Tully and Rachel are aghast when their father announces he is going to marry Heather, the woman he has been shacking up with; a woman younger than they are. And their mother, the woman he is still married to isn’t even dead yet! Granted their mother is in a senior mental health facility. The poor thing has Alzheimer’s, barely remembers any of them. The only good thing about Heather is she doesn’t seem happy with this announcement either. Heather doesn’t like the way Stephen sprang it on his daughters in a public place and with her there. She felt he should have spoken to them alone in private.
Things get even worse when Stephen tells them he wants them to help Heather with the wedding. She doesn’t have any family left and well they are her family now. You can imagine how Rachel and Tully feel. Rachel is a realist and wants her father’s love so she makes plans with Heather and tricks her sister into coming along. Tully is more volatile and not happy about any of this. The last straw is when they find out their mother has been invited to the wedding and reception. How insensitive of their father!
Everything is fine until the vows are exchanged, the couple is announced husband and wife, and all are invited into the sacristy for the paperwork part of a wedding, even the girls’ mother. What happens next will shock you!

I had never read Sally Hepworth before but I could see that the libraries loved her. Now I know why. Her novel was sharp, the writing moved along at a good pace, the characters were easily believable and ones you felt you knew. I’ve added Sally Hepworth to my favorite authors and hope you will too. Readers who like Sandie Jones and Megan Goldin will eat this book right up!

Robyn Heil, Buyer for Brodart Co.

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to read this novel.

I was 100% not expecting this book to go the route it did. I really enjoyed the pacing, the writing, and the plot. If you like quick paced, juicy domestic suspense novels, I would highly recommend this one!

I also did the audio narration, and thoroughly enjoyed all the different narrators. Thought it added very well to the story line and would suggest this one for audio if you are on the fence about it!

My major complaint is that I can’t stand to read about narcissistic men who beat their wives- even if the get what’s coming to them. This book is absolutely about that so the topic was just not something I enjoy reading about, which made this book kinda tough for me to get through. It is an extremely gripping novel and will, I’m sure, be a best seller.

I enjoyed this book from start to finish. It reminded me of "Three Wishes", which is one of my favorite books. The characters are so loveable with all of their quirks. A fun romance was woven into the storyline. I highly recommend this book.

"The Good Sister" was also written by Sally Hepworth. I rated that five stars as well. I will definitely look for more books written by Sally Hempworth.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

Hepworth keeps the pages turning with this suspenseful family drama that will have you reading, cover to cover, in one sitting. Patriarch, Stephen Aston, has just married his (much) younger girlfriend, while his wife walks around the chapel with a candle stick in hand. When the immediate family moves to a private space, the guests here a scream, there's blood and calls for a doctor, but what happened? The story quickly rewinds a year and we watch how this picture perfect family is seemingly falling apart at the seams. The story packs punch after punch as we build back up to the bloody wedding day.

The Younger Wife
By Sally Hepworth
Stephen is adored by everyone who knows him. He is getting remarried to a much younger woman (Heather) but his wife (Pam) is very much alive although she suffers from dementia.
Rachel (one of Stephen's daughters) has a few of her mother's items one of those is a hot water bottle. She finds out it is stuffed with money. No one seems to know how Pam ended up with the money or why. (In the end, we do find out the answer to this question) The daughters start thinking about their childhood and family dynamics. They begin asking questions that unravel what they thought was an ideal childhood.

This book was an easy read for me. I wasn't sure who was killed in the beginning but as the story went on it was pretty easy to figure out. I had a different ending in mind and honestly, I liked my ending better 🙈
Pick this book up if:
👰🏻‍♀️ you like easy to read thrillers
👰🏻‍♀️ uncovering family secrets are your type of reads
👰🏻‍♀️ you like who dun it novels
👰🏻‍♀️ you don't try to figure out the ending. You let the author take you on the journey

TW physical abuse

I have loved Sally Hepworth’s previous novels as she knows how to write family/domestic suspense. This is a well-paced family drama with complex characters and A LOT going on. As we get into the storyline, all of the main characters have issues going on in their personal lives and while some of these problems played into the main storytelling, others it felt like were a bit unnecessary and diluted the overall experience.

