The Ex-Wife: A nail biting gripping psychological thriller

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And then there's Cassie and to be honest I spent very little time on her chapters because I was not interested in following around the typical silly teen girl who so easily is pulled into trouble by those older, smoldering, lying, cheating teen boys. *sigh* You might think that the story about an ex-wife is one that was used so many times that it doesn't present any interest, but this is not true. Sally Rigby and Amanda Ashby found a new way to tell it.

The characters were a mixed bunch that I could take or leave. Alice made a lot of stupid decisions that made her look half crazy, and even stalkerish, but I liked her. I wasn't a fan of Mark purely for the fact that he could so easily dump his wife of fifteen years for a younger woman. And Norah, I didn't much like her for the same reason. Scott was a creep that just slithered around for opportunity - I didn't trust him one bit. And Felix was a little too good to be true. The book is told from the POV of Natasha then and Anna now. We aren’t initially told who Anna is or why she’s in hiding. Natasha irritated me as she was just so dependent on her husband. Although to be honest, way too many women make some of the same mistakes she did. Ladies, the main takeaway from this book is the importance of being financially independent! Make sure you read to the very end of the book to read the first chapter of Sally and Amanda's 'Remember Me?' which looks just as addictive as this one and one Im looking forward to reading myself! Just like with the storyline the characters come to life with Sally and Amanda's fantastic writing skills. They are well rounded, realistic and strong making them all the more believable. Alice's life falls apart as she is arrested for the murder of her ex husband Mark's new fiancee along and her ex husband and daughter shun her. Being a parent myself my heart absolutely broke for Alice as she not only had to deal with the heartbreak of losing her husband but also deal with the attitude and problems that come with raising a teenager that has her own problems along with a family seperation added. I really liked AAlice but I could have shouted at her on a few occasions for some of the things that she did. However, it feels like she cant do right for doing wrong when it comes to her daughter Cassie and while she dislikes her new boyfriend Scott, neither do Mark, Norah or Felix, Cassie does what the majority of teenagers do and the more her parents didn't want her to do something the more she pushed against them. Regardless of how annoyed at Cassie |I was at times my heart also went out to her as she was going through problems with Scott along with the breakdown of her family. Where most teenagers would go completely off the rails I do believe that Cassie's behaviour was pretty mild compared to most others would have been. I actually liked Norah too and although she did get engaged to Mark not long after he separated from his wife, she was not the one who had been in a relationship so she didn't really do anything wrong and she was actually a likeable character. I wasn't a huge fan of Mark but I will say that he didn't slate Alice in regards to her parenting skills and they did try to do their best and work together with Alice for Cassie. The only one I actually didn't like was Scott who I didn't trust from the start and didn't like the way he was with Cassie. I won't go into more details as I don't want to risk giving anything away but Amanda and Sally really have done an amazing job constructing an addictive and explosive psychological thriller with fantastic and varied characters that you just won't be able to put down!!The book opens with Alice on trial for the murder of her ex-husband’s fiancée & her daughter’s boyfriend. In court, her air is one of acceptance & it appears that the only unknown is how long the prison sentence will be. We are then thrown to six months previously & shown the torturous route to present day. Everyone has their own secrets and problems that they deal with that nobody else even knows about. The characters in this book were a true example of that. Congratulations Sally and Amanda on an explosive success!!! Welcome both to my favourite author club!! Here's to many more successes 🥂!!! But “Ex-Wife,” which is now being reissued (by McNally Editions) for the first time in more than thirty years, wasn’t the racy, frothy endorsement of cosmopolitan white women’s liberation that readers were primed to expect. As Marsha Gordon argues in her engaging new biography, “ Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott” (University of California Press), the novel “offers a strong case for the protections of marriage and the dangers of being an unattached woman.” In Parrott’s view, women’s drive for equality in the post-Victorian age had “made their lives harder,” Gordon writes, “and her stories dramatized the consequences of this unwanted bequest.” Or, as Parrott once told an interviewer, “I am not a feminist. In fact, I resent the feminists—they are the ones who started all this.” I loved the way Jess used the present story of “Anna” on the run to counterbalance where we were at in the main story. We know SOMETHING happened that led to a life on the run, but getting there is the fun part.

