absolutely loved this book and kept me excited to keep
Reading. Will read more from this author
Thank you

Well, Sally has done it again! I’ve read almost all of her books and they get better with each one, although they’re all very good reads. This one was especially fast-paced and kept me from wanting to put it down. I enjoyed each of the characters, all of whom had their own quirks and fascinating traits. I’m thankful to Net Galley for the advanced copy to read and review. It’s another five star Sally read for me! I highly recommend you read when it is released in the spring.

I am really loving Hepworth’s books lately, they are character dramas that build from the beginning and culminate in page turning endings that I absolutely devour. She has a way of endearing you to each of the characters, even the ones you are supposed to be against, and then at the end she flips your world upside down in the very best way. She did not disappoint with The Younger Wife, which is my third read of hers. Tully and Rachel Aston are adult sisters who are dealing with losing their mother to dementia, and perhaps some relationship issues of their own but all is fairly manageable. That is until their dad tells them at lunch he is getting married to Heather. What’s the big deal? She’s their age, oh and he is still married to their mother. But don’t worry, he is planning on divorcing her, dementia and all so nbd.

Tully and Rachel see Heather as a gold digger, basically up to no good other than being after their dad’s money. But there are secrets aplenty, and as the wedding draws near, the sisters are determined to get to the root of it all, including who their father really is.

This was an absolutely brilliant book, with a prologue that starts off with a bang, backtracks to the day the sisters learn about Heather, and builds to an absolutely fantastic ending. I loved the relationship between Tully and Rachel, they are not perfect and it shows in their relationship, but they are definitely there for each other and it was so great to see. I also loved how they tried to approach this entire situation as objectively as they possibly could, which would not be easy but was crucial. Heather was also written very well, she had quite the backstory and I enjoyed how it played into the overall narrative.

Pub date is April 5th and you definitely want this one on your reading list when it arrives! Thank you to @NetGalley and @stmartinspress for the advanced digital copy to review.

I really struggled with rating The Younger Wife. I read this in two days and couldn't put it down. Once I started I stayed up late to keep reading and just needed to know how it ended. Unfortunately the ending was really disappointing to me. I felt like the whole book until the last 20% was 5 stars but the ending dragged down my rating to 3 stars.

I am a fan of Sally Hepworth and enjoyed The Mother in Law and The Good Sister a lot. I was really excited to be approved to receive an advance copy of her latest thriller but it really missed the mark for me. The Younger Wife is told from 4 different perspectives. It starts from the perspective of an unknown wedding guest at a wedding in the future. Then it rotates between Tully and Rachel, who are sisters, and Heather the younger woman their father has recently started dating showing different points in time before the wedding. Tully and Rachel's mother has advanced dementia and their father, Stephen, leaves her for Heather. The unknown wedding guest is later revealed to be someone from the father's past. There are so many strange events that happen in the book and the women begin to think that Stephen may have been abusive. Tully, Rachel and Heather are all struggling with their own internal battles and issues throughout the book as well. I don't want to give any spoiler so I won't say anything else about what happens.

I started reading this and was completely sucked in. I like the rotating perspectives and the mystery of who the wedding guest is. There's flashes forward and backwards that keep the book exciting. There are a lot of secrets and mysteries to be unraveled in this book. I was constantly guessing and felt like I couldn't truly trust any of the narrators. My main critiques of the book are that there was a lot going on in the plot and the ending. The ending and particularly the epilogue really ruined the book for me. The plot is very busy and I felt like a lot of it could've been left out to focus on the main plot point of whether Stephen is abusive or not. I also just really disliked the ending and wanted it to go in a different direction or even be more ambiguous to leave more to the imagination. I can see why others are leaving this good reviews but the ending of a book is always important to me and this ending was very unsatisfactory.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I had a very difficult time grading The Younger Wife. Sally Hepworth’s family-driven suspense novels are always a great read, and The Younger Wife is genuinely surprising, absorbing, and interesting, providing the reader with a satisfying page-turner. But on the other hand, its entire plot hinges on the neurotic presumptions of its main cast, who avoid examining their own issues and decide to allow their father’s secret first ex-wife to basically gaslight them into committing some heinous deeds.  Get a Snickers bar and a bottle of wine, because you’re gonna be up all night with this one.

The neurotic Natalie – Tully - Aston takes one look at the appropriately-named Heather Wisher as she enters the restaurant on her father’s arm and smells blood in the water. The younger woman is engaged to Tully’s father, Stephen – even though Stephen is still married to his dementia-stricken wife, Tully’s mother Pamela.