Throughout the book though, Hepworth does a great job of casting doubt and making the reader question everything they think they know. The ending left me wanting more but overall an enjoyable read. I will definitely pick up another Hepworth book!

One Liner: What’s with the ending?

Stephen Aston, a successful heart surgeon is marrying his girlfriend Heather, an interior designer. The only issue is that Heather is twenty-nine years younger than Stephen, and he is still married to his first wife.
Tully and Rachel are Stephen’s daughters, and needless to say, they are not happy with the situation. After all, Heather is younger than them, and their mother Pamela is in a nursing home, suffering from dementia.
As if the situation isn’t bad enough, every single person seems to be hiding something. Why did Rachel stop dating when she was sixteen despite being gorgeous? Why is Tully almost always on the verge of a mental breakdown, even though she has a loving husband and two adorable sons? What is Heather hiding about her past? Why do things seem to happen when Stephan is involved?

What I Like:
• The book is 350+ pages long but is fast-paced from the first word.
• The story comes from Rachel, Tully, and Heather’s limited third-person POVs and in the first-person POV of another character. However, the narration is not confusing at any point.
• Towards the second half, we’ll realize that the narrators are unreliable, but it was fun (to a point) trying to figure out what’s true and what’s not (until the end. More about it in the next section).
• Issues like domestic violence, rape, gaslighting, kleptomania, anxiety and mental health are the core themes in the book. However, it doesn’t get overwhelming or dramatic (at least to me).
• For a change, some leading men are actually good. That was nice to read in a domestic thriller.

What Didn’t Work for Me:
• None of the characters seemed fully developed. Only Rachel’s seems to be the best of all, though the resolution felt too easy. Tully gets a lot of space (more than Heather), and I still don’t know the reasons for most of her actions.
• Some issues are not explained and are left to the reader’s imagination. That would’ve been okay if not for the ending.
• Now… I hate that ending. The book was a 4-star despite not-so-good character development. But that ending just killed it. Twists are well and good until they don’t nullify the majority of what happened earlier.
• This one is downright vague and hints at the ‘aha! Tricked you!’ style of ending a book. I’ve never been a fan of ‘pull the rug’ or ‘punch in the face’ twists. No, thank you.
• Even if I ignore my personal bias, the ending has a major impact on the themes used in the book. It negates the gaslighting and experiences of women victimized by domestic abuse. That is something I cannot accept (especially from a women’s fiction author).
I still rate the book 3 stars for the pace and the fact that I did enjoy it, to a point.

To sum up, The Younger Wife is a quick read about messed-up women (who are not surprisingly connected to the same man), though I wish the ending was dealt with more care.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

This isn’t my typical genre. I do like it but i’m more of a romance reader, so this wasn’t my best read. However, I did think the storyline was great!! Wouldn’t re-read but would recommend!

The first thing I love is a book written in multiple POV.

The second thing I love is a book by Sally Hepworth (big ‘The Mother-In-Law’ fan over here 🙋🏻‍♀️).

So, you can imagine how hyped I was to get my hands on a copy of this book! And it definitely did not disappoint. This is the kind of book that will pull you out of the biggest reading slump.

The book is narrated by 3 characters: Tully, Rachel, and Heather. Tully and Rachel’s father, Stephen, pursued a relationship with Heather, a woman younger than both Stephens adult children. As you can expect, it did not go over well for them. While Stephen is oblivious to his daughters feelings about Heather, he encourages Heather to get to know his girls.

All while this is happening, Rachel and Tully’s mom has just been admitted to a care facility for her worsening Dementia. Stephen is still technically married to her too… yikes!

Not to mention, each character has their own life issues intertwined in the book. Rachel has a hard time dating due to a traumatic past that nobody knows about. Tully and her husband are having financial issues and Tully is suffering from a habit she formed as a child that has made its way into her adult life. Heather has a dark past too. She does anything she can to keep who she was in her younger years hidden.

Once we get to the day of the wedding ceremony, not everyone makes it out alive… but who dunit?! And why?

Sally Hepworth is always exceeding my expectations as a writer. I could not put this book down! While obviously none of the characters were relatable to me, I felt connected to each of their stories. She does such a great job creating well-rounded characters and overall suspense. Also, bonus points for having short chapters!

