'Just the onion.' I can't tell if believes me.įans of Paula Hawkins' The Girl On the Train and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl will recognize these authors' devices in The Wife Between Us. I wipe my eyes and gesture to the cutting board. We all layer them over our remembrances the filters through which we want to see our lives. If it is giving me the gift of an illusion.

I was happy, I think, but I wonder now if my memory is playing tricks on me. So there I was, in my exquisite kitchen, stocked with Wusthof knives and Calphalon pots and pans, cooking dinner for the new husband. In one scene for example, she's peeling onions to make supper for her aunt, but the act conjures up a memory: Vanessa in particular is impressively drawn, an unreliable narrator who often understands she's not trustworthy.

Pekkanen and Hendricks write beautifully and create a marvelous sense of realism. And there was the actual truth, which is always the most elusive to recognize.' This is without doubt the core of the bookparing back layers of assumptions and appearances until one arrives at the elusive and ineffable reality. At one point, Vanessa states: 'In my marriage, there were three truths, three alternate and sometimes competing realities. There is plenty of suspense as readers try to puzzle out what really took place between Vanessa and Richard and how Nellie fits into this picture. Alternate chapters, told in third-person so as to distinguish them from Vanessa's narrative, focus on Nellie as she prepares to wed Richard. At first Vanessa appears unhinged and delusional, but as the plot unfolds, we begin to suspect all is not as it seems. But she is unable to, obsessing about the woman who is soon to become her ex's new spouse. Vanessa has failed to live up to his expectations and he has moved on.

The story is primarily narrated by Vanessa, the former wife of Richard, a wealthy entrepreneur with exacting requirements for all aspects of his life, including his marriage. It is a page-turning psychological thriller about the lies we tell one another, including our own selves. The Wife Between Us is an intriguing collaboration between first-time novelist Greer Hendricks and bestselling author, Sarah Pekkanen. The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of marriage and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.

The wife between us novel