The blog tour officially starts today! For the next 10 days you can follow all the other bloggers on the Random Things Tours as they discuss their thoughts on Karen Hamilton's newest book The Last Wife.
SYNOPSIS:
How far would you go to fulfil a promise to your oldest friend?
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.
‘A clever, addictive psychological thriller with a twisting page-turning plot and a compelling and complicated central character.’ – Jenny Quintana
My Thoughts:
Marie and Nina are best friends, they do everything together and are inseparable, until Nina dies through a terminal illness. In her final days she asks Marie to make sure her children are looked after and Marie is only too happy to step into Nina's shoes, after all, this is what she has always wanted.
This was a really twisted psychological thriller, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Marie was the perfect creepy character, I questioned her integrity from the opening chapters and her own mindset. It was heartbreaking that she was desperate for her own child and husband, and when her boyfriend left it seemed the natural choice for her to move in with her best friend's grieving family. Although initially to help support them and for a short period of time you just knew she had no intention of moving back out. As she crawled her way into Nina's life you got a real sense of how manipulating Marie could be.
However, as the novel evolved I began to wonder if Marie was the only unhinged character. There certainly seemed to be a lot of secrets coming to the surface and things didn't appear as they first seemed. It was at this point that I started to wonder who were the reliable characters and began to feel some sympathy towards Marie, was she truly as bad as I first perceived?
I loved the way the focus of story changed with the arrival of Camilla, a mutual friend to Nina and Marie. It was clear that Nina had been in contact with Camilla before she died and an air of mystery surrounding why added to the story line. This also allowed you to have a glimpse of Marie's past which helped to understand how certain events had influenced and shaped her.
Hamilton definitely knows how to keep you hooked as the tension builds with each chapter. This was a really interesting and chilling read. Many thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours and Wildfire for inviting me to join The Last Wife blog tour.
About The Author:
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. #TheLastWife | Twitter: @KJHAuthor