Title: The Silent Wife
My
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
Lara’s life looks perfect on the surface. Gorgeous doting
husband Massimo, sweet little son Sandro and the perfect home. Lara knows
something about Massimo. Something she can’t tell anyone else or everything
Massimo has worked so hard for will be destroyed: his job, their reputation,
their son. This secret is keeping Lara a prisoner in her marriage.
Maggie is married to Massimo’s brother Nico and lives with him and her troubled stepdaughter. She knows all of Nico’s darkest secrets – or so she thinks. The one day she discovers a letter in the attic which reveals a shocking secret about Nico’s first wife Caitlin. Will Maggie set the record straight or keep silent to protect those she loves?
For a family held together by lies, the truth will come at a devastating price.
Maggie is married to Massimo’s brother Nico and lives with him and her troubled stepdaughter. She knows all of Nico’s darkest secrets – or so she thinks. The one day she discovers a letter in the attic which reveals a shocking secret about Nico’s first wife Caitlin. Will Maggie set the record straight or keep silent to protect those she loves?
For a family held together by lies, the truth will come at a devastating price.
My musings:
I accidentally stumbled across The Silent Wife when browsing
Amazon’s monthly deals, and ordered it on Audible for my upcoming holiday. It
turned out to be one of those random purchases which worked in my favour, as
the story and characters soon drew me in.
This is a slow burning drama, focusing on family and
husband-wife relationships, and there were a few intriguing dynamics being
explored here. Since I was the same age as Francesca when my mother died and my
father married again, I could draw quite a few parallels between our lives, and
it was interesting to get a different perspective. Fisher’s writing is lively
and evocative, capturing my attention from the very first page. I especially
liked Maggie’s tongue-in-cheek voice, which provided a few laugh-out-loud
moments, but also some reflection points. Some of her observations about her
step-family were hilarious as she doesn’t hold back! Lara, the other narrator,
provided a good contrast and it was refreshing to see this character change as
the story went along.
There are many different themes being explored through the eyes of
these two very different women: death, remarriage, domestic violence, and
cultural differences are just a few issues that drove the storyline. The
Farinelli family truly were a force to be reckoned with, and I found myself
gnashing my teeth in frustration a few times. The story did flag a little bit
for me in the later half and perhaps needed a bit more action or a twist to
move it along. Luckily I was listening to that part of the book on a train and
found it entertaining enough to provide a narrative to the landscape flashing
by. Had I read it in print it may not have been enough to keep me interested
right until the end as the resolution was fairly predictable for me. I’m not
sure what happened to the promised “twist that will take your breath away”
because I thought it all worked out a bit too neatly –something unexpected would
have made it more memorable.
Summary:
All in all, The Silent Wife was a light, enjoyable book for me whilst providing some food for thought with the themes it explored – a perfect holiday read.
No comments:
Post a Comment