TITLE: THE SECRET LIVES OF MARRIED WOMEN
AUTHOR: ELISSA WALD
Pages: 220
Date: 11/10/2013
Grade: 4+
Details: Received from Hard Case Crime
Through Nudge
Own
Leda and Lillian are identical twins yet very
different. While Leda has always been the wild one with a free and adventurous
spirit, Lillian is a lot more repressed and has lived her life according to a
strict plan. Now that they’re both in
their thirties and married their lives should be settled but both women are
about to discover that life still holds shocks and surprises.
Leda has just moved into a new house with her Russian
husband and young daughter. Even before she moves in she attracts the attention
of the builder working on the house next door. And before she’s quite aware of
it the man seems to be around all the time, constantly finding opportunities to
be in her company and in her house. Leda has found herself a stalker who knows
more about her past than even her husband does and Leda can’t help being afraid
of the man. She doesn’t know what fear is though, until the builder disappears
and the police start investigating what happened to him.
Lillian is preparing for what may well be one of the
most difficult trails of her career when she discovers her sister’s dark secret
and a side to her husband that she never knew existed. When the facts she
uncovers for the trail show links to the secret her sister has kept for so long
Lillian finds herself discovering things about herself she never knew.
This is a strange one for me. The Secret Lives of
Married Women was a very easy book to read and yet it is proving very hard to
review. Part of the problem is that rather than one continued
story this book contains two separate narratives. While there are some links
between Leda’s and Lillian’s stories, these are superficial at best. The
continuity lies in the fact that both sisters find themselves in situations
they are ill prepared for and dealing with them in ways they wouldn’t have been
able to imagine. If, like me, you find yourself waiting for a closer connection
between the two stories to be revealed you will be disappointed; I know I was.
I was also slightly bewildered that my favourite
character in this book was not either of the two sisters but rather a secondary
character in Lillian’s story. Nan’s story, for
me, was the most powerful and heart-wrenching one. The orphan raised by nuns
who resigns her job as a professional submissive when she has the opportunity
to become the personal assistant for a blind developer, only to lose what has
been the best thing that ever happened to her was equally beautiful and
devastating. Unfortunately I can’t say more without completely spoiling the
story.
The cover of this book seems to suggest that this is a
rather sexy, if not raunchy book. And while there are certain scenes in this
book that more than live up to that promise, I wouldn’t call this erotic
fiction. But then, I wouldn’t call this a crime novel either even though there
is an investigation in Leda’s part of the story and a trail in Lillian’s. In
fact, I’m not quite sure how to label this book.
What I can say with certainty is that this is a good
book that managed to surprise me on several occasions. This is a very well
written novel containing a fascinating and easy to read story which is never
quite what you expect it to be. And in these days, when a lot of books appear to
be written according to a formula, that makes a very nice change.
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