It's a pleasure to take part on the BlogTour The Last Wife by Karen Hamilton.
Karen Hamilton spent her childhood in Angola, Zimbabwe, Belgium and Italy, and developed a love of travel through moving around so much. This led her to a career as a flight attendant, and it was in the air that she thought of the idea for her debut thriller The Perfect Girlfriend.
Karen is a recent graduate of the Faber Academy, and has now put down roots in Hampshire to raise her young family with her husband. The Perfect Girlfriend was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller in paperback. The Last Wife is her hotly anticipated second novel.
Follow @KJHAuthor on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Visit karenhamiltonwriter.com, Buy The Last Wife
About the book
Nina, in the final days of her illness, asks her best friend Marie to look after her family when she's gone. And Marie does everything she can to step into Nina's shoes after her friend's tragic death. She tries to do the best by Nina, tries to be there for Nina's young children, tries to support Nina's grieving husband, tries to keep their lives on track despite their terrible loss.
But when Marie discovers a dark secret that Nina had kept concealed, she is forced to confront the past. Tense, heart-breaking and utterly gripping, The Last Wife explores the real nature of love and friendship – and just how fragile every relationship can be in the face of the secrets we hide from each other
I spent a lovely lazy Sunday - with interruptions for baking and cooking - enjoying this read. It's exactly what the doctor ordered when it comes to domestic thrillers. Nothing is what it seems, relationships are complicated and the goal posts change as the story progresses.
Marie promised Nina on her deathbed that she would take care of her children and Marie figures that means her poor grieving hubby too, which is fine I suppose if it weren't for the fact she has her own husband. Her marriage is going through a rough patch because she spends so much time taking care of Nina's family and obsessing about creating her own.
As the different threads unravel it is difficult to see whether there are any good guys or characters without any ulterior motives at all, and that includes the dead best friend Nina. Everyone appears to have some skin in the game.
What I really enjoyed about this read was the lack of protagonist, because let's be honest Marie is absolutely without a doubt a bona fide antagonist, even if she doesn't think she is. That is the beauty of the plot - the fact the reader doesn't really feel any empathy for Marie because she spends the entire time acting like a very determined serial killer/stalker.
Even when everything points towards her finally comprehending why people have such a problem with her she always has an inner dialogue and the world is set to rights again. Painting herself as the victim is such a narcissistic trait of hers, which in a way makes her such an excellent character.
Kudos to Hamilton for a riveting, fast paced read.
Buy The Last Wife at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Wildfire | pub date 25th June 2020 Hardback | £12.99. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Waterstones.
Read my review of The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton.
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