the characters, the pacing, the drama, the backstory, and the constant suspense as I wondered if the dad was guilty or if the author just wanted the reader to believe he was. If you want to know, then you must read the book! It will not disappoint!

The insertion of the first person POV sprinkled through gave off a real thriller vibe and added to the mystery.

🌟A stash of hidden money
🌟Family secrets
🌟Childhood trauma
This one has it all!

Families can be messy. None more so than these. I appreciate that Rachel and Tully — and Miles! — gain peace at the end and have supportive partners and how well Pam was written; it was a quite realistic depiction of dementia. I do wish she’d been given the same dignity when it came to the events in the sacristy. The characters were generally well fleshed out enough that I will explore more by the author.

OMG. Y’all. Sally Hepworth makes me so happy each time she writes a new book. I devour them in a day!! They’re so excellent. The characters are always top notch, she makes them feel so alive. The endings are always a thrill and ones I never see coming!! This one was such an amazing book, y’all have to read it right now.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a chance to read and review an ARC of this book. Publication date 4/5/2022. I needed to take some time to think about my reaction to this book before reviewing.
I am not a fan of domestic drama (hated Gone Girl) but I found Sally Hepworth's The Mother-In -Law through recommendations from work friends and I loved it. I next read The Good Sister and loved it even more. I find the writing and plot development captivating in her work.
This book caught me in at once with the opening. JUST WOW!! We learned someone has been injured/killed at a wedding but no spoilers.
I particularly enjoyed the alternating points of view chapters. Great way to get to know the backstories of each and bond to them. Also interesting to see what each did and did not know about the others and how this pushed the plot. The suspense was great. I found myself rooting for all the young women. I could hardly turn the pages fast enough.
What kept this from 5 star rating was the ending. It wasn't just that it was not a traditional satisfying happy ending , it was just a letdown. After such a dramatic story..... and then .
Overall I did enjoy this book tremendously and would recommend to other readers. I think that the author wrote beautifully and surely fulfilled her goal for a story, no judgement that it just didn't jive with mine.

Sally Hepworth is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors and The Younger Wife did not disappoint. Such a fast read and her books always have a twist I’m trying to figure out till the very end! I fell in love with the characters in this book. Not sure if Rachel’s baking obsession or Tullys anxiety was more relatable, haha! Although this twist is enough to break your heart, you won’t want to put it down! And I also love that she named a character in the book after a real person after she won a contest on her Instagram page!! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of Sally Hepworth’s newest thriller. I truly enjoyed this one. The story starts out with a wedding that ends in tragedy. But we don’t know who was hurt, what happened, or how. Rewind a few months and we are introduced to the Aston family. Stephen is about to get engaged to a much much younger woman named Heather. In fact, she’s younger than his two daughters Tully and Rachel. The chapters goes back and forth between the three women and we learn that Tully and Rachel’s mom is suffering from Dementia. And she left a ton of money hidden away with Tully’s name as well as a mystery woman- Fiona. There are hints that Stephen may not have be the most wonderful husband to Pam. Could their dad be an abuser? Even if they’d never seen their mom abused, never hurt themselves by Stephen. Is Heather in danger? There is a bit of gaslighting that I normally hate but it all came together perfectly for this novel. I loved it and can’t wait for Sally’s next novel to come out!

Another excellent, twisted tale from Sally Hepworth! I always love her quirky and intricate characters and how she spins a story. Each chapter is a different POV, which I love.
Family drama, secrets, sisters and so much more. I couldn't put it down and can't wait to tell everyone about. Plus, it has a gorgeous cover.

Thank you to St. MARTINS PRESS ~partner~ for my e-ARC. All thoughts are my own.

I wish I could rate this higher! I enjoyed reading it so much until the very end--this is one of my favorite types of books: slow-moving family drama with an underlying mystery. I liked the characters, I liked the pacing, and I absolutely loved the awkward bonding that takes place between Heather, Rachel, and Tully. It's such an awkward situation: Rachel and Tully's father is marrying Heather, despite the fact that his current wife is still alive and suffering with dementia. Add in the fact that Heather, Rachel, and Tully each have secrets that are constantly interfering with their lives, and things get pretty interesting.

But....the ending of this one. Ugh. I get trying to subvert expectations. The problem here is that a last minute twist means that the first 98% of the book doesn't make any sense, and the author doesn't spend any time at all trying to explain/justify it. And the twist is completely unnecessary--not every book needs to have one, and at a certain point the author needed to commit to the story she had already told.

*eARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was another outstanding book by Sally Hepworth! I loved the stories of the characters, each with their own little (or big!) idiosyncrasies, and I was even a little surprised at the end. I thought I had figured out the situation, but I hadn’t!

I love Ms. Hepworth‘s writing style, and the only bad thing about receiving an advanced reader copy is that I have to wait that much longer for her to write another book! At the end of The Younger Wife, the author tells how she came up with one of the ideas for the book – it was interesting!

My sincere thanks go out to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this book. The Younger Wife is definitely a five star read, and I predict another bestseller for the author!

