My first read of 2020 was The Wives by Tarryn Fisher.
Plot summary: A woman is sharing her husband with two other wives. The catch? The wives aren’t allowed to know who the other wives are. They are assigned days of the week and have no contact with each other. Everything seems to be working fine with this arrangement until one of the wives finds a clue about one of the others and starts investigating.
Category: Mystery/Thriller
My Review: The premise was super interesting! Whoever wrote the inside cover notes did an awesome job of peeking my interest and making me wonder how in the world this story would play out. The first half of the book was SO good!! The narrator not only finds a clue about one of the other wives, but finds her and chooses to befriend her without her husband’s knowledge. I had no idea what was going to happen and I was speed reading trying to figure out how this would end. Unfortunately, when I got to the second half, things went a little off course. I feel like there were a lot of unanswered questions and some confusing parts that overall made it fall flat at the end. And then I got to the actual ending (last two pages)…super disappointing. I totally thought this would end up being a five star read based on the beginning, but the ending was more a one star. Overall, I split the difference and went with three stars.
Disclaimer: PG-13/R for language
Do You Read Me?: I say yes! The first half of the book is so well-written, I would hate to not recommend it. Plus I’ve never seen a book use this premise before, which was super interesting. If you are okay with some foul language and enjoy thrillers, it’s worth the read to me. Just know you may not be completely satisfied with the ending. Or you can always come up with your own ending like I did 😉