Stephen’s solution to this issue is simple. He’ll divorce the legally incompetent Pamela - who often steals piles of objects and stows them in her closet, and is currently living in a memory care facility - and marry interior designer Heather.  But Tully thinks Heather is a gold-digger, and Tully’s sister - controlling professional baker Rachel - soon joins her in this presumption. The two sisters team up to drag the skeletons out of Heather’s closet.

But Heather isn’t the one keeping secrets.  Along the way, the three women find their father’s first wife, and begin to suspect that he abused her, was abusing their mother, and may be abusing Heather.  Or is it all in their minds?

The Younger Wife makes a choice not to believe its victims right off the bat.  We learn that Rachel was raped by an unknown assailant,  that Tully’s marriage is difficult and her children are unruly, that their mother is bruised and that Heather is an alcoholic.  Because everyone jumps to conclusions, no one gets to the germane truth.

This is both incredibly annoying and incredibly involving.  Even when The Young Wife annoyed me by suggesting that domestic violence victims lie and women cannot be trusted to recount their own abuse, I was compelled by the unfolding mystery and these lovably unlovable characters.

For romance fans, there’s a side romance between Rachel and a man named Darcy, and Tully’s relationship with her husband Sonny continues throughout the entire novel. How you’ll feel about both Pamela’s relationship with Stephen and Heather’s connection to him will likely be determined by how you feel about who Stephen really is.  And heaven knows how I actually feel about him, after this mindscrew of a novel! Twist upon twist happens, tying itself up into one almost implausible bow.  Part of me wants to mark the book down for its last quarter, but the characters are so human and flawed that of course this is how things turned out for them all.

As angry as The Young Wife made me, I found it utterly, wholly appealing and irresistible.  I spent hours glued to it, and Hepworth’s many fans will likely do the same.

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Five stars! As anticipated, the novel is a fast-paced roller coaster ride. Sally Hepworth has such a talent for writing suspenseful novels and though I always try, I’m never able to figure out the twist. I love that!

Sadly, Stephen Aston’s wife is struggling with worsening Alzheimer’s. Her family is devastated that she is grappling with this incurable disease. Stephen however has a lot of life left to live and though he never intended for it to happen, he falls madly in love with their much younger interior designer. Stephen is a smooth charismatic guy and has a penchant for getting those around him to support him no matter the endeavor. He divorces his loving, ailing wife all so he can marry Heather who just so happens to be the age of his daughters, Tully & Rachel, neither of whom are thrilled. Heather clearly has an agenda, and no doubt sees dollar signs when she looks at her much older though distinguished man. She certainly has secrets of her own.

Peculiar things keep happening in the Aston household. Tully & Rachel are determined to find out what is going on as well as uncover Heather’s past. It’s quite a wild ride.

I received an advance digital review copy of this book all opinions are my own.

Umm-What to say? I loved this story, I loved the viewpoints of the 3 ladies and how they were woven together. Wow!

However I did not like the epilogue and the questions it planted about the ending.

Wow! Just finished this book. I feel like I’ve been in a whirlwind. Sally Hepworth has done it again. Domestic thriller at its best. The opening scenes are at a wedding and not just any wedding. The groom is marrying a much younger woman. His wife is in attendance. His recently divorced wife is there but she has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t understand what is happening. After the ceremony the couple, children and exwife enter the sanctuary to sign the wedding certificate and a scream is heard. And the story starts. We meet the grooms daughters Tully and Rachel who are dealing with their own issues. I can’t say enough about the suspense in this book. I couldn’t stop reading until the nerve wracking unbelievable endings. It leaves you questioning WHAT HAVE I JUST READ? Loved it.

4/5

Loved this book. I didn’t want the story to end but there was an explosive conclusion that I’m still thinking about. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book and give an honest review.

This domestic suspense lived up to my expectations and then some. It wasn't all about the younger wife, but she was certainly the catalyst to the implosion of this family. Every character has issues that are brought into the limelight as they adjust to the father's new girlfriend and soon-to-be-wife while he is still married to the first wife.
Two sisters, Tully and Rachel, both struggle in their own ways to adjust both to their mother's declining health due to Alzheimer's disease and to their father's abrupt introduction to the new love of his life. As Heather (the future younger wife) tries to engage with her future in-laws, the whole family spins out of control that culminates with the wedding not to be missed.
Thank you to Netgalley for an early copy.

