𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 3/5⭐️⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
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𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝: I always really love Sally’s use of multiple perspectives to weave a story together. She’ll never leaving you hanging for one crucial TWIST that could make or break the book for you. Instead she is masterful at delivering a family drama that will leave you engaged throughout the entire book, and you will find yourself wanting to finish it all in a single sitting.
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𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞: This book will certainly be polarizing because of how the female characters were portrayed. All of the women seemed to have a history of trauma (emotional abuse, sexual assault) and each suffered from a variety of issues as a result of those traumas (memory loss, kleptomania, lack of impulse control, mental illness, binge eating, alcoholism). Each woman had been so gaslit over time that she constantly questioned everything going on around her; but the open ending left the reader to question the characters as well. I don’t doubt that it was intentional, to highlight that most women in similar situations are largely overlooked; but it still left me feeling icky about my own doubts in them.

What an interesting book Sally Hepworth has given us! She sets us up from the beginning to be a bit off balance - with a wedding that's already a bit "quirky" (the groom's first wife, who's suffering from dementia, is a guest) before something mysterious happens to someone right after the ceremony is completed. We're told this by an uninvited guest at the wedding. From there, the story is told from the viewpoints of three women, the two adult daughters of the groom and the new bride, with occasional updates on the wedding from the 4th narrator. At the outset all three women seem to be living pretty successful lives, but we come to realize they're dealing with emotional damage from events that are revealed over the course of the book, and their viewpoints are all influenced by those events. So how reliable are they as narrators? We aren't sure - and as the book progresses neither are they. It's hard to say a lot without giving much away, so I won't say more. I've seen a lot of discussion about the ending - we're still left just a bit off balance. I feel like I know what happened, but am I right?
I combined reading and listening on this one, and enjoyed both. The narration was well done on the audiobook.
Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio for providing digital copies for an unbiased review.

This is a story about a not so wicked step mother.

I was with this book until the end, and then it completely lost me; however, I’ve heard the epilogue is changing? So I may revisit this review in the future. I do think if the end is changed, this would be an effective thriller with some chilling elements and a compelling cast.

Spoilers:

as it stands it felt like it perpetuates the “all in your head” narrative abusers promote to continue victimizing the people in their lives.

I LOVE books that leave on a cliffhanger or are open to interpretation. This one did just that! I adored The Good Sister when I read that recently, another 5-star read. Sally Hepworth is becoming one of my favorite authors. I enjoyed how in both of her books that I read, there are complex sister relationships. I can relate to this with a sister of my own. I also enjoy her take on mental health and incorporating high functioning autism, anxiety, etc. This is extremely relatable today. I urge everyone to pick this one up! The writing style in unmatched.

THE YOUNGER SISTER by the charming @sallyhepworth
Pub date: April 5/22 by @stmartinspress

In her latest domestic suspense, we meet a cast of women tied to one man. Tully and Rachel call him dad. For Pam, Heather and Fiona, Stephen was their husband at one point. A charming doctor with a knack for making the women in his life believe just about anything. Except themselves, that is.

I enjoyed this bit of escapism which was reminiscent of desperation housewives and pretty little secrets.

Sally’s latest juicy tale of domestic suspense will pair nicely with your fave glass of wine and a decadent dessert.

#bookstagram #bookstagrammer #boostagramcanada #canadianbookstagram #sallyhepworth #stmartinspress #netgalley

4 stars....

This wasn't my favorite of Hepworth's (I loved The Family Next Door & The Mother-in-Law way more), but I still enjoyed this one!

Fast paced with short chapters, and multiple POV, always make an enjoyable read for me, so this one didn't disappoint.

I switched back and forth between my netgalley e-book & my finished purchased hardcover copy, after hearing things were changed/omitted in the final physical copy. The main difference – and it was completely different – were Pam’s epilogues. Each consisted of approx. 4 pages – but my netgalley had a completely different ending than the finished copy. Without giving spoilers – the netgalley left things open ended, and left my thinking “hmmmm, so was he not bad?!”, as she was “planning a party” for him. The finished copy left things tied up, and you *KNEW*, as “things” were confirmed. After reading both, I preferred the netgalley version, because I found it more twisted/f'd up, in a way that you were like, WAIT, what?! Was it all true or NOT!?!

