When the authors said "Assume nothing" they weren't kidding! The teaming of Hendricks and Pekkanen brings readers a psychological suspenseful thriller that will be a 2018 hit and hopefully the twosome have more plots and twists in mind for future novels. The question is how much do you know about the man you are ready to marry? What are the truths, the half-truths the lies, or the coverups? Is it happiness forever or will life take a twist, a turn, you never saw. What happens if your husband's attentions wander, or obssession becames a part of your life, or trust becames an issue? Finish part one and you'll think you misread or missed something. Hit part two and your mind will spin. Dive immediately into Part three and gasp in surprise. A non-stop read you won't want to miss.

This book was amazing. Greer Hendricks takes a common conceit - a bitter ex-wife, the young replacement, rising jealousy - and gives it so many twists and turns you'll feel like you're on a roller coaster. She masterfully uses intertwining points of view and unreliable narrators to keep you guessing the whole time, and just when you think you've figured everything out she pulls back yet another curtain. Even then, once you're convinced that you know everything there is to know, she manages to surprise you one last time.

The Wife Between Us is Greer Hendricks' first novel, and she knocks it out of the ballpark. Hendricks combines themes of jealousy, revenge, betrayal, and abuse into a chilling thriller that you will not be able to set down.

Wow...this book was really good. It pulled me in at the beginning and kept twisting throughout. Right when I thought I had it figured out, I’d learn something new. This is a must read.

Now that The Wife Between Us has been written, I kind of feel like there’s no need for any other domestic-suspense-with-unreliable-narrator novel, ever. This book marks the apogee of the genre, featuring a narrator as unreliable as an ’87 Yugo with engine trouble and more misdirection than a Penn & Teller show. It was co-written by two authors, and you can just picture them emptying a bottle of Pinot Grigio together as they gleefully try to one-up each other with crazier and crazier twists.

Like several other novels of its type, such as Michael Robotham’s The Secrets She Keeps and Jane Corry’s My Husband’s Wife, the book tells its story in alternating chapters. We meet Vanessa, the ex-wife of wealthy Manhattan financier Richard Thompson (no relation to the musician, presumably), who has been replaced by a younger, fresher model. Nellie is the adorable blonde preschool teacher who simply can’t wait to have kids (Vanessa never managed to get pregnant) and settle into domestic bliss as the new Mrs. Thompson. Vanessa, reduced to waiting on her former “friends” as a saleswoman at Saks, is determined to stop their impending nuptials. Her chapters are told from a first-person perspective, while Nellie’s are in third, so there’s never a problem keeping them straight.

Is Vanessa delusional (her mother suffered from mental illness)? Jealous? Convinced she has unfinished business with her ex? Did Richard dump her because she’s an alcoholic (there’s a lot of drinking in this book)? Just what is he up to on his frequent business trips? And what skeletons lurk in Nellie’s closet? You can try to guess everyone’s motives, but when everything is finally revealed, you’ll probably be shocked. I was, and I’ve read a ton of these sorts of books. Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, you got me good.

By now, you probably have an idea of whether or not this book is for you, and I don’t want to risk spoilers (you can download the first four chapters here). It’s completely nuts and more than a little gimmicky, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a lot of fun reading it.

I’m excited to be on the official blog tour of The Wife Between Us and bring you this review. The book doesn’t come out until January 9, 2018, but it’s already getting a lot of buzz, and rightly so! The Wife Between Us is a twisted psychological suspense novel about the complexities of marriage. Nellie is poised to marry her Prince Charming. Set in New York City, she is a preschool teacher who also tends bar to help make ends meet. All that is about to change when she meets Richard, a handsome, wealthy, charismatic hedge fund manager who sweeps her off her feet. This would not be a suspense novel without some red flags popping up though. Who’s on the other end of the hang up calls Nellie begins to receive? Why does she seem to be running away from her former life in Florida? As a reader, you get this sense of impending dome.

Then, enter the ex-wife, who seems a bit unhinged. She’s living with her Aunt, working part time at Saks, trying to bounce back from the divorce that left her questioning everything from her mental stability to her lack of ability to conceive a child. Let me warn you though – this is NOT what it seems! The book is divided in three parts, with alternating chapters from Nellie’s point of view and the ex-wife’s. At the transitions from each part, there are twists… big ones! So much so that after part one, I immediately went back and reread part one to make sure I understood it correctly!

This book has twists and turns; it has great character development, and many moments when the plot crackles with tension. This book is for all you domestic thriller lovers out there. Read it closely and carefully, so as not to miss any of the details that eventually fall into place beautifully. This book has already been optioned for a movie by Steven Spielberg’s production company, Amblim Partners, the same company that brought The Girl on the Train to the big screen.

*** Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.

I just finished the book and I was simply blown away. The epilogue is a Verbal-Kint-loses-his-limp kind of shocker, and even if the rest hadn't been entirely satisfying, it would've been worth reading just to enjoy that last unexpected twist.

I mostly read for comfort these days and no longer enjoy the cover-to-cover nervous anticipation when reading a thriller so I rarely indulge. I was frustrated the lack of plot information in the descriptions I found, but decided to dive in anyway. There is a lot of hype building for this one so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read an advance copy from Netgalley.

I feel like I can't tell you much more without the risk of tripping over a spoiler. So I'll just say that I absolutely cannot wait until people I know have read this book so we can talk about it.

I'm between 3 and 3.5 stars.

"In my marriage, there were three truths, three alternate and sometimes compelling realities. There was Richard's truth. There was my truth. And there was the actual truth, which is always the most elusive to recognize. This could be the case in every relationship that we think we've entered into a union with another person when, in fact, we've formed a triangle with one point anchored by a silent but all-seeing judge, the arbiter of reality."

Vanessa's marriage is over. She once had a handsome, rich, powerful husband, and they lived a life of luxury. But they drifted apart, and her husband found another woman. Now she lives with her aunt, wears out-of-date clothing, and is a shell of herself, working a job she hates just to make ends meet.

Nellie is a bubbly, young, beautiful preschool teacher. She's finally met her Prince Charming, the man who will rescue her from her messy shared apartment, her nights spent as a cocktail waitress (even though she enjoys them), and takeout meals before hanging out with her friends at various bars and clubs. She also has secrets of her own, and things that cause her to be afraid, and she hopes her fiancé will save her from those, too.

If you think The Wife Between Us is a story about a jilted wife jealous of her husband's new fiancée, you're not quite right. This is a story about how things are seldom as simple as they seem, and how appearances can be deceiving. It's also a story about trust, fear, truth, manipulation, and finding your own way.

Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen throw a lot of twists into this book, which is why my description is fairly spartan, because I don't want to spoil anything for you. Every time you think you have things figured out, they swerve again, so you definitely want to keep reading, to see where it all winds up.

There are a lot of thrillers out there these days, and many of them deal with relationships that don't go as planned, and the aftermath of breakups, as well as the manipulation that often occurs within a relationship. While the twists definitely jolted the plot a bit, overall I felt a lot of the plotlines were very familiar. At times, I found myself growing a little impatient with the pace of the story, because I wanted to see where Hendricks and Pekkanen would go next, and wanted to move past some of the more commonplace incidents.

Is this a compelling thriller? It definitely has its moments, and many of my Goodreads friends have raved about this, so maybe I've just read too many books in this genre this year. It did keep me guessing, though, and sometimes I was right, and sometimes I was wrong. This will probably be one of the beach reads of 2018, so don't let me dissuade you from picking it up.

NetGalley and St. Martin's Press provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

WHOA! That was completely INSANE! In a good way mind you...

I have seen all the hype about this book so of course I had to have it. I am attempting to read more psychological thrillers next year in an effort to try something new and different and out of the norm...

And The Wife Between Us was just WOW!

I will admit that the first half was a bit slow moving for me and I wasn't sure how I was feeling but when the big secret was revealed... Just WOW! I know I am saying that a lot, but I don't want to give anything away and I just want to tell you how this book blew my mind!

Don't go in with any expectations... don't start reading and thinking that you have this all figured out because you don't I can promise you that.

Nothing is at it seems... nothing is completely perfect... no one is being completely honest... simply put—the way that these authors executed this book was seamless and pretty darn brilliant.

I know I am not saying much and for that I apologize. But if you are looking for a masterfully told story with twists and turns and a clever storyline that is different and exciting then look no further than this book!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the chance to read and review this novel!

Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen are about to be household names in the realm of powerhouse women authors. I’ve seen this book everywhere and it hasn’t even been published yet! Readers everywhere are hyped up and salivating for a taste. The blurb tells us very little (thank you for that!), except to “assume nothing” and it could not be more accurate. To avoid spoiling anything for potential readers, I’ll keep my review short and sweet as well.

I’ll admit, when I started reading, it took me a little while to get into The Wife Between Us. The plot was a slow roller, descriptive in mundane tasks, and then BAM! Plot twist. I was knocked off my rocker. Completely shocked and confused, I had to go back and re-read about five times to make sure I was truly getting what was happening. Needless to say, I did not see that one coming, which is rare for me these days. Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen every twist an author can throw at me. Happily, I can say this duo proved me wrong.

