Jane Bell is a dog walker. She had been a barista, but one of the wealthier women she served coffee to noticed that Jane had a way with her dog, so she hired her as a dog walker. Then one of her rich friends hired Jane too. And then another. So now she spends her days walking dogs through a wealthy enclave in Birmingham, Alabama, wondering what happens behind those closed doors.
And then, one day, while Jane is standing in the street admiring her favorite house on the block, a car comes speeding out the garage and almost runs her over.
The driver, Eddie Rochester, apologizes profusely, and even invites her in for coffee, to make sure she’s okay. Jane is just as taken with the inside of the house, and with Eddie himself, and she starts making plans to run into him again.
Eddie is a widower. His wife, Bea, and her best friend Blanche (who had also lived in that same enclave) had both gone missing after a boating accident. There had been alcohol, and it had been dark, and the lake where they’d taken the boat was deep. The women’s bodies were never found, but they were assumed to be dead. And now Eddie was a wealthy widower, running both his successful contracting business and Bea’s ultra popular lifestyle company Southern Manors.
And Jane really didn’t want to be walking dogs anymore. She doesn’t want to live in the crappy bedroom she rents from an old friend. She doesn’t want to feel like she’s running from her foster kid childhood anymore. She wants to find somewhere she can be loved, she can fit in, she can call home. And if that place is in Eddie’s beautiful house, then so much the better.
Weeks go by, and then months, and Jane finds herself living in Eddie’s house, using his credit card to buy new clothes, building friendships with the women whose dogs she used to walk. She gets her hair done, she gets her nails done, and she is hardly recognizable anymore to those who knew her before.
But the more she learns about the boat accident, the less things add up. Eddie clearly has some secrets, but is it really possible that he had killed his wife and her best friend? Or was something else going on, something even more sinister than Jane could have ever predicted?
The Wife Upstairs is a crazy, twisted take on Jane Eyre. Filled with plot twists coming from every angle, this thriller may have its roots in a gothic classic, but the modern additions turns this suspenseful novel into a must-read. Author Rachel Hawkins has truly taken this story to new heights.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Wife Upstairs. Knowing the novel it’s based on, I knew some of what was coming, but there were so many layers in this story, so much happening with each of these characters, that I was never bored with this version. The secrets pile up, twisting themselves into knots that you have to slowly unravel as you figure out what is truth and what is deception. I recommend this one to all thriller fans.
Egalleys for The Wife Upstairs were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.
