Book Review: "The Other Wife" by Claire McGowan

I was sitting on my bed from about 9pm until about 1am reading this book. I didn't look up from my book, I didn't stop at any time and I had let my tea go cold because I didn't want to take my eyes from the page. I was so involved with the book that I had just lost the real world for those few hours only to be unwillingly thrown back into it when the book finished. It is a brilliantly written book that employs the multiple narrator perspective and the information we learn, we learn and piece together along the way. It is all like a massive jigsaw puzzle and reminds me a lot of one of my other favourite books which I won't tell you because it will give the storyline away but it's by Graham Greene.

Suzi and Nick have moved to the countryside from London city and Suzi is heavily pregnant with their first child. Keeping an eye on her, Nick wants to make out he cares about the wellness of the baby when in reality, there is something a little bit more wrong with that statement than we would initially think. One day, they get a new neighbour called Nora - Nora is a widow without children and seems like a lovely woman with a lot of emotion. Suzi immediately feels a connection with Nora and the two begin a friendship. It is only when Nora says Suzi's name for the first time that Suzi realises that she never told Nora her name. In this psychological thriller of domestics, identity and a horrid past - a fire that once started must be put to rest and people must find out the truth about each other or die trying.

A big theme I noticed in this book was abuse. Not just physical abuse but emotional and psychological abuse. It was like reading the inner thoughts of women who had been treated horribly by the men they had once loved. It was a brilliant way of bringing conflict into the book and the switching between narrators made it seem all the better and more realistic.

Another thing I noticed was how the book kept switching between the characters but not like you would think. We get Suzi and Nora in first person but then we get Elle and Maddy in third person. It's like reading from the inside and reading from the outside, we get all perspectives and I am not going to tell you why because again - it will give away the book and we don't do that here.

An amazing account of love, violence, domestic abuse, a thriller of compassion and of identity, of criminality and medical negligence - this book basically has everything that you would want from a thriller novel and so much more. I can tell you that my mind is still locked in the novel and is still processing the characters. I adore this book and you should all definitely read it.

In conclusion, I have said this before I know: this book is incredibly modern for a thriller which incorporates both the classic thriller attributes of identity and violence, and the newer ones of multiple narrators, flashbacks and constant tensions which do not let out to a solution. I feel like this novel was written with a hell of a lot of effort because in nowhere in the book do you feel like anything is left open. You know what has happened, you know what is happening but you have absolutely no idea and nor could you guess what was going to happen. It is pure brilliance.