Her Husband’s Lover by Julia Crouch #bookreview

What’s it about?

She stole her husband. Now she wants to take her life.

After the horrors of the past, Louisa Williams is desperate to make a clean start. Her husband Sam is dead. Her children, too, are gone, victims of the car accident in which he died.

Sam said that she would never get away from him. That he would hound her to death if she tried to leave. Louisa never thought that he would want to harm their children though.
But then she never thought that he would betray her with a woman like Sophie.

And now Sophie is determined to take all that Louisa has left. She wants to destroy her reputation and to take what she thinks is owed her – the life she would have had if Sam had lived.

Her husband’s lover wants to take her life. The only question is will Louisa let her?

You can buy a copy of this book on Amazon UK | Amazon US.

Review

Talk about an unreliable narrator, this story has two of them !

There are 2 leading women in the story, Louisa and Sophie, and their lives could not be more different from each other. The stark contrasts between both of them made it all even more interesting and worked really well in playing with our feelings. The first is a hotshot designer (well she was before her pregnancies), living in a big house with her husband Sam and 2 beautiful children (a girl and a boy, of course). But all that glitters is not gold. Behind the façade of keeping up appearances she’s struggling to cope with her new life as a mother. She doesn’t want to accept help from others but the consequence is that she only gets through her days with a little liquid courage. The other woman in this story, Sophie, is living all alone in a little bedsit, a former waitress after she battled her drug addiction, but she’s happy. She’s also having an affair with the other woman’s husband.

Their lives collide when one night there’s a car chase resulting in an accident, leaving Louisa badly injured and all alone in the world. When questioned she blames Sam of abusing her, of wanting her dead. Sophie is having none of it though and she is determined to clear his name and get the money and house she feels she’s entitled to. That was the life she was going to lead and it was taken from her after all. She blames Louisa for all of it.

Right from the start Louisa got all the sympathy in the world from me. It’s quite obvious that she’s suffering from a post-natal depression after her first child, Poppy, was born, and she never really recovered. It hurt me to read about her struggles and the fact that she feels that Sam doesn’t understand and support her. On the contrary, he’s even judging her and bringing her down continuously. So all she wants after his death is leave her old life behind, move to another city and find a new job. Quite understandable, as it’s not easy at all all alone and the loss of her children seems to be even a harder burden, one that can only be lifted a little bit in the presence of a guy called Adam who she caught looking at her and who turns out to be smitten with her right away.

When the chapters progress and alternate more often with Sophie’s voice, I had to reassess my initial judgement however because suddenly she doesn’t seem all too bad really. I felt like she genuinely loved this guy and she truly believes he wasn’t a bad guy and it’s just not possible that he did the things Lou claims. So from thereon the author starts playing non-stop with my thoughts and loyalties. Who is speaking the truth? I believed it was Lou from the start but then why is there still this air of secrecy? What secrets does she have to hide for Adam, the guy who loves her so much and will never ever leave her? What were the events leading up to her flight in the middle of the night with her children strapped in the back seat? How dangerous is Sophie really? What is she going to do exactly to get that house and money?

The plotline does not direct us to one truth, only to be surprised in the end, oh no no, you get two for the price of one and it’s up to you to suss out the liar. It was all seriously messing with my mind! Who to believe and how it all fit together was nerve-wracking and I was dying to find out who was right here. The plotline took its time to unravel but unravelling it did in a way that was far better and more shocking than I anticipated. I had a sense of what was coming but the ending was still very explosive. I didn’t like the ending and yet I loved it if that’s making any sense. Just read it and you’ll see.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers through Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.