Book Review: The Senator's Wife - Liv Contantine

 Four star read

 

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, for which I thank them.

I’m a huge fan of this writing duo’s previous book “The Last Mrs. Parrish,” so I had really high hopes for “The Senator’s Wife.” Once I finished reading the book, I had to sit on my review for a day to figure out how I felt about it.

On one hand, this book is probably one of my family member’s largest fears - having someone unknown enter the house to give care. Between a stranger being there all the time and things going downhill medically - yep, not good. On the other hand, this book I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for many of the main characters (I liked two of the side characters, though - Doris and Emmy). I’m not sure why Madelyn was there - other than be to be stereotypical “bad woman”; she’s hurtful and mean, but didn’t contribute much other than red herringness, if even that. This book was really a slow-burn, which this duo is known for writing well, but there seemed to be a lot of detail that didn’t necessarily tie into the plot, even once the plot was speeding down a hill toward the conclusion. I found the research done on Lupus to be interesting as it’s a disease I know very little about. I’ve seen other reviews refer to this book as a “soap thriller” and I have to admit, that’s a great description - I can see this being a TV movie. This book has a lot of gas lighting, a lot of hidden agendas, and a lot of mystery. The ending seemed to be a bit too quick, but it did clear up some things and expose the character of the character more fully. I’m glad to have read this book and I do recommend reading it.