I loved this book! I had read a few reviews that were split on the ending, but I personally enjoyed it. I explained this book as predictable but different to a friend.

The switching between various family members, all who are unreliable narrators, was fantastic. It kept me on my toes and I devoured this book in one sitting. I loved The Mother In Law by Sally Hepworth and this one was just good if not better!

Thanks so much to the author and St. Martin's Press for my gifted, advanced physical copy, as well as NetGalley for the e-copy, in exchange for my honest thoughts. All opinions are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on my blog at tacklingtbr.home.blog

TW: murder, sexual assault/rape, domestic abuse/violence, miscarriage/anembryonic pregnancy, loss of parents, dementia/Alzheimer’s, addiction (alcoholism, kleptomania, binge eating), gaslighting, and COVID-19

I was so excited to be receiving an early copy of this book, because I have really loved books by Sally Hepworth in the past. And I really and truly wanted to love this book. For the first third or so I really was enjoying it - it was suspenseful at times and messing with my brain a little bit, in the way you expect a book with potentially unreliable narrators to. But by the end I really couldn't get behind this book.

For the most part the characters were interesting and flawed and felt realistic and human. I will say that I had a hard time relating to or sympathizing too much with Tully, but I've never dealt with kleptomania or any related addictions, so maybe she would be a perfectly written and relatable character to someone with more of those shared experiences. I found myself liking and relating to Rachel the most, though. She seemed to be the audience surrogate to a certain extent - she was the one putting some of the pieces together and trying to get to the bottom of the mystery, so I enjoyed her chapters the most.

Now let's get into what I didn't like about this book - I feel like there is a fine line between an unreliable narrator and gaslighting all of the characters (and therefore the audience) to the point that even by the last page nobody trusts or believes their own memories or understanding. A book can have an ending that is left up to interpretation without making it seem like all of the women in the book are out of their minds, you know? By the end of this book it felt a bit like the takeaway was that women, and particularly abused women, can't be trusted to know their own minds or to understand what is happening to and around them. I know that that couldn't have been what the author was trying to get across, but from an outside perspective, that was how it felt after closing the book, and it felt a bit gross.

I will say that I have heard through the grapevine that there is an added portion in the final copy of the book that completely changes the outcome of the story. Both of my gifted copies were the advanced, unfinalized version, so I have not seen this new addition. While I would be interested in picking up a final copy and reading this added paragraph to see if it changes my feelings towards the book, unfortunately at this time I can only review based on what I have read.

Overall I'm not sure that I would recommend this book to my friends, and if I did I would make my feelings stated above very clear in the same breath as the recommendation. I think that the book is well written and I'm sure that there are people who would love it. And like I said, maybe if I read that added bit in the final copy then it would change my opinion a bit as well. But at this time I don't see myself returning to this book or recommending it very highly, without knowing outright that the person I'm talking to would love it.

I know that when I pick up a Sally Hepworth novel, I’m in for a solid family drama. The Younger Wife is no exception. I really enjoyed this one, start to finish!

Dear Reader, you are cordially invited to attend the wedding of Heather and Stephen. An albeit unconventional affair as Stephen's recently divorced wife, Pam, will be in attendance. Their adult daughters are the same age as the bride and most of those in attendance are there for the gossip, not the happy couple. When a scream is heard from inside the sanctuary and the celebrant emerges covered in blood everyone is left to speculate what happened. Ambulances are called, guests are asked to leave and an investigation begins. Any of them could be the victim, any of them could be at fault. When a family has the amount of secrets buried that the Astons do, someone was eventually bound to snap. There is not a likable character among the lot in "The Younger Wife" and it really makes for quite the page-turner. You have no idea who to root for at any given time and the ending (at least in the ARC) version leaves you feeling unsettled and unsure. If you are looking for a twisty read, give "The Younger Wife" a try. Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review will be posted on 4/19/2022
Pamela is married to Stephen Aston, a successful heart surgeon. They have two beautiful daughters, and live in a gorgeous house that they are remodeling, but no matter how perfect Pam's life is, she can't fight the early on-set dementia that is slowly tightening its grip on her. Stephen, her husband, hired Heather, an interior designer, to help bring Pam's vision to life, but slowly Pam is losing herself and Stephen has to put her into a nursing home. This breaks his heart and he finds himself being consoled by Heather. As time goes on, sparks fly between the two despite the fact that Heather is young enough to be his daughter. This blows his daughters' minds as Heather is their age and his new relationship with her feels wildly inappropriate considering their mother is still alive! The eldest daughter, Tully, has her own issues to deal with as she recently found out that her husband made a bad investment and they are losing all their money. Plus, she has a slight problem: she likes to steal things. Then there's her younger sister, Rachel, who is a beautiful baker, but she eats her feelings due to the fact that she hasn't dealt with the trauma from her childhood. All of these tragically flawed characters coming together makes for a very dramatic domestic suspense from Sally Hepworth, especially when Stephen announces his upcoming marriage to Heather right when Pam starts suggesting Stephen isn't the nice guy they thought he was. The Younger Wife, while isn't as compelling as Hepworth's The Good Sister, is still a suspenseful, fast moving novel despite my issues with it.

