My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry
Published: 26th May 2016 (eBook)
Publisher: Penguin, Random House
Pages: 534
Available on Kindle
Blurb
FIRST COMES LOVE. THEN COMES MARRIAGE. THEN COMES MURDER...When lawyer Lily marries Ed, she's determined to make a fresh start. To leave the secrets of the past behind.
But then she meets Joe. A convicted murderer who reminds Lily of someone she once knew, and who she becomes obsessed with freeing.
But is he really innocent?
And who is she to judge?
Review
My Husband’s Wife by Jane Corry is a novel which intrigued
me as soon as I read the tagline: “First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then
comes murder” What on earth must happen in this book for love to end in murder?
Right from the start we know it is Ed who has been murdered
but we have no clue as to who did it or why. They main story is split into two
parts, the first being fifteen years earlier when Lily and Ed are newly married
and young Carla enters their lives. Told in alternating chapters between Lily
and Carla we begin to build up a picture of these two characters who both have
aspects of good and bad in them.
Lily and Ed have recently married after a whirlwind romance.
Really they are still getting to know each other and soon it is obvious that
they are both hiding things from the other.
Lily has just been made a criminal defence lawyer and her first case is
defend convicted murderer Joe Thomas in his appeal case. Instantly Lily is
drawn to this man who reminds her of her brother Daniel and she goes out of her
way to ensure that he walks free, whether he was guilty or not. As the case
develops Lily and Ed’s argue more and more and their marriage begins to hit the
rocks, can they find a way to start again?
Carla lives in the same building as Ed and Lily with her
mother Francesca who is having an affair with a married man named “Larry”.
Carla is being bullied at school for being different but receives very little
comfort from her mother who seems more concerned with pleasing Larry than her
own daughter. When Carla is sent home one day from school after an incident
Lily steps in to look after her, as her mother is nowhere to be found. This
sees the start of Carla spending more and more of her weekends with Lily and Ed
acting as a buffer for their marriage until an chance encounter blows
everything apart.
Fast forward twelve years later and a grown up Carla makes
her way back in the lives of Lily and Ed, she’s looking for revenge for the
unhappiness of her childhood and the consequences for Lily and Ed are
devastating.
Right from the start I found this a very intense read, it’s
one of those books which you know is building up to something and it makes you
feel unsettled. I found that most of the characters seemed to be hiding
something and were always very tense with each other trying not to let all the
secrets come pouring out and I didn’t really like any of them.
I found Francesca and Ed to be both selfish characters who
only seemed to be focused on making themselves happy, which did at times make
me feel sorry for Lily and little Carla. But as the story progressed it’s
obvious that Carla is quite a manipulative child and will get want she wants
even if she goes about it in the wrong way and as she gets older what she wants
becomes bigger and bigger. Lily was the character I was most unsure about, I
really wanted to like her but I just couldn’t. She’s hiding something from her
past and it unsettled me that she wasn’t honest with Ed. As the story
progresses Lily begins to hide more and more little things so you never really
know when she’s being completely honest.
My Husband’s Wife is an intense novel full of blackmail, hidden
secrets and watching the consequences when those little white lies all come
tumbling out. It’s a novel which has been very cleverly written so you’re not
sure who is good, who is bad and who is telling the truth. It’s a novel which
will make you question the morality of every decision you’ve ever made, will make
you wonder if even the very best people have a little bit of bad in them and it
will make you wonder how far people will go to get what they want. In the end,
the question at the centre of this book is who do you believe more Lily or
Carla?
Despite not liking the characters I did really enjoy reading
this book, I think perhaps not liking the characters has left me thinking about
the book more as I’m not entirely sure which characters story I believe, if I’d
had a favourite then maybe I would have an answer.
My Husband’s Wife is
a book which had me hooked from the start and has left we with many things to
think about, which for once I rather like. I’d like to rate this book 5 out 5
and would recommend it to anyone who loves an intense read full of mind games
and moral questions.
Thank you so much to the publishers for sending me a copy to
review and also for inviting me to be part of the My Husband’s Wife blog tour.
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