Oh goody! A retelling of Jane Eyre, however, this fairly fast-paced southern gothic twist fell flat to me. This book is getting massive traction everywhere so I thought it would blow me away. It. did. not., which just goes to show you, always follow your gut when picking a book. It was mundane for me. If you feel like you aren't having the same reaction as everyone else, there is a reason for that. I know I am in the minority here when I say this. And don't get me wrong, I had read the original Jane Eyre many moons ago and I liked it. I had the audio book and I felt that the narrator did the book justice her voice was pleasing. It was the story itself that was just "meh" for me. The language is PG-13, not that it really bothers me, but, the English language is so rich and expressive without using expletives it's just a turn off for me. The main characters focus is on everything money, money, money while not least of all stealing from her clients- the cost of an SUV, the diamond earrings left in a bowl --. Overall, it wasn't a book for me although I know many people out there disagree with me and that's fine. Not everyone's cup of tea is a glass of wine.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced readers copy of this ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This was an interesting read that started off strong and finished strong! I did feel a little bit of a lull in the middle as things were developing, BUT it did add important details and set up parts of the story that were important to the tipping point of the book and elements that set up an ending with a punch! There were a lot of threads that came full circle and I really liked how Rachel Hawkins was able to bring the whole story together. That’s always something that’s super satisfying for me in a book! I also really appreciated spicing things up in the beginning of the book in order to hook my interest since a lot of times I'm looking for a fast start in a thriller. It’s actually even a modern take on Jane Eyre! I, uh... haven’t ever read Jane Eyre (🤫) so I can’t speak for its adaptability but as someone who doesn’t know the original concept in any way, I thought it was thoroughly enjoyable! I gave it 4⭐️!

I'd like to thank Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for gifting this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a modern day take on Bronte's Jane Eyre. Jane Bell moves to the outskirt of a posh Alabama neighborhood where she takes jobs as a dog walker in that neighborhood and steals from her clients from time to time as well. Setting her sights on the biggest house in the neighborhood she almost is run over by its owner, the recently widowed Eddie Rochester.

Eddie becomes instantly taken with Jane and things move pretty fast from there including a wedding proposal. While home alone Jane starts to hear noises upstairs that Eddie has excuses for. When the police come to investigate Eddie's wife's disappearance and presumed murder things are not adding up with Jane and the stories that Eddie tells her.

This was a great thriller with lots of twists and turns. It was a little slow to start but then took right off and kept me guessing.

I mean, this book was able to hold my attention when all others couldn’t. But I still thought it was just okay. It felt predictable and bland. And I realize that it probably seems like it would be predictable since it’s a retelling. But it felt more like a predictable thriller plot than a retelling of a classic book, the ending of which I don’t even remember. I never liked Jane Eyre.

The audiobook was well done.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

I am a tough critic when it comes to thrillers so keep that in mind with this review. I found this book to be a really enjoyable listen and a pretty good take on Jane Eyre, but it didn't blow me out of the water or anything. Some of the details felt a little hard to believe, though I understand why they were used in order to stay in line with the original novel.

I enjoy a good "re-telling" or take on a classic and The Wife Upstairs is Rachel Hawkins take on Jane Eyre. In this story, young Jane is working as a dog walker in a very wealthy neighborhood in Arkansas. We don't know much about her past aside from the fact she has some secrets in it. When she meets Ed Rochester, she immediately sees an opportunity to enter into the type of life she's always wanted. Ed's wife has recently disappeared after a boating accident that also seemingly killed her friend. As they begin dating, she works to win the favor of his wealthy friends (who were once his wife's friends). Jane's story is interspersed with accounts from Ed's wife's journal that she's writing while locked upstairs.

If you're familiar with Jane Eyre, you can probably figure out the basic gist of what will happen in this book. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it bothers me a bit when new novels stay sooo close to the classic with everything from the names to little details. The story is obviously modernized, but I feel like some of the details don't fit well in modern times and didn't feel totally believable. I don't want to spoil anything though!

Overall, this is the kind of book that's easy to listen to as you're cooking or cleaning or doing other tasks around the house. It's light enough that you don't have to focus in a ton and it's easy to follow along with. I thought the narrators did a good job and I'm glad I listened to it!

Jane is a dog-walker in a well-off community in Alabama. She meets the widowed Eddie Rochester, whose wife drowned, and sees the opportunity in him. Their relationship moves quickly but she is haunted by the idea of Eddie's wife, Bea.
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I went into this vaguely aware it was a modern retelling of Jane Eyre but I've never read Jane Eyre, nor did I have any idea what Jane Eyre is about. And let me tell you, going in blind, this was a wild ride. I thought it was really well-paced and I was shocked by a few of the twists which is always fun!

The Wife Upstairs was a fun, twisty thriller that made me really question how we perceive “the perfect couple”. There were so many things we learn about this couple that truly shows you never know what happens behind closed doors. Hawkins gives you a sense of thrill in each chapter, which keeps you guessing. I really enjoyed how each chapter changed characters. I felt like I was in the story listening to the narrators. The details and narration really allowed me to build empathy for the characters (even though they didn’t necessarily deserve it).