Hepworth is really good at creating tragically flawed characters that I find myself still rooting for even though I don't always agree with their decisions. She makes me care about them and that's how I felt about Tully. Her world is being turned up side down, she will have to move out of her beautiful home, and she has her own mental health issues while raising two little boys. I was worried how all this stress might play out for her, not to mention the fact that her mother keeps divulging information about her father and the information starts to raise some questions for Tully. Is Pam just rattling on or is there some truth to her secrets?

It was pretty easy to see where Hepworth was going with Rachel and her trauma in The Younger Wife. She hasn't dealt with her issues, so now she eats too much as a way of coping with difficult things in her life. Rachel has always been the beautiful one, but she has a lot of baggage. She is more accepting of Heather than Tully, but she also starts questioning things when she finds a load of cash hidden in her mom's water bottle with a note. What was Pam saving for? Was she trying to leave Stephen?

Heather is also a complex and troubled character in The Younger Wife mostly because she also has unresolved issues from her childhood. When she moves in with Stephen (to the house she helped design!), things are blissful until she starts to realize that he controls her a bit and comments frequently on her clothing, how much she drinks, her version of a story, etc. Things also get dark at times, and she starts questioning her sanity. Is it her and her unresolved issues or is it Stephen? I found myself trying to figure out if she was an unreliable narrator, especially when Heather starts questioning herself. Also, I wasn't sure I could care about a character like Heather who dated a married man, but surprisingly, Hepworth found a way to make me care!

The Younger Wife is a soapy domestic suspense novel that I thought was decent overall, but the ending left me feeling let down. I hear that the official ending in the published novel is different than the ARC which I read, so that makes me feel better. I tried to take that into consideration with my review as my main issue with the novel is the last 10% of it. Nonetheless, if you enjoy domestic suspense and are a fan of Hepworth, readers won't be too disappointed by this novel as it is very fast moving and I was hooked as I wanted to know what would happen to these complex and complicated women.

So, are you a fan of Hepworth's novels? Have you read The Younger Wife? Is it on your TBR list? Let me know in the comments below.

Sally Hepworth is the master at developing characters that you just can’t be sure of. In The Good Sister, you weren’t really sure who was the good sister. In The Younger Wife, you know who the younger wife is, but you’re not sure about the other wives and the husband.

Pretty much everyone in the book has secrets.

The story opens with an unknown narrator at a wedding. A wedding where there has obviously been some sort of violent event. It’s the wedding of Stephen and Heather (the younger wife.) Present at the wedding are Stephen’s grown daughters, Tully and Rachel, and his ex-wife Pamela.

After the opening the story continues from the perspectives of Rachel, Tully and Heather.

I love Sally Hepworth, I love the twists and turns of her stories, I love that you never really quite know what to believe.

A final note - there might be some triggers in here for some - domestic violence and kleptomania.

Thank you to Netgally and the publishers for this ARC.

This book was a surprise with many twists and turns along the way. Sally Hepworth always seems to have surprises in store with how you expect the book to proceed. As with some of her others books, the plot is much more involved than a domestic novel about a May-December marriage.

The story is told in flashbacks. and the novel begins at the wedding of Stephen to Heather, a much younger woman. Stephen's daughters, Tully and Rachel are older than the bride. Stephen's wife, Pamela has dementia so he has to divorce her to marry Heather. That is a plot in itself, however, the novel is much more than that.

