The Last Wife
A Novel
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3.2 • 56 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the internationally bestselling author of The Perfect Girlfriend.
Two women. A dying wish. And a web of lies that will bring their world crashing down..
Nina and Marie were best friends—until Nina was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Before she died, Nina asked Marie to fulfill her final wishes.
But her mistake was in thinking Marie was someone she could trust.
What Nina didn’t know was that Marie always wanted her beautiful life, and that Marie has an agenda of her own. She’ll do anything to get what she wants.
Marie thinks she can keep her promise to her friend’s family on her own terms. But what she doesn’t know is that Nina was hiding explosive secrets of her own…
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
They say keep your friends close and your enemies closer—but what if they’re one and the same? That’s the central question in the second domestic thriller from Karen Hamilton, the best-selling author of The Perfect Girlfriend. Marie has been secretly jealous of her best friend, Nina, since they were kids. So when Nina dies of cancer and Marie’s boyfriend dumps her, leaving her heartbroken and despondent, Marie initiates plan B: moving into Nina’s house to start a relationship with her friend’s widowed husband and become a mother figure for Nina’s kids. This setup alone was enough to give us serious chills—even before Marie discovers that Nina may not have been completely forthcoming about her “perfect” life. Hamilton’s ominous tale of deceit and delusion had us feeling like the book’s twisted heroine, desperate to know what other secrets were lurking in the dark.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marie Langham, the unreliable narrator of this gripping thriller from Hamilton (The Perfect Girlfriend) set somewhere in England, wants to honor the last request of her best and possibly only friend, Nina Thompson, who has recently died of melanoma: to protect Nina's family. Marie immediately offers to help Nina's husband with the children. From there it's a short hop to moving into the Thompson family home and making herself indispensable. After years of regarding Nina's life with envy, Maria at last can play the role she has always dreamed of, though not everyone is pleased with this new reality. "The speed at which you gleefully took over has left a few of us a bit shell-shocked," a good friend of Nina remarks. As unwelcome people from Marie's past pop up on her doorstep, and as she realizes that her view of Nina was colored by her own longing, she comes to a terrifying decision that leads to murder. Everybody has a nasty side, but that's just one of the pleasures of this cunning whodunit. A devious plot is another. Hamilton knows how to keep the pages turning.
Customer Reviews
Not the best, not the worst
This is one of those books that’s like “meh, it’s not bad but it’s not great either”. However, I did go in with high expectations after reading how many other people had enjoyed it, so maybe that’s why I was so disappointed! To me, it read like a long diary entry that tied up nicely at the end...
Kept waiting for something to happen
It just didn’t. The ending fell flat and all the buildup for certain characters just fizzled and washed away. Would not recommend.