I gave The Wife Upstairs 4 ⭐️ because I did figure out the big twist early on. But, I loved listening to it all unfold! Thank you, Netgalley for the arc audio.

Rachel Hawkins' The Wife Upstairs is a fantastic read with plenty to keep you on the edge of your seat. The book was well written and the characters were fantastically developed.

I was initially hesitant to pick up The Wife Upstairs, but early reviews made it sound like I couldn't miss it. I'm always going to be interested in a retelling. There are so few of Jane Eyre that I have come across so I had to give this book a chance.
In trying to forget and move on from her past, Jane maneuvers her way into the home and arms of Eddie Rochester. He's just what she wants to catapult her life into prosperity. Eddie doesn't open up willingly and two women - including Eddie's wife - are missing and presumed dead. Jane ignores all warning signs, continually attempting to outrun her past.
I am not a big thriller reader, but I might have to dabble more frequently after this. Rachel's attention to detail and tribute to one of the best classics stole my attention from chapter one.
The narration is fabulous! I love multiple POVS particularly when each view has a different narrator. Collectively, their voices embodied the story so well.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts in this review are my own.

This book is everywhere. I was lucky enough to get a copy of the audiobook from @netgalley. It was part of my New Year’s Eve miracle. (I’ve had a lot of trouble downloading audiobooks from NetGalley but the New Year’s Eve fairy granted my wish and I downloaded three!)
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The book is good. I’d say 3 out of 5 stars. It’s fairly fast-paced which I enjoyed. I’ve seen this book described as a Southern Gothic twist on Jane Eyre. I’ve never made it all the way through Jane Eyre and actually it’s one of my goals for the New Year. The story is entertaining if somewhat hard to swallow. The helpless young woman looking for a rich older man to take care of her is not my favorite. The social commentary about rich white people in the contemporary American South is amusing. The language is a firm PG-13. So if that bothers you consider yourself warned.
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Synopsis...Eddie is rich and recently widowed. Jane is a 23-year-old college dropout who is walking dogs (and stealing from her clients) in the neighborhood. They meet (and seemingly) within seconds are living together/engaged. There’s just one little fly in the ointment. As you can guess from the title, and if you’ve read Jane Eyre, the wife isn’t dead. She’s locked up in the upstairs room.
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So the question is why? Why is Eddie’s wife, Bea, locked up? Why is he pretending to think she’s dead? What really happened on the lake with Bea and her best friend?
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You’ll have to find out!!

I could not put this book down. I loved the Gothic atmosphere and the fact that The Wife Upstairs is a Jane Eyre retelling.

We follow our leading lady, Jane, as she tries to escape something in past by moving to Alabama. She starts walking dogs in a rich neighborhood and she soon meets the handsome and charming widower, Eddie. She is soon smitten with Eddie and is whisked into this privileged life she isn't accustomed to. However, she still feels the presence of Bea, Eddie's late wife, in every faucet of her new life. Bea and her best friend, Blanche, drowned in a boating accident and Bea's body was never found. Jane soon starts to wonder if their deaths were really an accident? If the rumors are true, there may be more to their deaths than first meets the eye.

I highly recommend this one! One of my top thrillers of 2020!

First let me say OMG!!!!! I loved this book so much. Jaw dropping, shocking, head spinning and sooooo twisty. So full of secrets and surprises I couldn’t put it down. I even made my hubby listen to it and he loved it. I loved it so much that Whalen it became a choice for a Book of the Month book I got it.

Wow this was one intense read. I loved the narrator and think they did a great job with this suspenseful thriller

Jane is a down on her luck, dog walker in the gated community of Thornfield estates. She enjoys walking the dogs there and imagining what it might be like to live there. Her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester, a man whose wife, Bea drowned in a boating accident along with her best friend Blanche. When they fall for each other, Jane no longer must imagine what it might be like to live there. To have a nice home and not a dingy apartment. As her life begins to improve, she attempts to fit in with the women who once hired her to walk their dogs. Plain Jane tries to look right, dress right, eat right, etc. The women include her in their many committees and meetings but all the while letting her know she is not Bea, that they knew Bea first and perhaps know more about Eddie than she does.

This was a great first Audiobook of the year!

Sometimes I’m a little leery about retellings because my brain won’t allow for the retelling but this one I loved the way she weaved the original Jane Eyre with this new Jane and Eddie story it was well done. I mean the title gives the story away plus if you’ve read Jane Eyre but that didn’t change the fact that you had to know how this version will play out.

Narrated by Emily Shaffer; Kirby Heyborne; Lauren Fortgang all 3 did a great job I do kind of wish the 2 female narrators voices weren't so similar but I enjoyed their work!

I received this audiobook from NetGalley and Macmillan Audio

I am not a fan of Gothic literature.
I am not a fan of Jane Eyre.
It makes sense that I would not be a fan of this book.