Natasha is struggling to make it as a barista in the city. Living on a tight budget, she cycles to work daily until one fateful day dramatically changes her life for the better - or so she thought. Still, if you love psychological thrillers with MANY twists and turns, this may be the book for YOU, although it fell short for ME. Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.My life was perfect until she came along. Norah. Younger, prettier and about to marry my own ex-husband, they are a walking cliché. I hate her. I hate them both. She’s taken everything from me – my husband, my life, my home - but I refuse to allow her to take Cassie, my beautiful daughter. That's a step too far. Now I’ve discovered that Norah plans to have a baby of her own and that causes me no end of problems. She could destroy everything and reveal my deepest, darkest secrets. That can never be allowed to happen. No matter what it costs… The ex-wife’ starts with a prologue where we meet Anna lying in a hospital bed, obviously distraught and not aware of what happened to her. Thank you to Bookouture, NetGalley, and Jess Ryder for an advanced reader copy of The Ex-Wife!I hope to read more of Ryder's books in the future! Natasha’s life seems perfect, I said “seems” because she has everything, a handsome husband who’s rich, a beautiful home and a lovely baby girl. But she can’t enjoy all of them because of her husband’s ex-wife, Jen. She is everywhere, Jen is the wife that her husband’s family like and she is in all their family gathering, always in touch with the husband. It’s like Jen still is his wife, not Natasha. One day when Natasha comes home he couldn’t find her daughter and her husband. She searches everywhere and asks everyone but no one knows anything. And still, there is someone who has to ask, Jen. Can she trust Jen? Does Jen know anything at all? And if she doesn’t so what’s happened to the husband and the baby girl? It is set over multiple time lines. When books show what has happened in the past and what is happening in the present I find it really helps the reader (if it is well done) understand why things are happening and what has lead to the present activities and decisions. It also shows the bigger picture

Alice is under arrest and waiting for trial. She supposedly killed Norah, the fiancee of her ex-husband. Ex-Wife” depicted remarkable erotic freedom — “I think chastity, really, went out when birth control came in,” a more seasoned ex-wife named Lucia remarks — but abuse and violence is always lurking around the corner. Patricia is slut-shamed mercilessly by her husband, Pete, after she cheats on him — even though he’s cheated on her. They had a baby he was jealous of, who dies, and when Patricia gets pregnant again he beats her. Going to terminate the pregnancy, she wonders if she herself “might be turning up a corpse before sunset.” Later, she is raped, and considers suicide. a b c d Jacobs, Alexandra (30 April 2023). "She Wrote Frankly About Divorce, and Suffered the Consequences". New York Times.And then he drops another bombshell. Quite by accident. He and Norah are trying IVF. They are planning to have a baby together. No, this cannot be happening. Suddenly, Norah is threatening to take everything else away from her carefully laid plans and Alice couldn't let that happen. And so what ensues is one bad decision after another which ultimately leads to Alice sitting in a prison cell awaiting trial for murder. How did it come to this? How did she get here? This is one twisty story that will have you thinking you know what happened and then bam! Told from alternate viewpoints this is such a fantastic story that you will be addicted to. You just have to know what happened, how and why. So many lies, cheating and trust issues! Newly married Natasha has the perfect house, a loving husband and a beautiful little girl called Emily. She’d have it all if it wasn’t for Jen, her husband’s ex-wife who just won’t leave them alone ... A roller coaster ride with amazingly fleshed out characters. If you are tired of reading thrillers where you just can't understand a character's motivation, give this one a shot. You'll question the characters in the beginning, but as the book goes on, Jess Ryder explains them so well and makes you understand their motivations, their weaknesses, their strengths... everything about them. There's plenty of crazy situations in this one, and lots of surprises to keep you on your toes.

This is a very clever and gripping tale of how easily one’s life can change and unravel at a moment’s notice and impact on many other lives. A riveting psychological thriller that takes the familiar story of an ex-wife and infuses it with unexpected twists, suspense, and a cast of characters with dark secrets, making it an unputdownable read. David North was convicted of murdering of his fiance. To the rest of the courtroom, it was an open-and-shut case. But as DS George Cross sees the man smile as he's led away from sentencing, he becomes certain something crucial had been missed. Natasha is a new wife and mother. She’s married to a strikingly handsome, wealthy husband who adores her, and a beautiful young daughter she loves with all her heart. Sounds fairly close to perfect...right? Thank You to Netgalley, Bookouture and the author for providing an ARC in exchange for my candid review!A marriage built on secrets, lies, and pure craziness leads to the ultimate betrayal in The Ex-Wife.