When Part II starts, readers will not be able to put this book down. You might as well super glue it to your hands, because it’s not going anywhere. If you think you have an idea what will happen, guess again, because you’ll be proved wrong time and time again.

I’ve seen this novel compared to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. Oftentimes I hate these comparisons used to sell books, but I feel like they are actually warranted for this title. I clearly see the similarities and daresay The Wife Between Us feels like a perfect mash-up of the two. Start the year with this cleverly written novel, folks! It’s new, different, and heartwarming in the most unexpected of ways. As the story has sunk in for the past couple of days, I feel even more connected and in awe of the twists and turns within the pages. I decided to bump up my rating from three stars to four because I’m still thinking about this book days later. I’m slightly stingy with my stars and ended feeling like I needed more knowledge about the secondary character, Maureen, than I received (just read it), hence the lower rating. Above all, this book will be a solid read for 2018 reading lists. Find the links to pre-order below and start your new year off with a page-turner.

This is a first from this duo of writers. I loved this book. It was thrilling up to the very end. I thought I had it figured out but it kept changing. What begins to be a scorned wife turns into a woman helping another not experience what she has gone through. Crazy, I'll show you crazy. LOL!!!!

In terms of being engrossed and wanting to know what would happen next, The Wife Between Us is a big success. I read this in only a few sittings, unwilling to put it down until I knew how things ended.

In terms of being a twisty thriller, The Wife Between Us didn't quite hit the mark for me. The twist at the end of part one felt obvious to me, and the final one in the epilogue felt forced. I wonder if this is a direct result of the marketing and jacket description overselling the twistiness. They basically tell the reader to expect to have their minds blown, but that wasn't my reading experience at all. Part One is sluggish, setting up all the background and characters, and Parts Two and Three feel like an entirely different book altogether, kind of like Gone Girl but without as much of a shock. The second parts actually just feel like one of the better-made Lifetime movies you can watch any Saturday afternoon.

But having said all that, I can see why certain readers will enjoy this more than I did. I think the glut of this type of "unreliable female narrator with a dark secret" novels has numbed me to their impact (Gone Girl, Girl on the Train, The Woman in Cabin 10, Where They Found Her, etc etc etc), which isn't the fault of the book or the authors but of the marketplace.

Psychological thrillers always lure me in... I enjoy the suspense, the thought I have figured out the ending, and this book had me convinced I knew, boy was I wrong. There are so many twists and turns that are mind bending, compelling and downright brilliant it left me breathless. Assume nothing is correct, my thoughts kept changing, back and forth and there is still one thought that has me puzzled although my imagination can run wild. The stories of Nellie, Richard, Vanessa, and Emma intertwine and you think you know their history however you will have doubt many times. The manipulations and secrets of past events and current are cleverly written to leave the reader confused in the beginning and even later on. The authors have outdone themselves, I can't believe this book was co-authored, it was seamless. I definitely want to read more from these authors! Thanks to Net Galley for sending me this e-book ARC.

When you read a very hyped up thriller and just end up disappointed.


I'm not going to give away any of the storyline because it is one that you just have to read. When I started this book I was over the top excited...because it does start off so very good.

Then for some stupid reason the book gods that hate me stepped in and decided to make this a total story twist overload.


Every frigging wife book doesn't have to be stupid Gone Girl. (I hated that shit too.)
Just make some crazy married peoples and I will eat it up.


But what do I know? Everyone else is loving the heck out of this book. I'm giving it a three star not because it deserved it. BECAUSE IT DOES NOT...but I couldn't stop reading the thing.

Now for the trolls that for some unholy reason will feel the need to troll this vague ass review.


*You really don't...because I'll just block you and then talk about you when you can't post on it anymore

A powerful, richly crafted, brilliantly devious suspense read. One of the best of the year.

The Wife Between us a story of women and the man they’ve all been married to- and manipulated, coddled, stalked?, loved, hated. Nellie is riding high on her impending marriage to the perfect Richard, while Vanessa, his ex, tries to piece together a life for herself again. Perfect is rarely, truly perfect, and as the reader witnesses both Nellie and Vanessa’s lives, and their relationships with Richard, they are left wondering...who is really the victim, or are they all?

Suspenseful but slow for a thriller, the pace is off, and the ending is mostly predictable.

This book gives very little away in the summary, and I will follow its lead. The Wife Between Us is billed in its description as a story that appears to be about a classic love triangle (ex-wife, her former husband, his current fiance), but may not be all it appears.

I liked everything about this book!

It's rare every part of a book can completely surprise me, but this story absolutely did. I never knew what was coming next. This was one of those books that had me literally gasping out loud in total shock at numerous parts of the story. I immediately started looking back at previous pages, and the story completely held up when viewed through the numerous new lenses Hendricks and Pekkanen created.

