I enjoy psych thrillers & found "The Wife Upstairs" to be an engrossing novel of its genre. It keep me guessing until the surprising end! We have an "unreliable" heroine, Jane, who is not telling us about her past, her rise to riches in wealthy Alabama with Eddie, who recently lost his famous wife Bea & her best-friend, Blanche in a mysterious "Boat accident"... lots going on in this one & I highly recommend! My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC & opinions are my own

The Wife Upstairs: A Novel by [Rachel Hawkins]

This was just OK. The characterization lacked nuance, the plot plodded, and the ending had a decent twist but was poorly written.

Review copy provided by publisher.

I really enjoyed this book - it takes a lot lately to make me stay up and read into the late hours (I work for a school district and we are in the first few weeks) but this book/author did exactly that.

I will definitely be looking for more books to read by her.

A Southern take on Jane Eyre? Sure, why not! This book has vacation reading all over it. The story is familiar but with modern touches and a fresh look that combines to make some real comfort food reading. Just a fun little domestic "thriller"

A fast paced thriller! An original take on the unreliable narrator genre, with enough twists to keep you guessing!

4.5 Stars.
This was definitely a page turner and got my blood pumping! There were some twists that actually made me say “No Way!” out loud! I didn’t see that coming. Thank you NetGalley.
Great read... check it out!

Without having read anything about this book before I started it, I didn't realize it was to be a modern retelling of Jane Eye, but there were some glaring parallels and references, e.g. the heroine, Jane, duh. made it pretty clear. Set in the affluent suburban South, Jane comes to town with secrets to keep quiet and a quest for better.
But, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.....

It is a fun rendition, with the varying voices throughout the story. No one comes across as particularly well except the dogs.
Fun to read.

Wow!! I haven’t enjoyed a book that much in quite a while. If you have a taste for domestic thrillers or psychological suspense do yourself a favor & pick this one up.

The Wife Upstairs is not my normal kind of book. The lead characters don't lead to any empathetic feelings or even an ounce of like. This book is readable for the fact it twists and turns and you want to see what kind of karma is going to catch up to the main characters. Jane walks dogs for rich people. Jane is hiding some kind of secret from her past. A little bit of attention from a rich widower and Jane works an angle to find herself in a big house and with a ring and a credit card without a limit. Jane's Prince Charming may not be all he's cracked up to be when the police start investigating his wife's murder and Jane begins to have doubts. The story blindsided me in the ending and flows smoothly even with unlikable characters for a suspenseful, unpredictable read. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from Netgalley.

I picked up this book intending to read for just a little while, and ended up finishing it in one day! It was compelling, I liked the characters, and how they were all flawed. I liked the Real Housewives/Stepford Wives feel, alongside the intrigue. I had to know what was coming next!

I love a good thriller. Thanks to Netgalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

A super fun Jane Eyre-inspired modern-day Southern thriller, with great twists. Reminds me favorably of DEAD TO HER by Sarah Pinborough. A truly fun book I gulped down quickly!

Forbidden Love, Secrets of the past, mysterious characters, great plot.
Plain Jane is a broke dog walker for the elite in Thornfield Estate and wants so much to be a part of their world. She ogles their jewelry and fancy furnishings and sometimes can’t help but swipe something when she is in their homes. Her luck seems to change the day she meets Eddie, a widower whose wife Bea and her best friend drowned in a river several months ago and he is into her. Jane charms her way into his home and they are soon engaged and part of the socialites and everything that Jane has ever dreamed of. But she is still haunted by the ghost of his wife Bea. Her body was never found and she is still talked about in the estate. But is Bea really gone or is there something more sinister going on? Does she really know Eddie and who can she trust?
Enjoyed through the final page and stayed up late to finish as I couldn’t put it down. Thanks netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Meet Jane. That's not her real name, of course, but when she begins dog-walking a rich suburb, she --correctly-- assumes no one will think to ask the "help" about her story. So Jane walks the dogs, pockets a few trinkets and dreams of ways to better her life. When Eddie Rochester nearly runs her over with his car, Jane sees a possibility for a new life.

Eddie is a wealthy man and a presumed widower. His wife disappeared, and everyone assumes she lost her life in a tragic accident on the water at her lakehouse. Jane finds it difficult to fill Bea's shoes in her picture-perfect life, attempting to hide her past from Eddie while climbing the social ladder among the women who used to be her employers. It turns out, Jane isn't the only one with something to hide.

A perfect domestic thriller to cozy up with on a rainy day - I was immediately hooked and read this book in one sitting! 4-4.5 stars.

We meet Jane as a dog-walker in the exclusive Thornfield Estates. Just a few months later, she's hit the proverbial jackpot - engaged to the wealthy Eddie and breaking into the friend group of his deceased wife Bea. What really happened to Bea and her best friend Blanche, and what is Eddie hiding from Jane?

I loved the setting of Birmingham, Alabama, and it set the tone for a great Southern Gothic suspense novel. Throw in some unreliable narrators, lots of secrets, nosy neighbors, and a few well-placed twists, and you've got yourself a great story. I'm looking forward to reading more from Rachel Hawkins!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! This is one of the best books I've read this year. Suspense, pretty rich people, down on their luck people, dogs....I mean, what more could you ask for? A fast paced story that holds your interest all the way through. I can't wait to see what else this author puts out because I have added her to my list of authors that never fail to give me a good read.

This book was way better than I thought it would be. Characters with backstories, secrets, lies, wives hidden in upstairs panic rooms - it just doesn't get better than that! This book had me compulsively reading to find out the ending. Excellent book from start to finish. Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This modern retelling of 'Jane Eyre' was a fast paced read with plenty of twists and turns in the story to keep the reader guessing. Much of the story is frankly implausible so suspend belief if you want to enjoy the mystery to its fullest. The characters weren't generally likeable but that didn't stop me from being invested in the story.

This book was so bad that I found myself laughing at the writing throughout. The plot was predictable and there was nothing thrilling or mysterious at all. The terrible character names were the icing on the cake. Just not for me.

New to town, Jane takes a job as a dog walker for several wealthy individuals when she is almost run over by the handsome, wealthy, widowed Eddie Rochester. If this sounds vaguely familiar, that's because this is a new Jane for a new era. This Jane has secrets and she will go to just about any lengths to make sure those secrets stay that way. But she isn't the only one with secrets who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep them hidden. As the story unfolds and secrets begin to come to light, who will survive?

It took me a little bit to get into this version of Jane, in the beginning she came across as rather cold and conniving. However, as her story begins to unfold, I found myself more and more interested in how the whole situation would play out. I also enjoyed Hawkins' reimagining of St. John Rivers as John Rivers, still a minister but way more sleazy.

Not only is this Jane more conniving and John Rivers more sleazy,, but everyone else has been reimagined as darker versions of themselves and it's a good time. As the story reached its climax, and things began unraveling for the most dangerous character, I couldn't stop reading.

Um, yes!! I was excited about this one but it still managed to surpass all expectations I had about it. I flew through this book and enjoyed all the twists and turns that this one had to offer.