Thank you to netgalley & publisher, but I am so happy I bought it to read the other ending, since it was completely different.

This is the first book I've read by this author. It didn't "wow" me, but it was enjoyable enough that I'll try another by her. Rachel and Tully had major issues that were not dealt with in realistic ways IMHO. There was no shocking twist, I guess this would be described as more of a domestic thriller. The ending is left to be ambiguous, but I definitely have an opinion! I've also heard that the ending has been changed and I'm not sure which one I read.

Oh that ending! "The Younger Wife" will be a polarizing read this spring but I'm in the camp that loved it. The Australian thriller is another family drama from Sally Hepworth and it's my favorite of hers so far. It tells the story of Stephen Aston and his new, much younger fiancee. The story bounces around from the perspective of the fiancee and Stephen's two adult daughters. It's a fast-paced read and really enjoyable.

3.5 Stars.
When I pick up a Sally Hepworth book I know I am going to get some family drama, a lot of secrets and probably some unlikeable characters. It is always fun to flip the pages as you keep switching your mind on who you like and don't like or who is guilty of some crime. The Younger Wife definitely followed this formula and I enjoyed it. It was a really interesting storyline and family dynamic. It is a bingeable read that leaves you a little uncertain in the end but I believe that is what Sally wanted!

I finished this book in a day. I was really caught up in all the characters. It made me realize how our upbringing can carry long into our adult lives. It was the perfect mix of family dynamics and mystery. I couldn’t get enough!

I've seen so many people rave about Sally's books. I was so excited to receive this arc, and man it did not disappoint. Her character developmental is amazing. This book is packed with family drama. I will have to go back and read her other books now!

A successful doctor is engaged to marry a much younger woman, and things are not going well. For one thing, he is still married to his wife of many years, who now has dementia. His daughters, struggling with their own issues, are less than pleased that he plans to divorce their mother to marry a woman their age. Hepworth has written another domestic suspense tale in which all initial assumptions are turned upside down. The ending is left ambiguous. This may bother some readers, but I found it mildly intriguing.

The beginning of Sally Hepworth’s The Younger Wife opens with a anonymous narrator at a wedding when outside her field of vision, someone screams. What’s happened and to whom? A great way to start a suspense novel.

However, soon the reader is embedded in a domestic fiction novel about two sisters who are introduced to their soon-to-be stepmother who is a few year’s younger than them. The older sister, Tully, lives the life of luxury but is a kleptomaniac and has been since her early teens. Her younger sister, Rachel, is a successful baker who suffered trauma at 16 and eats her anxieties. Heather, the future stepmother, comes from a financially poor background in which her father murdered her mother. Stephen, the father, is a successful heart surgeon who is seemingly loved by everyone. Pam is his soon-to-be ex-wife who suffers from Alzheimers. The anonymous narrator is not revealed until many chapters into the novel.

The story is told through multiple narrators: Rachel, Tully, Heather, and anonymous who we do learn the identity of later.

Despite the fact that Sally Hepworth is a good writer, The Younger Wife almost bored me into a catatonic state. If it weren’t for the scenes with the wonderful punster Darcy, who is Rachel’s new delivery man, and Rachel, who is probably the most down-to-earth of the characters, I may have tossed The Younger Wife in the DNF pile. Slow-burn should only be applied to romance novels, not thrillers in which tension should be constantly rising.

Instead, the reader is shown how gaslighting works and how self-doubting women succumb. However, I’d go even further and suggest that it’s not just self-doubt but some brand of dimwittedness, especially in Tully’s case. I’m not sure why Hepworth chose to write Tully as being as unaware as she is but it ultimately makes her character seem mentally deficient. There are some instances in which I’m not sure whether the reader is supposed to believe that the narrator, Heather, mainly, is unreliable or if she is being manipulated. Whichever it was supposed to be, it left a taste of confusion rather than tension. I can’t say that I’m thrilled by the way Hepworth portrayed these women–gullible and unaware.

I expected the ending to feel right, just, but frankly it rambled and still left things up in the air. I don’t think that’s a spoiler. The ending stunk.