For me, there honestly wasn't anything not to like about this book. It's so clever, and so well-orchestrated.

Read this book! You will not be able to put it down, and, like me, I suspect you will love every minute of being fooled by the authors' fantastically twisted tale.

If there’s one thing that nearly every person who bravely enters the romantic-relationship fray can bet on experiencing at some point, it’s the feeling of having their hearts broken… of being cast aside (for someone else? after the “new” wore off? because they drifted apart?), and losing whatever special bond they had (or thought they had) with another. (And sure, we’ve all heard the stories about those too-cute-for-words couples who met at pre-school, never dated anyone else, and lived happily-ever-after, but me, I view such tales as either urban legends or empirical evidence of magical unicorns.) Anyway, back to the rest of us… no matter whether straight, gay, young, old, experienced, or novice, the bottom line is always pretty much the same: being rejected hurts like hell.

How we handle it, though—what we do, how we cope—that’s where things really get interesting. And, in The Wife Between Us (by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen), we get a look at just how far some people might push the “coping” envelope.

_______________

Vanessa used to “have it all”—certainly in the eyes of most people who knew her. A handsome, wealthy, and doting husband—Richard, her prince in a bespoke suit—who’d whisked her away from her former life, requesting that she quit her low-paying jobs (as a preschool teacher and a waitress) in New York City to move out to the beautiful house in the suburbs he surprised her with as a wedding present. Fancy dinners and soirees to attend, adorned with fabulous clothes, shoes, and jewelry. Plenty of free time to pursue her own interests. The possibility of starting a family. On the surface, it seemed like a fairy tale come to life.

Until several years later, when Richard’s eye wandered, that is… to his secretary Emma, herself a younger-by-a-decade carbon copy of Vanessa. And just like that, the dream was over.

When we first actually see Vanessa, it’s clear she’s still struggling; she is working as a style consultant at a high-end department store (waiting on the very women she used to rub elbows with). She drinks too much (and tries desperately to hide it from the aunt who took her in). She’s depressed. She can think of little but the man of her dreams—her man—in the arms of the nubile replacement he’s now dating.

Things don’t come to a head, though, until one day a customer—one of the women with whom she’d attended many of the same events—innocently (or not so innocently, perhaps) lets it slip, while trying on a designer dress, that Richard and Emma are getting married. Like a candle being snuffed, the tiny bit of normalcy Vanessa had been working so hard to achieve, dies.

Suddenly, her whole world becomes about making sure the wedding doesn’t take place, and she’ll do whatever it takes to prevent it.

But, here’s the thing: no one—not the cast-aside Vanessa, not the husband-who-decided-he-wanted-a-younger-model Richard, and not the fish-about-to-be-out-of-water Emma—is quite what she or he seems… nor do any of them behave as one might assume.

_______________________

Much like Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train (both of which The Wife Between Us will inevitably be compared to), this story has as many layers as an onion… and I read it with equal measures of apprehension, suspense, and a sort of giddy delight as each layer was peeled—or ripped, at times—away to reveal what else lay just beneath. (I didn’t see much of it coming.)

Wonder of wonders, Hendricks and Pekkanen managed to come full circle by the last page, tying up all the loose ends in ways that actually made sense—quite a feat in something so elegantly complex.

Psychological suspense, fear, relatable emotions (and not of the pretty variety, but the raw and real), and understandable actions (and reactions)… The Wife Between Us has it all. This is one hugely-satisfying read. :)


~GlamKitty

Note: At the time of this review, The Wife Between Us is slated to come out early January, 2018.

This book was so good!! It took some unexpected turns that I enjoyed. I hate when a book has an ending that the reader can see coming after the first few chapters. For me this book was not predictable. I got a little unexpected turn about halfway through the book and I was a little shocked. Then I thought that there is still half the book left; what else is going to happen in the rest of the book? I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone wanting to read a thriller that is unpredictable. I can't wait to read more from these authors.

Gripping writing! As one expects from a thriller, this has a major twist about halfway through. I partially saw it coming—but the execution was top-notch, so I didn't mind. The quick chapters, which switch between Vanessa (a recent divorcee) and Nellie (a bride-to-be), make it nearly impossible to put this book down. This is far better than most of the domestic thrillers I've read in recent years (yes, including the ones that are often the hot points of comparison)—the complexity of these characters and the clever execution of the narrative structure sets this apart. It's hard to say much more without spoiling some of the twists, and this is definitely the sort of book it's best to read without knowing too much in advance, so I'll stop here.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.