ARC Review: The Wife Upstairs

 

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

The Wife Upstairs is both a mashup of Jane Eyre and Rebecca (even containing characters named Edward, Jane, and Bertha), and a brand new exploration of what has become almost its own gothic genre. The finished product is absolutely a success.

Readers are introduced to Jane (the new wife) and Bertha (the previous wife) through their own first person narrations. Jane begins as a dog walker for the extremely wealthy in an exclusive neighborhood, but as the story continues, we learn her beginnings are far darker than originally indicated. Bertha began her own highly successful company from the ground up, but there are hints that there were large cracks in the facade she put up.

Hawkins expertly explores so many themes here: family, wealth, what women must do to survive and thrive, being haunted by the past, and the idea of facades in humans and buildings both, just to name a few. This book has so many layers, and its because of that that the ending comes as such a brilliant and shocking surprise. 

This is a book that absolutely lives up to the hype.