Such A Good Wife by Seraphina Nova Glass

I would like to thank Sarah from Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan

Published – 4/1

Price – £8.99 paperback £6.64 Kindle eBook

Melanie Hale is a devoted mother to her two children, a diligent caregiver to her ailing mother-in-law and a trusted neighbor in their wealthy Louisiana community. Above all, she's a loving partner to her wonderful husband, Collin.

Then there are the parts of herself that Mel keeps hidden. She's exhausted, worried and unfulfilled. So much so that one night, after a writers’ group meeting, Mel begins an affair with a successful local author named Luke. Suddenly she’s transformed into a role she doesn’t recognize—a woman who deceives with unseemly ease. A woman who might be capable of just about anything.

When Mel finds Luke’s dead body in his lavish rented house, she realizes just how high the stakes have become. Not only does she have to keep her affair a secret in order to preserve her marriage, but she desperately needs to avoid being implicated in Luke's death. But who would want to kill him? Who else in her life is keeping secrets? And most terrifying of all, how far will they—and she—go to keep those secrets hidden?

Sometimes we will seek an escape from our lives. Doing the same thing; seeing the same people year after year and having to be just one fact of your personality can be limiting. But if you give into temptation that may not always lead to happier results. In Seraphina Nova Glass’ thriller Such A Good Wife a mother and wife takes a chance with a stranger leading to lust, death and a web of lies and deceptions.

Melanie should on the face of it be a happy woman with husband and two children in an affluent community. But her husband is stressed and busy with work; her daughter is about to become a teenager and her autistic child is about to start school. She cares for her ailing Mother-In-Law with early dementia and whenever she meets other housewives at various catch ups she feels both trapped and looked down upon. She no longer feels like herself. A writing group opens in the local town and while there are some unusual people in it what takes her attention is famous romance writer Luke. The chemistry between then leads to a steamy affair but then Luke is murdered. Melanie finds herself constantly covering up her secrets and lies build on lies but then she starts to realise the killer may be closing in on her.

Glass has a very focused approach. We are teased up front on the murder and then go back a few weeks to see how Melanie got into this position. Narrated by Melanie we get to see her life and feel her sense of being lost within the role of housewife and mother so the magnetic Luke pulls her out of her growing despair that this is the life she will always live. But Glass makes it clear that Melanie is very conflicted and then pushes her into darker territory up to her discovering Luke’s body. This then is how far do you go to cover your tracks and when Melanie realises her secrets could destroy her family how much further can she go? Listening to all of her self-justifications for each lie and secret is a fascinating study of how a good person can quickly change to suit their needs.

The other aspect I enjoyed discovering in the story was how all the secrets of this community coming out. We see a police officer who loves to show himself as the good guy and Melanie finds out about his darker side; we meet various women who all carry secrets and Luke himself is seen to be no angel. This perfect rich community is shown to be very flawed; very contradictory and full of its own dangers. The narration does pull you along to discover how Melanie fell from grace and how she can get out of this intact.

I think for me the downside of the tale is that while I could sort of understand all these motivations, I felt the plot while laser focused needed time to breathe. The choice to immediately say in the prologue Luke has died actually for me lost tension and it didn’t really then shock me watching Melanie’s actions. The list of potential suspects is not huge either so may be a little too easy to work out what happened, but I did enjoy the finale which is dark and actually surprising in how far Melanie seeks some form of justice.

Such A Good Wife is a fine well-paced thriller with a question on how far anyone goes to protect themselves and their loved ones. In places steamy, alarming and also disturbing it is a very entertaining thriller and may be a great pick me up after the festive relaxations to get your heart pumping again!