I liked the structure of the book, the writing style,, the authors dedication the hot water bottle reveal at the end and the way Sally Hepworth writes about sisters. I really wasn’t a fan of the way abuse/self questioning and gaslighting was handled and this almost anti feminist take was a deal breaker for me.. To write this book ethically social psychology is important and the research factor seemed totally missing ..looking forward to the critics take on pub date.

I love Sally Hepworth’s books. Her characters are real and I enjoy her style of writing. I think I’ve read most of her books and I like that I never completely guess the ending.

The more books I read by Sally, the quicker she is becoming one of my fav authors. This one wasn't her best but i could NOT put it dwn. And that is why I am giving it a 5 star rating

Sally Hepworth scores again with this new domestic suspense tale!

The Aston family has issues.

Tully and her husband are about to lose their home due to a bad investment. Tully also has a shameful secret.

Her sister, Rachel, is obsessed with cooking/baking, and hasn’t dated anyone since she was 16...almost 20 years ago. Nobody stops to think there could be a reason for it.

Tully and Rachel’s father, Stephen, is about to get married to a woman named Heather. The only problem is, he’s already married to their mother, Pam. However she has dementia and he plans on divorcing her.

As for Heather, she’s younger than both Tully and Rachel, but is going to marry their father. Heather has a dark past, and she wants to keep it hidden.

Not everyone will make it past Stephen and Heather’s wedding unscathed.

Hepworth’s writing is always compulsively readable, and that is no exception here. This is the kind of book that had me saying, “Just one more chapter before bed...Ok, I’ll just read one more.” Needless to say, I flew through it.

I loved reading about these characters - some I really liked, and some I couldn’t stand. My initial feelings about them may not have been right. I questioned who each of them really were more than once.

The twisty reveals are well done, but I did have a few minor issues after I finished the book. However, it didn’t diminish my enjoyment whatsoever. If you’re looking for a book that you won’t want to put down, grab this one! The Author’s Note is fantastic as well!

4.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Expected Publication Date: 4/5/22.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

Thank you! Thank you! St. Martin’s Press for granting me this ARC. I sat riveted. The intricacies were so well thought out, requiring the reader to actually think! At times, the anxiety I experienced, while reading, was palpable. I will not give any specific details, as to not create spoilers. The dialogue was so thoughtful. The characters, so real with their strengths and weaknesses and flaws. The ending? Surprising and so very creative, clever and captivating. Thank you NetGalley!

Whew! This book is exhausting! And fun! A word of advice before diving into this family drama, don't assume you have it figured out. I'm still not sure if I know what happened but it was fun trying to figure it out. The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth is a mind-bending journey into a family that is royally screwed up. And I mean that in a good way. The sisters have issues that are presented as "normal" ways of coping, the mother is off on her Alzheimer's path and the father seems to be the only one at least a little normal. And let's not forget dad's much younger fiance. She has to be crazy to want to join this family. Wait! Maybe she is. Without revealing too much more of the plot, actually none of the plot, I highly recommend you get the book and sit down and prepare to be entertained and thoroughly confused!
I voluntarily received a copy of this book from netgalley.

This is such a page turner and it's hard to put down.

Stephen Aston is getting engaged and wants to marry a woman that is 29 years younger than him, while his wife is still alive with dementia in the hospital. Rachel, his beautiful daughter, is living in secret with what happened to her when she was sixteen while running in the morning. After that accident, she quit running, never had any relationships and burrowed her life into baking and eating. While cleaning her mom's stuff, Rachel finds a hot-water bottle stuffed with a large amount of money and a piece of paper with her sister and Fiona Arthurs’ names. Her older sister, Tully, has a problem with shoplifting and is struggling financially after her husband lost their money during a bad investment. The family seems to be very close but blind to see each other's problems. Heather, the younger wife, wants to connect with Stephen's family but she also hides secrets. She'd lied about her family being dead. She didn't confess about family violence and her drinking problem. And there is Stephen, a caring husband, respectful surgeon, loving father and grandfather. Will they have a chance to heal and find the solution to their problems?

This book with suspenseful plot and complex characters is a thrilling read that I would highly recommend. It grabbed my attention from the beginning to the end. An interesting story highlighting some of the very common issues in regards to family drama, dementia, rape, shoplifting, alcoholism, addiction, and violence.

Thank you Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for this wonderful ARC.

Heather first meets her much older fiance Stephen. Stephen is a surgeon and she wants to ensure everything will be perfect. Heather also knows that his ex-wife is battling dementia and has even secured a friendship with her. Now the only thing standing in the way is Stephens's two daughters Rachel and Tully.

The daughters seem to think that Heather has an ulterior motive. It is because their father is rich? does she want popularity? and why on earth would someone of similar age want their father? Little does Heather know the sisters also have their secrets that they want to make sure never get out.

I enjoyed the first 90% of this book and the ending fell a little flat. But, Sally Hepworth can write anything and I will guarantee to read it. Overall solid 4/5 stars.