I rated this 5 stars and would 1000% recommend this to a friend.

(I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review – Thank you Net Galley!)

Interior designer Heather Wisher is hired by Stephen and Pamela Aston to redo their home, but soon after starting, Pamela is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. As Pam's condition deteriorates rapidly, she is put into a care facility, and Stephen and Heather end up for falling each other during the course of the home project, and Stephen decides to divorce Pam so he and Heather can get married. This doesn't sit well with Pam and Stephen's grown daughters, Tully and Rachel, who are older than Heather. Everyone in this upper middle-class family seems to have significant emotional and/or behavioral problems that they struggle to deal with and may hide unpleasant truths that go back decades. Told from the viewpoints of Heather, Rachel, Tully and a mysterious wedding guest, the story flows smoothly and keeps your interest throughout, it's a real page turner as you want to find out exactly what happened at the wedding and in the lives of each of these women. This would have been a 5 star book for me except that the ending felt too ambiguous.

Sally Hepworth has done it again! I plowed through this book in two sittings and only reluctantly put it down the first time (curse you adult responsibilities). This is a fast paced, multi-view story about a family who looks like they have it all but underneath they harbor a deep secret.

The story is told from the perspective of Rachel and Tully, daughters of Steven, who is marrying the titular character, Heather, AKA the younger wife. Heather also has POV chapters. It is quite easily to tell whose voice you're reading even if you didn't notice at the chapter header. It starts and ends with a wedding, where a heinous crime is committed, but whodunit?

Despite being younger than Steven by nearly 30 years, Heather is quite likeable and charming. I appreciate her wanting to have a family of her own, especially when her own childhood was such a disaster. She never attempts to mother the girls (especially since she is younger than they are) but genuinely wants to make a connection and enjoy a ready made family. Her taste of it years prior with a friend has given her such a longing. I have had two stepmothers, though thankfully none younger than myself, but I really appreciated how much Heather wanted to be part of the family without trying to dominant over everyone or replace their mother. And she never refers to the girls as a package deal, and appreciates Steven caring for his ex-wife who has severe dementia.

The character arcs in this book are great because they add suspense, develop thorough backgrounds but drop enough surprises to keep the reader engaged. Hepworth's ability to create edge of your seat, OMG I must know how this ends is delightful and I look forward to more of her books. I especially appreciated her touching on several issues that surely resonate with almost any female and the love and support offered to the characters in peril. There is so little of that anymore. Bravo!

I have so many thoughts about this book… so I made a list.

1. Sally Hepworth has become an auto buy author for me - and I don’t have many of those in the thriller genre! (Also, why are my two favorite Australian authors both named Sally??)
2. I was absolutely hooked on this book from start to finish!
3. The full narration cast and multiple POVs were great! (minus Tully’s voice- I wasn’t a fan, but I think she was meant to be a bit annoying)
4. As is typical of Hepworth books, they are a lot of family drama and mystery, but not scary at all.
5. Lots of triggers: kleptomania, physical and psychological abuse, rape(off page), eating disorder, dementia.

Here’s the thing: I’m not sure that this book made a lot of sense??? I am not sure what the point was and the more I try to figure it out, the more confused I feel. There were a lot of distracting plot lines. And the ending was surprising in a weird way… BUT!! I had fun reading it and would do it again!

The Younger Wife by
Sally Hepworth

“It’s funny how desperately the brain will seek an answer if it doesn’t have one.”

I thought about this novel long after reading the final page and closing the book. Just because all facts point to a particular assumption—that makes perfect sense—is that the way things are? Or not?

Fans of beloved Australian author, Sally Hepworth, will adore this clever, relatable, complicated family story. A heart surgeon divorces his Alzheimer’s stricken wife and marries a woman younger than his two grown daughters. But, this is not the cliched tale of the detested younger woman and the hateful daughters. The three women form a relationship based on respect and experiences.

Like some other readers, I was perplexed by the ending. And that’s why I can’t stop thinking about this book!

