When sisters Tully and Rachel agree to have lunch with their father and his new girlfriend, they aren’t sure what to expect. He’s still married to their mother Pam, and although they have had to put her in a nursing home for her dementia, this still seems fast to them. Then, they meet her, Heather, who her parents had hired to redecorate their house. And it turns out that Heather is younger than both Tully and Rachel. And then, to top off their lunch, their dad announces that they’re getting married. Rachel and Tully are stunned.
Rachel is older. While she is incredibly beautiful, she doesn’t date. She’s a baker, running the business from her home and posting photos of her gorgeous wedding cakes and other treats online. When she needs to hire someone to do deliveries for her, she checks with the unemployment office and hires Darcy, who had been unemployed for well over a year. And when she shows up late for her first delivery, Rachel thinks she knows why she’s been unemployed for so long. And then Darcy turns up. And Darcy is a man. A very handsome man. A handsome man with a genuine talent for bad baking puns. But it made her smile, and Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled like that.
Tully is married with two young sons. But life is far from perfect. Her husband Sonny just lost a lot of money from a bad investment, and they have to sell their gorgeous house and downsize. Her older son is a happy guy, but her youngest has a lot of anxiety, and Tully has to give him extra attention to keep him moving forward. Which means that she spends her nights sleeping next to his bed while he adjusts to his big boy bed from his crib. She tries her best to be strong, but she has trouble staying away from the shops. Her husband always gets upset when he sees her new items, but she can’t tell him that it’s not costing him anything. She shoplifted it all.
Their mother had also shoplifted when she was younger, and even into her dementia. Their father mentioned that he had several things in his car that he’d been meaning to return, so Rachel offered to take care of that for him. But when she was going through the random things she was supposed to return, she found a hot water bottle in a crocheted case. Rachel liked it quite a bit and thought about using it, as a reminder of the times her mother used a hot water bottle to comfort her as a child. But when she opens it up, she finds that there’s cash in it. A lot of cash. Almost $100 thousand dollars. Why would her mother have that kind of cash around? What would she have used it for? How did she get it?
Rachel asks her father about the money, and then her mother, and then her sister, and while she doesn’t get the answers she was expecting, she does learn things about her family that makes her question everything and changes the entire dynamic of their family.
Sally Hepworth is back with The Younger Wife, a wild ride about family secrets, personal shame, and the path to a brighter future. Told in alternating perspectives from Rachel, Tully, and Heather, this story starts with the wedding and goes back to the luncheon where the sisters first met Heather for the story to unfold slowly. This novel is filled with heart, as these characters open up to new experiences and grow. There is some humor, lots of fun surprises, lots of cake, lots of wine, and lots of healing.
I found The Younger Wife to be like a domestic thriller wrapped in a warm hug. Watching these characters come together to heal their family was lovely, and the dark secrets that come out could tear these relationships apart but they don’t. While there was a lot of truths coming out and reckonings, like in a traditional thriller, there was also so much warmth in these characters as they faced their truths and pivoted to a new reality. These are characters I wanted to spend more time with, so it was a little disappointing when I got to the end, but I loved this book. It is another phenomenal book from Sally Hepworth, and I strongly recommend this one to anyone with a family!
Egalleys for The Younger Wife were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.