Is it too early to say this is one of my favorites of 2022?? The characters were so developed and I felt like each page was filled with a new, interesting tidbit that helped the story flow. I laughed, I stressed, I felt all sorts of emotions throughout this book.
This book discusses a serious topic of domestic violence, so be cognizant of that prior to starting.
All in all, this book is a major win for me!
Thanks NetGalley and St. Martins Press for this ARC!

Slow-moving for well beyond 50%.
The rest of it, though, was a white-knuckle ride of twists and turns. And that ending....WHOA.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Such a great book! Sally Hapworth does it again. This book kept me wanting to keep reading and I would definitely recommend it!

Huge thanks to Netgalley and @stmartinspress for my copy of The Younger Wife.

This is my first Sally Hepworth book and it won’t be my last. She kept my attention the whole time. I kept turning the pages because I couldn’t wait to figure out what happened.

The ending is going to blow your mind. It will make you think about the whole book. I thought about it for several days.

Unfortunately, the ending wasn’t for me, but it did make me rethink things. Isn’t that what a thriller is supposed to do?

SALLY!!!!! She can do no wrong, honestly. Another great domestic thriller and I'm excited to see her get all the (well-deserved) buzz for this one again.

Thank you, NetGalley, for my advanced copy of this book. Seeing Sally Hepworth had a new book coming made my day. Being able to read it early made it even better. This is yet another great book by this author. She writes a story that keeps you guessing and NEEDING to know until the very end. Just when I’d think it was one way, something would happen to change my mind. I cannot say enough about this book. Likable and realistic characters with a bit of mystery mixed in. I can’t wait for my next Sally Hepworth read!

The setting for this deeply moving family drama is Melbourne, Australia. Family is messy. This upper middle class dysfunctional family's story has a wedding, a murder, a divorce, financial ruin, a criminal, a stress eater, an abuser and an imposter. They all have secrets and I raced through the pages to learn the outcome.
Dr. Stephen Aston, a heart surgeon in his sixties, is marrying thirtyish Heather. His current wife,  Pamela, has just been placed into a care facility. She has early onset Alzheimer’s and Stephen will be divorcing her. He has not been forthcoming about his past.
The chapters alternate quite smoothly between three main characters: Tully (Natalie), Rachel and Heather. Tully and Rachel are Stephen's grown daughters. Tully is married to Sonny,a criminal barrister, with two young children. She's the picture perfect wife and mother, but is hiding some dark issues. Meanwhile, Sonny is struggling with investments and their fairy tale  life is on the brink of collapse.
Rachel doesn't have a significant other and doesn't date. She's an excellent baker and eats her feelings. She has secrets of her own.
Pamela, the soon to be ex-wife, fades in and out of reality. Some of the things she tells her daughters about Stephen and their marriage are quite troubling, but are they true? Then there's the hidden hot water bottle she can't explain. More secrets.
Newly engaged Heather Wisher is just trying to fit into this new dynamic. Her past is built on lies and deceit. She tends to drink a bit too much and soon she begins to doubt Stephen.
What a twisty plot with very interesting, realistic and family-next-door characters. The plot kept me engaged and there were many relevant issues addressed. The mystery was woven throughout and I was completely wrong in my conclusions.
This is an author I have not read before, but look forward to her future work. A strong 4.5 Stars!

“The Younger Wife” is the latest domestic suspense thriller from Sally Hepworth. If you’re looking for a story about family dysfunctional that keeps you guessing until the final page, you will not be disappointed in this novel.

Stephen is about to marry Heather—even though he is still married to his first wife, Pamela, who is languishing away in a care facility. Stephen’s daughters, Tully and Rachel, are bitter about their dad’s desertion of their mom. But, each woman has her own secrets to hide.

The novel shifts between Heather, Tully and Rachel’s point of views so the reader is left unsure of whose narration—if any—she can trust. Hepworth is skilled at building tension, and I warn you that there will be many times where the reader feels as if the floor is shifting under her. “The Younger Wife” will have you hooked from its opening chapter.

My thanks to St. Martin’s Press, the author and NetGalley for this intriguing book.

Rachel and Tully are not happy that her father is about to remarry a much younger woman. Their mother has dementia and is living in a care facility. Rachel and Tully have some problems of their own they are dealing with. Lots of suspense! I could not put this one down.

This story was well written and the characters were well developed. When introduced to the characters the family did have some odd characteristics and as it unfolded there were a lot of unexpected twists and turns. It addressed the issues of modern families.