“Nothing Is As It Appears”
What a unusual, twisted, roller coaster, wild ride….can you see where I am going with this???????
Domestic abuse
Rape
Memory loss
Kleptomania
Marriage relationships
Secrets galore
Soooooo many unanswered questions! .I am still pondering and wondering…..did he do what they thought? For me, the ending just left things up in the air.
The story revolves around two sisters who have emotional issues galore, their mother who has dementia and their father (who is still married to their mother) and now has a much younger fiancé he wants to marry.
The Younger Wife is definitely a story that will stay on your mind for several days after finishing it.
A domestic psychological suspense you definitely should pick up to read.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

A wedding interrupted by a violent attack certainly grabbed by attention. I was also intrigued by the anonymous guest as the narrator. The novel moved at a slow and steady pace, but I was kept interested in seeing how the story would end.

While this could have been filled with stereotypes, I was glad to see that Sally Hepworth went deeper with the characters and I loved that young women with a new stepmother that is their age, could make their peace with that and include her into the family.

Alzheimer’s plays a key role in the story, as does physical and psychological abuse, but nothing was very graphic.

I loved the ending and was pleasantly surprised at what happened and how the characters handled it in a way that was respectful to all.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St.Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advance copy. I am happy give my honest review.

I went into this read thinking I knew where it was going but was I ever wrong! It is a well-thought-out story with deft plotting and subtexts that take you on a great ride! Another hit for Sally Hepworth!

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC!

I’m definitely a Hepworth fan. Oh yes indeed! But, unfortunately, I’m not quite sure how I feel about her latest installment. I didn’t dislike it and I didn’t quite like it. Suffice it to say, I believe I’m on that dreaded cyclone fence once again. What is a reader to do?

Let’s delve into what I enjoyed about this story. Hepworth always brings the mystery to her stories. Tully and Rachel were dynamic characters dealing with real life family dysfunction at its finest. Dealing with a mother diagnosed with dementia and a father who is about to marry his newest fiancé and having their own skeletons in their closets. Tully has a way of “finding” things in her purse, under her shirt, stuck in her bra and Lord knows where else and not quite “sure” how they got there? Her husband is a well-respected lawyer and they’re living the dream that is until her husband comes home and tells her something that will shake their marriage to the core.

Rachel is the beautiful sister. She’s always receiving compliments and men gawking at her trying to press up on her and get in her space. She runs a very successful bakery and in the market for a new delivery employee. When she finds the employee she’s searching for, she got much more than she bargained.

Stephen, the father, the ever-wonderful good doctor who would do anything for his family. He’s distraught over having to put his wife in a nursing home to take care of her dementia problem—all the while, he’s divorcing Pam, the current wife, is totally unaware. Humph, that doesn’t stop Stephen. In fact, he has a much newer model he’s about to marry, Heather Wisher. Oh my, good old Heather. She certainly didn’t come to the table without her own bag of heavy issues. Like I said this family has a little bit of everything going on and it isn’t any wonder how any of them will survive it. This is what I love about a Hepworth story. She gives you a whole lot of little stories that melt together into one big picture.

Ok, so here’s where the disconnect comes in for me. Because I will not give any spoilers (it’s not my style), there are questions I have and can’t ask without giving away the entire story. What I didn’t like is the fact that I’m not quite sure where the mystery was? Every scenario I played in my mind didn’t come to fruition. That’s quite all right, that happens sometimes, but I felt the story could have been much darker or it appeared as if Hepworth was going for a darker story but at the last minute decided she didn’t want to do it, perhaps? I kept thinking she was going to go in a place I wasn’t sure readers would have been ready for and then she snatched the possibility away, almost like taking candy from a child. Ummph! That just got to me because I wanted her to really go there.

Hence, therein lies the problem. The ending left me with many questions and although she cleared up one huge mystery, there were several others that left me wondering “hmm?” That’s all I can say without telling you everything. I wish I could ask the author personally if what I’m thinking was what she was really going for, because if so, she did an amazing job, but if that wasn’t her intent, the story left me hanging and I didn’t quite like how I felt afterward. I so wanted my scenarios to be the version she was going for, but I felt like the author held back. This was not a bad story at all. In fact, I gobbled it up like I did her other book, but I could tell she was going for something different and it just didn’t quite work the way I would have liked.