Every character in this book has secrets that come out during the course of this story. The twists just keep coming to the very end.

I enjoyed the novel very much. It was well-written and thought-provoking. Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me early access to this interesting book.

I flew through this domestic thriller (read it in one sitting)! It was well paced and flowed easily between multiple characters. There were enough aspects of intrigue sprinkled through the book to keep certain aspects of the plot unknown until the very end. I hadn’t read a book by Hepworth before, so I will definitely need to pick up another of her novels ASAP!
I would highly recommended this satisfying read!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this novel!

The novel, The Younger Wife, kept me guessing all the way to the end.

The story revolves around sisters Tully and Rachel, their father Stephen, Stephen's ex-wife Pam, and Stephen's younger soon-to-be wife Heather.

I went into this story thinking this will be another story about a gold digging younger wife. I was wrong! "Most" of the characters are good but flawed people. The novel keeps you guessing who is the bad apple. There is plenty of gaslighting and unreliable characters which prolongs the reveal. For example, Pam has dementia and a few of the characters drink too much.

Who do you trust? Read this well-written thriller and find out! This is my 1st Sally Hepworth novel -- I can't wait to dig into her backlist!

Big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this advanced readers copy!

Heather and Stephen are happily in love. At least that's what she thought. As the soon-to-be new wife, she wasn't sure how his two adult daughters, both of which are older than her, would react to their relationship. Things have been touch and go to say the least, but they seem to have had a breakthrough after a cozy day-drinking session. But other things are afoot in her shiny new life, and she can't help feel that old patterns are apt to repeat. Can she trust her instincts? Can she trust herself? Only time will tell. ⁠
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I was hooked on this one from the start, page flippin' as quickly as I could to find out what the heck happened at that wedding!?! Sadly, my curiosity didn't pay off as much as I’d hoped. I really loved the character and story development, as well as the flashback sequencing. But the ending fell so flat. I've heard that the ending in the published version has been changed, so now I have to get a copy just to see if the changes Hepworth made will change my star rating. This was my first Hepworth novel, and I know it won't be my last. I loved her writing style and could easily have given this a higher star rating if the ending hit differently. The sisters in this book are so flawed that it's flawless! I wanted to wrap them both up in my arms and give them the love and reassurance they both needed. Overall, this book is worth reading so I encourage you to get your hands on a published copy soon!

The book opens with the wedding of Stephen and Heather, a much younger woman. They met when she redecorates his house. Then there is a scream and the story goes back to Stephen announcing to his daughters that he is getting married to Heather, the woman he has brought to their lunch. Stephen Aston is a 60 something attractive physician who is getting married to a much younger woman. The thing is, he is already married. Pam has dementia, so he divorces her, even though he claims he still loves her. He asks his daughters, Tully and Rachel to be bridesmaids. Tully is married with 2 young children but their family is having financial issues and Rachel is single woman with a thriving cake baking business. Neither is happy about the wedding. As we get to know more about this family, you wonder how this wedding ever came about.

The Younger Wife is a story of flawed characters with all kinds of different issues to deal with. I really enjoyed that the story is told through various POVs as well as an unknown narrator at the beginning. The story introduces us to a family that seems perfect from the outside, but as we get to know the characters, it is evident that they are dealing with so many issues. I wanted to scream at Heather to run quickly in the opposite direction. Without giving anything away, I will tell that some of the issues being dealt with by the various characters are kleptomania, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, dementia, poverty, difficult children, social appearances, getaway money and more. This was another winning domestic suspense novel from Sally Hepworth. The characters were so well developed and interesting, even though they were unlikable. I know a lot of people didn't like the ending, but I thought it fit well, poetic justice maybe...

This was a wonderful book. Stephen is a doctor married to Pam. They have two daughters. Tully is married with 2 sons and Rachel is running a catering business. Pam develops Alzheimers and Stephen divorces Pam to marry Heather, who is about the ages of his daughters. We learn the backgrounds and secrets of the family. They all add to and lead into a fascinating plot and turn of events. I found myself unliking characters and then changing my mind. Any book by Sally Hepworth is outstanding!!

I feel like it's been a while since I've read a suspense book that really was really gripping. Right from the beginning, this story had a hold on me. So much so, I was sneaking in pages whenever possible!

I loved the multiple POVs here from the four women and the dynamics that played out. I was really pulled in by the suspense set right at the beginning and how it was teased out little by little. Lots of trigger warnings with this one!

