Review: My Husband's Wife

Title: My Husband's Wife

Author: Amanda Prowse

Publisher: 14 July 2016 by Head of Zeus

Pages: 368 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre: womens fiction, contemporary

My Rating: 3 cups

Synopsis:

Once a week, Rosie Tipcott counts her blessings.

She goes to sit on her favourite bench on the north Devon cliffs, and thanks her lucky stars for her wonderful husband, her mischievous young daughters, and her neat little house by the sea. She vows to dedicate every waking hour to making her family happy.

But then her husband unexpectedly leaves her for another woman and takes the children. Now she must ask the question: what is left in her life? Can Rosie find the strength to rebuild herself? More importantly, does she even want to?

My Thoughts

I was keen to try an Amanda Prowse book as she states that she wishes to write about women we feel we all know. She wishes to bring a true sense of human reality into her novels that undoubtedly will touch the reader in a number of ways. So what you have here is both a true and modern portrayal of family life - from the mundane to the tears and joys. 

'That life was the one she had always wanted; gorgeous kids, a lovely house and her man by her side.'

The exchanges between characters are true and well presented, particularly those between Rosie and her three in-laws - brother, mother and father in-law. In fact I found the most fascinating character to be Kev and wish we had of seen more of him.  I also found Rosie's father to be identifiable and interesting. 

So whilst this was an easy read, I did struggle with a few things. You know from the blurb that the husband is going to leave but that takes quite a while - almost half the book. This makes it a little frustrating, especially as the problems with the relationship are never explicit, decreasing - I believe - the emotional impact. I was not invested in their relationship. 

"I think you need to get over the idea that you can and should punish me because things didn’t work out the way you wanted them to."

There was, however, very explicit coverage of Rosie's grief and whilst I get it, I found her continual torrent of tears a little difficult to bear. At times I wanted to shake Rosie and tell her to be stronger. Did she want to fight back but just didn't know how? In many ways she was a victim of her own making.

‘And I guess the big question is this, Rosie: what are you going to do? How are you going to recapture your life?’

I also found the ending to be somewhat abrupt, the quick resolutions and neat rounding up of everything too quick. In some ways it was quite depressing in parts but as the author states she writes about women for women and there may be some out there that would 'get' this far more than I did.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release