The Ex-Wife: A nail biting gripping psychological thriller

Product Information

I would like to thank Bookouture & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

Winter, Jessica (3 May 2023). "The Divorce Novel That Captured the Mores of Jazz Age New York". The New Yorker. Deftly crafted, wryly observed, and thoroughly unsettling . . . Caught between Victorian sexual mores and the libertinism of interwar Greenwich Village, Patricia brings a gimlet eye to the pervasive misogyny and sexual hypocrisies of her generation."Although, I did guess one of the plot twists, the others were a pleasant surprise. Not all of the characters are likable in this book which worked perfectly for the plot. As I learned more and more about the secrets, lies and motivations of some of the characters, things did begin to make more sense. I'm not usually a fan of teens in books as most of them are pretty vile but young Cassie is a nice kid, I thought. The adults around her had their flaky moments, but over all she was a sound youngster, with a good head on her shoulders for the most part AND she loved her little Hugo, which is always going to endear me to any character !! Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Jess Ryder) and the publisher (Bookouture) for a copy of the book.

I had difficulty with this book because I don't think I liked any of the main characters. I don't think you are supposed to like the ex wife, Alice, but I also found the other characters to be ... well, flat, cardboard.J. Cape & H. Smith [1929]; Grosset & Dunlap [1930]; New American Library [1989]; McNally Editions [2023]. Just like with the storyline the characters come to life with Sally and Amanda's fantastic writing skills. They are well rounded, realistic and strong making them all the more believable. Alice's life falls apart as she is arrested for the murder of her ex husband Mark's new fiancee along and her ex husband and daughter shun her. Being a parent myself my heart absolutely broke for Alice as she not only had to deal with the heartbreak of losing her husband but also deal with the attitude and problems that come with raising a teenager that has her own problems along with a family seperation added. I really liked AAlice but I could have shouted at her on a few occasions for some of the things that she did. However, it feels like she cant do right for doing wrong when it comes to her daughter Cassie and while she dislikes her new boyfriend Scott, neither do Mark, Norah or Felix, Cassie does what the majority of teenagers do and the more her parents didn't want her to do something the more she pushed against them. Regardless of how annoyed at Cassie |I was at times my heart also went out to her as she was going through problems with Scott along with the breakdown of her family. Where most teenagers would go completely off the rails I do believe that Cassie's behaviour was pretty mild compared to most others would have been. I actually liked Norah too and although she did get engaged to Mark not long after he separated from his wife, she was not the one who had been in a relationship so she didn't really do anything wrong and she was actually a likeable character. I wasn't a huge fan of Mark but I will say that he didn't slate Alice in regards to her parenting skills and they did try to do their best and work together with Alice for Cassie. The only one I actually didn't like was Scott who I didn't trust from the start and didn't like the way he was with Cassie. I won't go into more details as I don't want to risk giving anything away but Amanda and Sally really have done an amazing job constructing an addictive and explosive psychological thriller with fantastic and varied characters that you just won't be able to put down!! The book opens with Alice on trial for the murder of her ex-husband’s fiancée & her daughter’s boyfriend. In court, her air is one of acceptance & it appears that the only unknown is how long the prison sentence will be. We are then thrown to six months previously & shown the torturous route to present day. Jess has a gift with plot structures and twists. I was confused as to what was going on for about the first 30% of the book, but by 40% the book was just mind-blowing twist layered upon lies layered upon story developments. I was captivated! I was actually reading Jess’s blog and she has a fascinating piece about writing twists in psychological thrillers. I loved the way Jess used the present story of “Anna” on the run to counterbalance where we were at in the main story. We know SOMETHING happened that led to a life on the run, but getting there is the fun part.