The ending definitely presents an opportunity for discussion with friends or a book club! It left me with a lot of questions and scratching my head. I understand that the ending was rewritten between ARC release and release of the physical copy. I downloaded my ARC late and I'm so curious as to which ending I read!! If you've read this, let's discuss!!

My one fault of the book is the portrayal of abused women being discounted due to their mental health and gaslit into believing that it is actually a psychological issue. I guess it's needed for the plot but it still makes me uncomfortable (and it's a very used plot).

Overall, great page turning domestic suspense!! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-copy in exchange for my review.

This pains me but I did not love this. As a thriller, it fell really flat. I had an issue with some of the character development as well. The Good Sister was one of my favorite books of last year so I recommend checking that out instead.

I really enjoyed this one. I liked how it was plotted and how flawed the characters were. I also like the ending, even though it was a bit ambiguous. My only complaint is that this is marketed as a thriller but it seems to be more contemporary with a mystery thrown in. I’m definitely going to have to check out more of Sally Hepworth’s novels!

This looks like so many twisting turns in it you know what's gonna happen. The father was a top art surgeon named Stephanie AST ON. And you find out who this guy really is in the end. The 2 daughters have problems as well and you'll find that out as well. Tully Is marrying to a very successful businessman But she likes to steal things when she has an anxiety attack and she will not tell her husband. It was having a hard time dealing with this as well because you lost a lot of money and they have to move. She is afraid to tell everybody. Rachel is the other sister and she has problems as well. She hasn't she overeats every time a man comes near her because of what happened to her in the past She runs a successful cake business in Melbourne Australia. This guy Dawn Shows up for the delivery guy Who are the cakes. He really likes Rachel and they try to go out on dates but she's still very nervous. The father is dating a woman called Heather but hes still married to his former wife who is in a nursing home. Rachel also finds water botthe water bottle with money and inside of it and a note oh and this leads to a crazy mystery what was going on. Definitely has a lot of problems with anger and you'll find out why Heather it doesn't realize what's going on because of her past. It's an interesting book because it looks at things like rape and domestic violence in a very interesting tragical way and how people don't accept it but the softwid an amazing job of explaining it and tying it into the story and how everybody has a say in this you

My first Sammy Hepworth and it won't be my last. I found this to be quite the page turner and found that the multiple point of views kept me interested and engaged in the storyline. I did find that aspects of the ending fell a little flat, such as Fiona Arthur's quiet finish, the peak moment at the wedding, the ending that we are to decipher on our own. It was obvious that both of the sisters were coping with overwhelming feelings stemming from trauma, and I thought it might have been more impactful with a tidy finish explaining this further. An oh so close five-star finish for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

So clever and packed full of unexpected details! I loved everything about The Younger Wife. Each narrator offered a fresh perspective on a juicy family saga. Dysfunction, secrets and questions abound. I couldn't stop reading as each character unpacked another interesting layer.
Stephen's ability to provoke doubt and cause the women in his life to second-guess their observations made for a wild reading experience. Rachel, Tully and Heather each had strengths, weaknesses and emotional wounds that contributed to the story's complex arc.
The Younger Wife is a whip-smart domestic thriller that will keep you guessing. Highly recommend!

I really enjoy these kinds of books. Women in real life with real problems that involve marital relationships, sibling conflicts, and children issues. It always makes me feel a little more seen and a part of this human existence to see others that have problems too!

The younger wife, Heather, is marrying Stephen who is already married but his current wife has dementia and doesn’t know what’s going on….his children are his younger wife’s age….let the drama ensue. This book follows Heather and her two soon to be “step daughters” and what’s going on in each of their individual lives. The book weaves together slowly, showing you, the reader, why they behave the way they do.

Sally Hepworth does a good job of sharing dramatic problems and not making them cheap and overly cheesy. I found this particular book to be a little more extreme and on the side of unbelievable with some of the situations…but I’m okay with it for an entertaining read.

A big thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advance electronic copy of this book.

I enjoyed the first part of the story. I wanted to like the characters, but Tully was hard to like and Rachel was a little better but not relatable. The ending threw me for a loop. It became so confusing and nothing was resolved the way I expected. I received a free copy of this book and I am voluntarily leaving my review.