This was a great, fast-paced thriller with a terrible ending. I’m a big fan of Hepworth’s other thrillers and this one definitely started off the same way. A story told from various time periods, including the present time at a wedding between the older, wealthy Stephen Aston and his much younger fiancée, Heather. There was a lot of character development of Stephen’s daughters, Tully and Rachel, as well as Heather as we watch them come to grips that Stephen may not be who he seems. It had all the trappings of a great thriller but was spoiled by a sub-par ending.

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth starts off at the Wedding of Stephen to his much younger Bride-to-Be, Heather. While his two adult Daughters (Tully & Rachel), and his Ex-Wife (Pamela) with dementia look on, it’s plain to see that something is amiss from the start. Without knowing too much about each person, the slightly strange scene being relayed by a mystery character piqued my interest right away. I found myself wanting to know more from the very first chapter.

The story takes off from there and unravels as a Domestic Thriller with a twist with the majority of the book being told from the point of views of Tully, Rachel, and Heather. While many people don’t care for this style of writing, and I did find it mildly confusing a couple times throughout the book, I do mostly enjoy books told from the standpoint of different characters. I felt like each one had their own story that made up the fabric of the larger story. Each chapter gave more background to each woman, along with another piece of the story which kept building and left me wanting more and more. Sally Hepworth’s character building in this book was outstanding!







Semi-Spoilers:

While I did feel like the book became a tiny bit predictable towards the end and “the twist” was merely just an ending that abruptly stopped, with no real concrete answers at all, this didn’t ruin the book for me. I have to admit, after reading so many negative reviews about the ending in particular, I was hesitant to read this book. But I’m glad I did! I thoroughly enjoyed it overall, even with the ending. I’m looking forward to reading more by Sally Hepworth.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martins Press, and Sally Hepworth for proving me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Sally Hepworth and St Martin's Press for an advance copy of this book.

This was my first Sally Hepworth book so I wasn't sure what to expect. I am not sure if Sally does this in all her books but I really love the 3 different point of views/storylines - Heather, Tully & Rachel .

Sisters Rachel & Tully each have their own complicated lives while dealing with their mother, Pamela who has Alzheimer's and their dad (Stephen) who is a doctor who is suddenly engaged to a younger woman. Rachel has always been the beautiful & growing up the boys always were after her until suddenly she had no interest. Tully is married to Sonny with two boys who on paper seems to have a perfect life but her life is far from perfect. A bad investment deal turns into them losing their savings & Tully is a kleptomaniac. Heather is an interior designer whom is younger than both Rachel & Tully who essentially is an orphan. She falls for Stephen who is still a married to Pamela.

Things began not to add up when Heather was experiencing unexplained injuries that seem to occur when she would drink. Even when she would hardly drink, somehow Stephen would twist things around to make her think that she was crazy. Things really took a twist when Rachel was giving a hot water bottle that contained not just a couple dollars in but almost $100k with two names written down - Tully & a woman by the name of FIona Arthur. Stephen denied not knowing who Fiona was which of course turned out to be a lie.

I thought the book flowed great & really kept me on my toes and left me wanting more. And like most thrillers everyone was a suspect.

**SPOILER ALERT**
Where it fell flat for me is that we really didn't get a conclusion on whether or not Stephen really was abusive to any of his wives or was he just a master manipulator? Maybe that is part of the reading where we are left up to our own interpretation but I just don't do well with open ended endings. Especially for a thriller, I need it wrapped up in a pretty bow. I also did not get the point of bringing in Fiona Arthur with the exception of her being his first wife & that he "hurt" her and yet he was still her love of her life? I just thought she would play a bigger role than what she really was.
**END OF SPOILER**

I was though really happy that Rachel has begun to work through her relationships with men & seems to have found a perfect match in Darcy (I was waiting for him to somehow be involved in the mystery). Tully was such a complex mess and I loved her. I don't think I have ever read a character quite like her before. I was so proud of her development by the end of the book and love that her husband stuck with her through it.

CW: alcoholism, domestic abuse, miscarriage

I am rating this a 3.5 as I just was wanting more from the ending.