Ultimately The Younger Wife needed far more tension and a clearer sense that the author actually understood what she was hoping to achieve or what she wanted her readers to believe. I read the last chapter and felt like there was still a lot of shrugging going on, which is definitely not the way to end a thriller.

I didn’t read any reviews before writing my own, but I did note the number of stars being bandied about. They are far more than I would give. So we’re at a Your Mileage May Vary kind of book review. If Darcy and Rachel hadn’t been so lovely, I would have probably rated the book lower.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel starts at the end, with a shocking incident at the lovely wedding of prominent surgeon Stephen to his much younger bride Heather. Stephen’s 30-something daughters, Tully and Rachel, are in attendance, and so is their mother Pam, Stephen’s former wife with advancing dementia whom he divorced in order to marry Heather. *record scratch* He did what?? Yep.

From there, Sally Hepworth unspools the events leading up to the wedding, moving chapter to chapter from Tully to Rachel to Heather. Each woman has her own major issue she feels compelled to handle: for Tully her kleptomania, for Rachel her binge eating, and for Heather her alcohol consumption.

Where this faltered for me is in the breadth of the characters and plot. There is so much going on that needs to be resolved with the three women’s personal struggles and relationships, not to mention unraveling their relationships to Stephen and his whole bag of worms, that I never felt much connection to any of these characters or fully satisfied by the various conclusions to their personal struggles.

Also, I must mention that ending. Whew. You have to be ok with somewhat ambiguous endings to appreciate the one here. I’m still scratching my head, wondering where the gaslighting ends and the truth begins. Fleshing out what really happened would make for an intriguing book club discussion.

Overall, this is compelling, page-turning fiction, which Sally Hepworth writes so well. Recommended for those who enjoy Hepworth’s vibe and/or messy, vice-centered, dark family dramas in general.

Oh my goodness, this book is great!! Full with amazing characters, fast paced, easily relatable novel that just kept me guessing. Very much enjoyed it. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the copy for review. All opinions are my own.

I'm always excited to get my hands on a new Sally Hepworth book and The Younger Wife did not disappoint! There's a lot of family drama as the patriarch of the family is getting married to a woman roughly the same age as his two adult daughters while his recently divorced first wife is in a care home for people with dementia. However, there are some secrets from the past that are about to be revealed as well as someone being hurt at the wedding. This all leads up to a satisfying conclusion. Read and enjoy!

While I found the book to be predictable throughout, I was still very invested in the overall outcome of the story. The pacing was well done and there were several characters who I found to be messy but not so much you didn't want to root for them. This is not a story for everyone though. There are some very heavy themes and events that occur outside the typical murder (such as sexual assault, pregnancy loss, and abuse) that some might not want to read about. I did think those issues were handled well and I appreciated the author's highlighting the importance of mental healthcare.

The Aston family has problems. And big ones. But they put on a facade where you would never know, until something unthinkable happens at Stephen's wedding to Heather. This story was enjoyable from the start. The story is told in three perspectives...those of the Aston sisters, Tully and Rachel, and Stephen's new fiancée, Heather. Hepworth does this domestic suspense book wonderfully. We are left guessing as to what's happening, wondering if anyone is going to figure out the secrets, and trying to figure out who got hurt at the wedding and why. This book is full of unreliable narrators, and you may not always know who to believe, and you may not always like everyone in the story. I will say that I saw some people thought the ending was ambiguous, and I can see why. However, I know what my thoughts are on what happened and it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the story at all.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book to review. It is out now!

I started The younger wife by Sally Hepworth a couple of months ago, and at first enjoyed it, and then I just found it started to get repetitive, with the multiple POV's, and I found myself setting the book aside. While the plot itself was interesting, the characters of the women were frankly insulting. All the women had some sort of flaw....why? Because they had a shitty father? Seriously? Sorry I can't recommend this book. The only part I liked was the hot water bottle...and you bet I will be checking my Mom's out before I toss it out!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read an advanced copy.

5 Oh, My My Stars
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First I am a fan of Sally Hepworth, her crafting and creativity have been solid for me. This was such a ride, with all of the characters and their perspectives on what was happening and their goals in hiding the secrets they had.

This idea of one partner having this type of situation and how it is handled with the partner is a very real thing today. Makes one think.