Review: 'The Trapped Wife' by Samantha Hayes

 What do you do when there is someone in your house that you don't trust? Who knows something about you that would shatter your life? Who is toying with you and clearly enjoying it? Those are the questions that The Trapped Wife intends to ask, but neither the questions nor the answers truly stuck for me. Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 98/2021
Publisher: Bookouture

My family gathers around the large oak table in our beautifully renovated home. I’ve put on a dress and lit candles, and there’s a wonderful aroma coming from the dinner you’ve so lovingly prepared. I feel your hand squeeze mine as you top up my glass and ask about my day as a doctor in our small town. It’s the perfect domestic scene, except for one tiny fact: I think my husband is dead, and you are just another patient of mine…

I had no choice but to let you in. If I laugh at your jokes and run my fingers through your hair, maybe I can delete the photos on your phone and find the truth about the night I can’t remember, just before my husband left on the trip he never returned from. Perhaps my son and I will have a chance at a normal life again.

But as I carefully piece together the shards of what really happened that fateful night, only one thing can possibly be true: everyone is lying, even me…

So first of all this blurb is misleading, specifically that first paragraph. I don't want to start of a review negatively, but it does set readers up for a bad reading experience if the blurb is so off. The blurb employs, or hints at, a different kind of suspense, a different kind of plot, almost, than we actually get in the book, so after I got about three chapters in I had to make sure I was reading the right book. I'm all about keeping things mysterious, but let's not be inaccurate. Because Thrillers depend on getting off to a good start! We need to know what we're in for, so that we stick with it when the tension rises. And The Trapped Wife gets off to an amazing start, dropping you right into Jennifer's mind. Her stress and confusion is palpable and it hooks you immediately. 

Jennifer is not having a great time. Her husband has recently died in a ski accident, she is pregnant and now her new patient, Scott, who seems eerily familiar, won't leave her alone. After revealing his intentions and his role in her past, Scott forces his way into her home and life, leaving Jennifer with seemingly little options of regaining her independence and former happiness. But this is only half the plot. Occasionally we pop back in time, to two unhappy schoolkids, who squash bugs and lament their home-lives. As their actions escalate, you can't help but wonder how this relates to Jennifer. I'm going to have to be honest and say that the link between the two plotlines didn't work for me. While Hayes successfully wrongfoots you in fun ways here and there, this subplot takes away from the pace of the novel. Hayes does mention in an afterword that one scene in this subplot was where The Trapped Wife started for her, so I can see why it was important for her, but it didn't really add much for me, despite the history it presents. I also struggled connecting to Jennifer, who is mainly reactive in many parts of the novel. Scott himself is a question mark of a character, in that he is technically the worst but I can't form a proper picture of him. A lot of aspects of his character make sense on their own but not in combination. There is a whole set of side-characters, many of whom play important roles in the narrative but don't feel fully realized on their own. 

A quick SPOILER alert, please skip to the word SAFE ZONE below if you don't want any kind of spoilers, or angry rants from me! Are we good? Ok. Here is something I'm really beginning to dislike in domestic thriller books. We all know I love a good unreliable narrator, I love being surprised like that or being constantly unsure like that. What I do not like is when a narrator is revealed to have been lying to the reader, in the sense that the interior monologue and thoughts that we have been seeing has been actively misleading. Don't convince me she is worried about her husband, about his affair, all these things, if she has at least some of the answers already. (Yes, I'm aware the blurb says she lies, but then show us how she does it, let us build suspicion without explaining it away immediately!) That's not an unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is either a narrator whose own perception of their actions is off or inaccurate, or a narrator who is actively narrating and therefore misleading. In The Trapped Wife we have an omniscient narrator, instead, who should know the truth, being omniscient. Through them we get to see inside a variety of characters' minds, but what we see there should be the truth. If you want to cut away before revealing something, please do, but don't write twists that undercut your own work, don't leave things hanging in a way that doesn't make sense! Especially when the build-up to it becomes a bit agonizing and therefore also annoying. The SAFE ZONE starts here! I had to get that rant out. thank you for bearing with me. 

The Trapped Wife feels long, which was odd. I enjoyed much of the pacing, of the slow unraveling of characters and plot, but then at a certain point it did begin to drag. About halfway through the novel I begun to wonder whether Samantha Hayes wasn't trying to do too much. We have a missing husband, a house intruder, we also have family tension, strained friendships, and concerns about a blurry night. It was specifically the latter which felt majorly underworked, which was a shame since it is meant to fuel so much of the tension. Also, considering the themes it deals with, it should have been handled with care. And then there is the historic subplot where we deal with troubled childhoods, murder, and teen angst. It all adds up to a lot of "something", but it never entirely connects for me. Sometimes it felt like there was two great books inside of The Trapped Wife which, by being combined, lost some of their power. However, Hayes does keep your attention, she does make you want to keep reading, to follow it all to the bitter end. I will definitely be giving some of Hayes' other books a read, as I do think she has all the tools needed to make for a great thriller. Sadly this one just wasn't it for me.

I give this novel...

3 Universes!

While there were many aspects of The Trapped Wife that I did enjoy, it ends up trying to do too much, which leads to much of it not working for me.

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