REVIEW:

Here’s something you should know about The Wife Upstairs and then quickly forget. It’s a modern twist on Jane Eyre.

Why forget it? Because these are not Bronte’s characters, and this is not her story. Consider her classic the spark that lights the fuse of this 2021 thriller, and then just sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

The Wife Upstairs is the exact opposite of whatever a slow-burn novel is. The action never drags and almost moves so quickly that it flies fairly close to insta-love territory. Our main character Jane (natch) is a dog walker in a gated Alabama McMansion community. Her means and looks are simple, though she aspires to live a life of more glitz, glamour, and gold. Fortunately she meets Eddie Rochester (wink) and the sparks fly although he recently lost his rich entrepreneurial wife to mysterious circumstances.

Despite the publisher’s description, I found the atmosphere to be more Bravo TV than gothic. No complaints there, just a management of expectations. The audiobook has a multiple narrator format, which I always enjoy. If I have one quibble, it would be that the female voices are fairly similar and indistinct from one another. With a setting in Alabama, you’d expect at least one of them to have a drippy southern drawl, but there really isn’t a twang to be heard.

While it seems I’m slightly less enthusiastic than some other early readers, I’d still recommend this book to suspense/thriller fans. 3.5 stars rounded up for the pacing and surprises.

The audiobook is currently available on the Hoopla library app. (As of 2/19/21.)

I’d like to thank the author and Macmillan Audio for the advanced listeners copy to review via NetGalley.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

A delicious twist on a Gothic classic, Rachel Hawkins's The Wife Upstairs pairs Southern charm with atmospheric domestic suspense, perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Megan Miranda.

Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.

But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie––not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for.

Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past––or his––catches up to her?

With delicious suspense, incisive wit, and a fresh, feminist sensibility, The Wife Upstairs flips the script on a timeless tale of forbidden romance, ill-advised attraction, and a wife who just won’t stay buried. In this vivid reimagining of one of literature’s most twisted love triangles, which Mrs. Rochester will get her happy ending?