The Wife Between Us, by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Nellie found her Prince Charming, and he was great--until he wasn't.  Now he has a new fiancee, and she's determined to stop the marriage.  The Wife Between Us, by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pakkanen, takes the reader on a few twists and turns in this tale of jealousy, marital hell, and revenge.

Vanessa, who met Richard on a flight and had a story-book romance, wanted to be a good wife, and Richard wanted to be the perfect husband.  They both had secrets from their past.  Anytime Vanessa's secrets came out, or she didn't live up to Richard's ideals, his controlling, manipulative, and sometimes violent side came out.  After they divorced, she becomes determined to stop him from marrying again.

The Wife Between Us features zero likeable characters (except for Vanessa's aunt.  She's OK.).  This world is populated by people who keep secrets from people they love, make terrible life choices, and see other people as objects useful for their own goals.  Richard is, conveniently, a moneybags, but we don't get much insight as to how he got there, other than he's a hedge fund manager.  I don't guess it matters, but I'm a little bothered by people in fiction who are tremendously wealthy just for the sake of the story without the story telling us how he got there.

The story is suspenseful, but the suspense is a bit overplayed for the payoff.  The back stories are slowly revealed, but, again, by the time I learned about whatever dark secrets the past held, I didn't much care.  This is just the kind of story about nasty people and the nasty ways they behave that makes readers thankful that their own world is not full of such nasty people.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!