Jaffareadstoo....: Blog Tour ~ My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry ~ Giveaway

I am delighted to say that it's Jaffareadstoo's turn to host today's stop on the

My Husband's Wife Blog Tour

Penguin
August 2016

First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes murder

When lawyer Lily marries Ed, she's determined to make a fresh start. To leave the secrets of her past behind. But when she takes on a new case, she starts to find herself strangely drawn to her client. A man who's been convicted of murder. A man she will soon be willing to risk everything for.

But is he really innocent?

And who is she to judge?

Here are my thoughts about My Husband's Wife...

The story opens in 2000, when Lily and Ed are newly married, and, even as they begin their new life together, tensions between them are running high. When Lily's job as a lawyer brings her into prison contact with Joe Thomas, a convicted killer, an undercurrent of menace very quickly starts to invade Lily’s personal life, much to the detriment of her relationship with Ed. Running alongside Lily and Ed’s story is that of their neighbour, Carla, a young Italian girl who lives with her mother and whose troubled approach to life is frighteningly realistic. On the surface, these four people have nothing in common, and yet, flitting back and forth in time, we start to learn just what disturbing tendrils snake between them.

The story is really well organised and the plot efficiently controlled. It’s, maybe, a little bit slow at the start but I think that works well as it gives the reader time to get to know the characters and to start to bond with them emotionally. There is much to take in, not just in the cloistered and frankly unnerving atmosphere that exists between Lily and Joe Thomas, but also in the multi-layered mélange of Lily and Ed’s married life which forms the core of the novel, and which is dissected in fine detail, and also of their troubled relationship with Carla. I found Carla’s character quite disturbing, and I think that the author has done a really good job of making her so sly and secretive so that you are lulled into a false sense of security. There is no doubt that tensions run high throughout the story, the twists and turns in the plot are surprising and unexpected, so much so that I really didn’t see where the book was headed, and I thought that the final dénouement when it came was entirely appropriate and nicely concluded the story.

Overall, My Husband’s Wife is a really good debut from an author who knows how to control a complicated narrative, who can crank the tension up to high without losing any focus, and whose assured storytelling will keep a reader entertained from start to finish.

Best Read with….A bowl of Carla’s mother’s Lasagne and a glass or two of deep red Chianti ...

About the Author

Jane Corry is a writer and journalist, and teaches creative writing all over the world. Recently she spent three years working as the writer-in-residence at a high-security prison for men.

In her own words: 'I had always thought prisons were terrifying places for people who had done terrible things. But after my first marriage ended, I found myself working in one, and discovered a world I could not have imagined without actually being there. A world in which no one was quite who they seemed. A world that I found strangely addictive - so much so that it wormed its way into this book.'