The Wives by Tarryn Fisher

 

Tarryn Fisher is probably one of my top "guilty pleasure" reads. She doesn't tell the best stories, but she tells ones that keep me turning pages, and with enough DNFs in my wake to stack a mountain, that says something. Her plots are always super weird, and super original, with a big twist that usually has me going, "WHAT? HUH?" And all of those things happen in THE WIVES. I, the reader, was gaslighted, and then gaslighted, and then gaslighted again. It was gasception.

Thursday, a nurse and totally all around average Jane, is married to Seth, a polygamist. She is his only legal wife in their plural marriage, but she knows that she's seeing two other women. Women that she knows only as Monday and Tuesday. And she's okay with that. REALLY. Only-- not really. Not so much. And when the opportunity falls into her lap to find out more about his other wives, she totally carpe adulteries it. Because wouldn't you?

Things get weird when she meets Monday and sort of ends up befriending her, resulting in her learning things about her husband that shock her. Dark things. Things that make her wonder if he's really the man she married. And then she meets Tuesday and things get even weirder. What is going on with her husband and his other wives? But just when you think you have it figured out, THINGS GET WEIRDER.

I'm not sure how I feel about the twist(s). Yes, it feels a little cheap, but I also didn't think it was badly done. I could see this book as a mini-series or a movie. The pacing was on point and the mystery kept me flipping pages like nobody's business, wanting to find out what happened. Overall, I think I'm sitting at a high three because I was entertained but not wowed.

P.S. Seth sucks.

3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars