By: Jane Corry
“There are times when you’ll find yourself swearing that blue is black. You’ll truly believe it yourself. We all do it. It’s not that lawyers lie. It’s that they twist the real facts to make another world that everyone else believes in, too. And who’s to say that won’t be a better world?”
My Husband’s Wife
*This post contains spoilers for My Husband’s Wife
Overview:
When young lawyer Lily marries Ed, she’s determined to make a fresh start and leave the secrets of the past behind. But then she takes on her first murder case and meets Joe, a convicted murderer to whom Lily is strangely drawn—and for whom she will soon be willing to risk almost anything.
My Husband’s Wife
But Lily is not the only one with secrets. Her next-door neighbor Carla may be only nine, but she has already learned that secrets are powerful things. That they can get her whatever she wants.
When Lily finds Carla on her doorstep twelve years later, a chain of events is set in motion that can end only one way.
You’re probably thinking “didn’t you just talk about a book with this same title?” and you would be correct.
I went to a Friends of the Library sale and saw this book. I mistakenly thought it was My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney (I didn’t remember who the author was at the time). Also, all the books we like $1 or $2 so I wasn’t exactly concerned about fact checking at the time.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by this book and enjoyed it more than the Alice Feeney My Husband’s Wife.
The book follows two people, Lily and Carla.
Lily is a lawyer trying to establish herself. She gets a case of a man convicted of murdering his girlfriend but claims her was falsely convicted. She is also newly married to Ed, a struggling artist who swept her into a whirlwind romance.
Carla is a young girl who lives with her mother next door to Lily and Ed. Carla’s mother is either working or seeing her boyfriend who is a married man. Lily and Ed often watch Carla for her mother.
As the book progresses we learn that Lily and Ed’s relationship is not secure at all. Ed is still hung up on his ex who he stopped seeing shortly before marrying Lily. Lily also finds out that Ed’s family required him to get married by a certain time or he would lose access to a trust fund. Coincidentally, Lily and Ed married right before the deadline.
The book time jumps halfway through and Carla is know a young adult attending law school. Carla believes that Lily and Ed owe her money as she sat for a painting that Ed did that was mildly successful. She moves back to the area to exact her revenge on the couple. This includes her plan to break up Lily and Ed by seducing Ed.
As Ed is a weak and opportunistic man, he leaves Lily for Carla who quickly gets pregnant.
Lily is not too upset about the whole thing just that it will complicate things with the son she has with Ed. Ed believes that he should have sole custody even through Lily is the only one with an actual job.
Carla basks in her victory for a short amount of time before realizing that Ed is no prize. He is controlling and demanding. Never wanting to work and believing that he is a genius artist that no one appreciates.
To book ends with the murder of Ed. Carla is represented by Lily in the trial and found not guilty. Lily confronts Carla after the fact revealing that she knows Carla was Ed’s killer. Carla attacks Lily and is jailed for the assault.
In the end Lily gets to move on with her son and new partner. She is the only character to get a happy ending as she is the only one who is actually a good person. Everyone else gets what is coming to them.
Overall,
I enjoyed the overall story. I do thin that it could have been cut to a much shorter book. By the point in the book that the time jump happened, I felt like the book could have just ended. The second half added that additional story of Carla seeking her revenge but it was just more of the same.
I think that Ed is one of the most insufferable characters that I have read in quite a while. Lily had everything going for her and once she found out that Ed married her for his trust fund, she should have left. Her staying with him was justified that she stayed for their child. At that point she was well established enough that she could have easily left.
It was nice that once Lily found out that Ed was having an affair with Carla she didn’t try and fight. She was looking for a way out and was completely fine with letting Ed go.
I would have liked for Carla to have a little more of a redemption arc. In the end she is a murderous, mistress who doesn’t want to take care of her child. Even though she succeeded with her plan and got everything she wanted, she was sadly mistaken on what her life would be like. She would have been better off becoming a lawyer and moving on with her life. Instead, she blamed others for her misfortune and wanted to ruin Lily’s life.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
