No. Did not enjoy this one. I really wanted to, it started off great but the further I went the more and more I didnt care to finish. Some of the situations just left me shaking my head and feeling irritated with the interactions between the MC and side characters.

A romance with a dark twist with great character development. I was graciously provided this book via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It is very rare that I do not finish a book; however, I had to put this one down. I should have known from the beginning when the author seemed to not know the difference between a Congressman and a Senator. The writing was simply sloppy and needed several more revisions before it was ready to be published.

The premise of the book sounded interesting, especially to someone who works in politics and lives in a political city. I wanted to like these characters and their stories, but they seemed one dimensional and not fully developed.

While i loved the idea and the characters in and of this book, it was so incredibly long. There were so many parts that could have been shortened or skipped. I actually really enjoyed it until i realized I'd only read 18% and i pushed through to the end still.

I have to be honest & say I wasn't too keen on this book. It was all going well until the main character came up with that appalling idea of embarrassing her husband enough so he'd want to divorce her. I found her to be totally spineless and not someone I could empathise with at all. After this I have to admit that I flicked to the end of the book and just read the last chapters. I wasn't a fan of the time jump either.

Thank you for this ARC.

Unfortunately I just could not get into this book and after seeing other reader reviews, I could not bring myself to fully commit. Slow.

Thank you to Serif Books and NetGalley for a free reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The story line was what piqued my interest. Political wife - and daughter - scorned, that strives to find her own path in life sounded interesting. Unfortunately, this turned out to be much more of a classic bodice-ripper than I was expecting. The heroine's naiveté grated on me, and once the scheming political husband was out of the way, the back and forth between the “sexy French artist“ (what a cliché) and the heroine quickly got rather boring. I did finish it, but it was more because of my sense of responsibility than anything else.

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2714030762?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

As I read through this book, I realized it’s 2 different stories / books really. And once I searched for the author’s name, I came across the two books that made up this one. At first, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to combine them then I understand why it’s better together.

The first part (or book), is a steamy romance. The plot is thin, about a senator’s wife who met an artist, fell in love, and fled her uptight life, the central conflict is with family and her upbringing. There’s some interesting arts history and a great friendship. Marie and Luc were hot and tender together, and that kept me reading.

The second book brings home character growth and development, and that’s usually what makes a great story, and it was great to see Marie changed. However, I noticed the steamy details were less, as Marie and Luc are in conflict with each other in the second half.

All in all, I enjoyed reading this book. Some sentences fell flat and cliche, and not imaginative. And get, the steamy scenes between Marie and Luc were amazing, “white hot” as some had said.

I could not finish this book. I think it was because of the way her parent treated her. It just made me mad maybe at another time I would be in the mood for a story like this.

I thought this book was interesting, and not at all what I expected with the title "The Senator's Wife" I felt like I may be getting a Women's Fiction, light-hearted and possibly political type story. I felt like it was anything but that. In my opinion it was more of an Epic Saga Drama/Romance Novel. The 2 parts of the story could have easily been 2 separate books, and about 80% of the way through, I felt like the whole story line was going off on another tangent and I had to skim to get to the end, I liked the characters, Marie and Luc. I was pulling for them the whole time, but it was a little lengthy and at one point I just had to get to the end. So, overall I did like this story, just not what I was anticipating.

