Title: THE WIFE UPSTAIRS
Author: RachelHawkins
Read: January 2021
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟1/2
Book Description:
Meet Jane. Newly arrived to
Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated
community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of
place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and
jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think
to ask if Jane is her real name.
But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is
Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a
boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane
can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie––not only is he rich, brooding, and
handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned
for.
Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the
legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who
launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane,
ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past––or his––catches
up to her?
With delicious suspense, incisive wit, and a fresh, feminist sensibility, The
Wife Upstairs flips the script on a timeless tale of forbidden romance,
ill-advised attraction, and a wife who just won’t stay buried. In this vivid
reimagining of one of literature’s most twisted love triangles, which Mrs.
Rochester will get her happy ending?
My musings:
I like reading retellings because it’s usually fun
to see how an old classic would translate into our modern times. Having read
and loved Jane Eyre as a youngster (I really must re-read it one of these
days!) I was excited to read THE WIFE UPSTAIRS as part of a book buddy group
read. And I guess if you’re drawn to easy, popcorn thrillers with a bunch of
unlikeable characters who are as nasty as a pit full of scorpions, then this
book will be entertaining enough.
Sadly, the story was more miss than
hit for me. I thought that all the things that made the original classic so
enjoyable didn’t translate well into the modern setting. With Jane Eyre’s atmospheric
old English mansion, the constraints of society and gender roles at the time,
and even just the gloomy English weather, Charlotte Bronte created a novel that
has entertained millions of readers over the last 150 or so years – with good
reason. I could easily buy a crazy wife hidden in the attic of an old English
manor house, with its multiple wings, dark corners and crevices and servants
bustling about, but not in Eddie’s ultra-modern Thornfield Estate home. Even if
our modern day Jane was a bit thick, the dog surely would have alarmed at the
thumps and bumps coming from upstairs? But most of all, the sheer nastiness of
each and every character in Hawkins’ version slowly eroded my enjoyment of the
story. All those bitchy, backstabbing, snarky women read like utter stereotypes
to me, ones I was only too eager to put out of my mind when the last page had
been turned. And when it all came down to it, even those parts of the story
that weren’t totally implausible were fairly predictable to me, robbing me of
any surprise element that would have redeemed the book for me.
Even though the book totally missed
the mark for me, I can see that other readers may enjoy the bunch of
dysfunctional characters racing like a doomed train towards its dramatic
finale. Personally, I thought that it was all wrong, from the modern American
setting to the stereotypical, snarky characters and oh-so-much suspension of
disbelief to give the characters the benefit of the doubt for being – frankly –
a bit stupid. Never mind, we can’t all love the same things and I do think I need
a break from domestic thrillers for a while!
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