This Jane is an adult, skeptical because of her experiences in the foster care system which is why it is even more unbelievable that she seemingly let her guard down because her mark was charismatic.

I listened to the audiobook as I read a physical copy of the books and all three narrators did a good job bringing the story to life.

Jane, a girl who is hiding from her past but doesn’t realize that when she finally thinks she has left It behind her, found a wealthy man to help her out of the dump apartment she shares with an even creeper man, that she would be walking right into an investigation. That the house of that wealthy man isn’t only lavish but holds a secret no one knows in the hidden room in the attic.

The background for this book it set up so well. We don’t know Jane’s past, but we know she Is hiding from it, that she will do anything to leave the past behind. She changes her name, moves away, get an apartment and walks dogs for the wealthy people in Thornfield Estates’. You can feel the anxiety and stress of Jane’s past in the narrators’ voice.

The narration was really good and engaging. There were 3 narrators each for the 3 main characters in the book. The narrators used different voices for each character, so you knew who was talking even before they read the words on the page that told you who. The narration not only had different voices, but they put feeling into each one. If the character was supposed to have an accent, then it was portrayed. The narration was also really good at putting the emotion and feeling into the reading. If the person was saying something sarcastic, you knew by the twinge in the voice. Mainly the narration for Jane, you totally felt the judgmental tone when needed. You could tell who Jane was and how she was thinking and feeling just by the way the narrator spoke. The narrators kept to a good pace that added tensions and suspense when needed. Most audiobooks go to slow for me but this one was perfect.

As for the story, most books take me a little to get use to the writing and to understand the world and characters before enjoying the book but for this one I right away was engaged. I didn’t need to let it play out for me to have enough information to understand what was happening. Even though it started off by being easy to understand and follow from the very beginning you know there was something you were missing, which added the suspense that kept me reading.

I wasn’t bored during any part of this book. It wasn’t fast paced action pact the whole time but between those moments, where the thrill and the suspense came in, the book still had a captivating story line. The main problem I had with this book is that it cursed way to much, which threw me off from making a higher rating. Other than that, I don’t think there was any plot holes. I think that all the characters had a background that was slowly revealed which made you piece certain information together you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I love that it had those small details that seem insignificant until you know the truth and realize it was everything.

Of course, it wasn’t the most mind boggling, psychologically manipulating book. The truth wasn’t hard to piece together which I like and dislike. I like that is was simple enough that I still understood the truth once revealed, but it could have been more confusing to an extent. I wasn’t totally dumb founded or surprised when I knew the truth, but over all I really liked it. I will definitely look back on this book and remember how fun it was to read.

I enjoy re-tellings and modern remakes of classics. It's fun to see how a modern writer takes a familiar plot and makes it their own. The Wife Upstairs is Rachel Hawkins' new vision of Jane Eyre. Jane is a dog-walker in a posh Birmingham, AL neighborhood, Thornfield Estates. Then she meets Eddie Rochester, a widower. Eddie's wife and her best friend drowned in a boating accident. Jane is hiding some secrets, but then again....so is Eddie.

I found this story interesting because there wasn't a single character that I liked. Everyone is a liar, self-absorbed or sneaky. But, really, doesn't every human being have an agenda? I don't want to give anything away.... All I'm going to say is that I got sucked right into this story because I literally disliked every character. But...I pretty much felt the same way about Jane Eyre. Edward is hiding his crazy wife and taking advantage. Jane is too Mary Sue. The servants are all gossips. Edward's rich friends are all classist bigots. The characters in this modern version are still very flawed, but in ways that are bit more recognizable. And a bit more evil.

This tale had a few surprises along the way. It definitely kept my attention from start to finish. It isn't just an update of the plot we all know. There are marked similarities, but enough is different to make this a real update.

This is the first book by Rachel Hawkins that I've read. I will definitely read more of her books. I like her writing style!

I had both an ebook and audio book version of this new release. The audio is just over 8 hours long. Narrated by Emily Shaffer, Kirby Heyborne and Lauren Fortgang, the audio is very well done!

Excellent twisty tale! I enjoyed it!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own**

I haven't read Jane Eyre so I'm unsure on the comparison but I enjoyed this audiobook and finished it in a couple of days.

The author and narrator does well to tell the stories from all viewpoints. I was a little disappointed that I figured out pieces along the way.

The ending caused me to remove a star from my rating. Felt the ending was a little too convenient.

The narration was excellent in this book! I think that’s part of the reason I kept listening even when I found some parts of the book far-fetched and a little predictable.

I really enjoyed the premise of this one! Not gonna lie, it's been since high school (so like 10+ years) since I've read (or even thought about Jane Eyre) but I remember being pretty creeped out about it so a new-age psychological thriller based on the classic? Sign me up! Listening to this book felt like we were in on an inside joke with the author and I LOVED it. However there were a few plot holes and a few things that just didn't click for me. Without getting into spoilers, it just felt a bit rushed at points. Overall, a quick and enjoyable read worthy of four stars for sure!