This should have been the book of my month, but unfortunately it is poses nothing special to me, and some aspects of the books are problematic. From the summary alone, I was hooked. Marie, A senator's wife in Washington DC is in a rut, for her husband, Richard, expresses his desire to divorce. And the novel starts off strong, in a unique wedding dress burning ceremony devised by the protagonist's best friend Rishi. Rishi gives Marie drawing lessons, since Marie likes to draw but hasn't done it since college. Only, the instructor is not what she expected or signed up for. Luc Marchand is a hot French artist who's idea of teaching art is kissing his student. From, the get go, I am wary of Luc's intentions, for he does force himself on Marie until she changes her mind and kisses him back. And after a bout of low key harrasment, Luc has the nerve to tell her he will not teach her how to draw unless she can come up with a worthy reason for it. Skip some chapters, him seeing her at a political function, and his lust backs him out of the decision he makes, and he teaches her anyway. From there, the romance between Marie and Luc start to develop, only I can't sing its praises. Luc is a shallow person, and although he may feed Marie the occassional, "you're doing better," let's face it, these two are not connecting over art and drawing. He is into her body, and there is no strong evidence that he actually cares about Marie improving as an artist. With time, Marie doesn't care about drawing either. Instead, she wants to pose for him, fully nude, to coerce her husband into divorcing her. She wants a divorce because he has a mistress and she wants revenge. Marie is a character one does not have to try hard to despise. She is weak in the sense that she lets here parents control her--her father is a politican--and weak in the sense that she does not know herself, or love herself for that matter. She rather cling to the comfort of a French man wanting to make love to her day and day out, rather than do something for herself like become more independent in her career, or learn how to draw, or find her bearings in an ugly divorce. Her husband does treat her as a pawn, but she kind of is one. She is not a strong woman. Part 1 of the book continues with a climactic scene where Marie wakes up on a random street corner with no recollection of what has happened to her. Turns out, Richard drugs her wine when he lets himself into her apartment and prepares them a faux peaceful dinner. Marie is upset, but more so about the fact that it's a ploy to make her go to rehab to gain Richard a sympathy vote. She is not upset or traumatized that she has been drugged and left for dead! She simply listens to her friend, and attempts to move out of the state, away from Richard. But not before French dude Luc can chime in and save the day, thus suggesting Marie should fly to Paris with him and leave happily ever after? The end? I really hoped so, but that is far from the truth. Author Julia Gabriel decides to throw in a second jump complete with a time jump! Marie now has a one year old daughter and is living in the states! And Luc is dicking around in France, separated from Marie. Apparently, a miscommunication drives Luc away from Marie. Upon a girls trip, Rishi tells Luc that Marie is pregnant and off to abort the baby. And Luc freaks out and bails because he has impregantes his student years ago, and she killed herself. This drama makes him particularly paranoid about women's fetuses, and though I can kind of sympathize with his pain, Marie actually does keep the baby and did not consider an abortion, which is besides the point! Through this characters, I get an unsettling feeling about the themes and values we as readers are supposed to take away. Are men supposed to villianize abortions and villanize women who have doctors perform them? Why can't it be solely up to the woman what she wants to do with the baby. Livie, the child's name, is a surprise to Marie, and the couple aren't even married, so the decision to abort is up to Marie alone, I believe. So Luc deciding to end things Marie on an impulsive, irrational fear does not bring up any faith within me that they are a good, healthy couple. Maybe sex should just stay sex and not be forced into emotional intimicay, which is what this couple lacks. The rest of the plot is a lot of drivel and hard to get through. Overall, this book does not wow me. Maybe the final draft is better?

Picked up The Senator’s Wife from @netgalley, and unfortunately I don’t recommend this one 😕 At over 500 pages, it was about double what it should have been. When part one ended halfway through, I thought “I wish the book just ended here.” Probably just shouldn’t have finished this one.
Next up is “Husband Material” from Emily Belden who I LOVE. So far, it’s not disappointing.
What @netgalley recommendations do you all have right now? Or what are you reading from there?

This book has it all. Sex, love, drama, cheating, politics...it is a gripping novel you will not want to put down. Marie's character is easily relatable and she draws you into the story.
I am not alone as I had other friends who read this book as well and we all agreed it could have easily been two separate novels as the two parts are very different.
Part 1 is Marie's story. We follow her journey of self realization. In Part 2 however, we see a slightly different character and she becomes a little more (in my opinion) dis-likable.
There were parts I enjoyed but also parts I could have done without. It is a good read if you are okay with all of the sex and cheating...

This book was ... confusing. I originally thought it was going to be a modern take on a Jackie Kennedy like story with modern twists and turns. The title actually had very little to do with the overall story. It was definitely not that type of story. It was divided into two parts - which would have been better off as two separate books. It did take awhile to get hooked on the story but ultimately I liked it. It’s a one time read only.

Marie is going through a divorce with her senator husband and takes up art lessons after her friend gave them to her as a gift. At first, this book almost lost me because some parts are highly unrealistic, and other parts you can predict what happens. However, I'm glad that I continued reading. This is a good, cute solid story. Thank you NetGalley, this was a good pick me up for the winter months.

