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Tully and Rachel Aston aren’t happy their father is remarrying. For one, his fiancée is their age, and another, their mother is still alive and still married to their father. Her dementia has gotten worse recently, though, so their father has put her in a secure care home.
There wouldn’t have been a divorce or second marriage at all if Heather Wisher hadn’t entered the picture, hired by Stephen and Pam Aston to redesign their home’s interior. But over the course of the year it took to do the work, Pam’s mental state declined and she moved, and Stephen grew close to the kind Heather.
The sisters don’t know why the young and beautiful Heather would marry their father; their first assumption is that she is a gold digger, after their successful doctor dad’s wealth. But she dresses immaculately in designer clothes and appears well-off herself.
Heather seems genuinely in love, though, as does their father, who is still visiting their mother and being loving and tender to her. They’re all going to be one happy, though unusual, family.
Cracks start appearing in the course of the year or so that transpires between the engagement announcement and the wedding (the story progresses in the past and “flashes forward” almost to the day of the wedding throughout). Has Stephen been hiding something from his own daughters for years? Is his gentle and loving exterior a mere front for darker impulses? Has Heather been up-front about her background and motives? It all comes to a horrific head right after Stephen and Heather say I do.
I’ve enjoyed Sally Hepworth’s The Mother-in-Law and The Good Sister, both thrillers centered on family. I liked particularly that they’re just rated moderate, rather than being high for lots of strong profanity and sexual content. The Younger Wife definitely held my interest until the last revelation.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 4 uses of strong language, around 10 instances of moderate profanity, about 10 instances of British profanity (bl-), around 20 uses of mild language, and a dozen instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes kissing, a scene where characters have sex but there are few details past their removing clothes, references to characters having sex but not scenes with descriptions, and infidelity. A character was raped as a teenager, and it’s mentioned throughout the story, but with very little detail of what happened. There are several brief flashbacks of domestic abuse, fueled by alcoholism, in one character’s family, with a murder resulting. There is a killing in the story of a main character, with some blood described. Alcohol misuse is addressed a few times, with some scenes of lots of drinking.
*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