I almost gave up on this book several times. I didn’t really start to enjoy it, until I was about 55% through with the book. The main character Marie has just been throughly embarassed by her Senator husband Richard via a cheating scandal. Richard has flaunted his mistress Maya all over town, and has asked Marie for a divorce. Marie would have been willing to stay in the marriage even in the midst of the cheating scandal, but Richard seems to be done with Marie. Marie’s father was also a senator, and her mother seems to think Marie should just hold on because Richard will come back to Marie. In the meantime Marie’s best friend Nishi has decided to give Marie painting lessons so she can re-connect with her creative side. Marie meets Luc Marchand her painting instructor and a relationship quickly ensues. I did feel the relationship progressed way too fast and at times felt unrealistic. Marie also allowed Richard to continuously control her life. I wanted to scream GET A BACKBONE Marie! However by the second half of the book Marie starts to assert herself in every aspect of her life, and this is when I started enjoying the book. If you are a fan of over the top romance then this book will be perfect for you. You will be rooting for Marie and Luc throughout their trials and tribulations.

This book was not what I had expected at all. I thought it was a nice romance. But then it took a darker twist. It was hard to read and I almost didn't finish it. But I'm glad I did. I really didn't like the direction this book took. I think it could be edited a bit better and cut some parts out. But I really liked the characters and I would definitely read another book with these two characters again! I think that this book focused too much on their dysfunctional lives had so many dramatic events one right after the other it was too much for one book. And I can’t say I enjoyed it all that much. What I did like with Luc Marchond. He was incredible. The descriptions of art and his opinions and his family history were all so interesting. I loved the historical parallels and mystery of the necklace. That was what really brought it home for me and kept me wanting to read more. There was a bit of intrigue and mystery at times, and it almost felt like this should be two books with how much had happened, and how much growth the character went through. I would almost say the latter half was more interesting and fulfilling.

I'm not much of a passionate romance kind of gal, but I did enjoy the twists and politics of this one. I tended to skim some of the steamy stuff to get back to the action. It was well written and I felt the pain of Marie as she struggled to overcome her influential family, husband and truly embrace who she was.

This author is completely new to me. In fact, I was interested in the book solely based on the premise in the blurb of a political wife embroiled in a scandal where her senator husband is divorcing her to marry his mistress. I mean it’s the news story we always see and then wonder what becomes of the wife. This novel takes that premise and runs with it from pillar to post. Indeed so much happens in these 500-odd pages, that the eventfulness of the novel begins to stretch the realm of plausibility. If you like shows/movies like The Good Wife, Eat Pray Love and Scandal, this novel might be for you. It also positively screams of the melodramatic tv hands of Shonda Rhimes with the amount of head banging annoyance you’re going to feel with the characters as you read this.

This novel is seperared into 2 parts and actually, this could have been a first book and a sequel because at the point the first part ends, you’ve already been through the trenches with these characters. Enough has happened in the first part to make an entire novel. The second part kind of blindsides you from where it starts and the characters of Marie and Luc and even those of Marie’s parents are significantly different by part 2. I actually almost DNF’d this early on because the heroine in my opinion completely lacked agency in an inexplicable way. The hero, Luc, was a total and utter entitled d-bag at the beginning but I’m glad I stuck with this. Because there’s a lot of growth these characters go through across the two parts of this book. In that sense, this is more Women’s Fiction than Contemporary Romance because you don’t necessarily have main characters that you *like* but you have main characters that are flawed and problematic and because of that, real. Because problematic people find love too.

Art and the way we see people and the things right in front of us is also a major theme of this novel and moreso than art, vulnerability and self-awareness and awareness of truths right in front of us is another major theme. This novel was a study in how you can live your whole life with yourself and yet not know who you are until circumstances force you to deal with your thoughts and emotions and come to a state of self-awareness.

So in conclusion, did I like this or not. I liked parts and I disliked parts. I didn’t like the beginning at all and I also struggled with Marie’s incredible naïveté and lack of backbone and Luc’s forwardness and sense of entitlement early on in the novel and that kind of coloured the way I read this. It’s like watching a Shonda Rhimes tv series where the characters are doing all the wrong things and you’re powerless to fix them, that sort of struggle as a reader. The author’s writing however was incredibly compelling- the sort that whether you were annoyed by the characters or not, you couldn’t put this book down. I recommend this for anyone who likes romance novels but dislikes the plastic perfect tropes romantic couples can be and anyone who also has a high tolerance for problematic characters.

I received a copy of this book from XpressoBookTours through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (And being a heavy duty book purchaser myself, I’d never leave a BS review because I got it for free).

this book felt like two books merged into one, packed with drama and up and down of our heroine’s life make this book enjoyable to read. Prepared yourself for rollercoaster rides tho.
this book will be an ‘it’ book for those who enjoy romance with spice of erotica.

thank you netgalley for providing the arc.