Review: 'The Housewife' by Natalie Barelli

There is true joy to be found in perfectly folded laundry and stunningly prepared desserts. This joy can be ruined, however, by husbands who may have killed their first wives. In The Housewife, Jodie finds herself confronted with exactly that, except that even with her not all is as it seems. Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 30/06/2026
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Jodie always dreamed of being a housewife. And after a whirlwind romance, she marries renowned psychologist Dr. Roy Davies and moves into his perfect Beverly Hills home. But the fairy tale fades fast. Roy is distant, his friends view her as a gold-digger, and the house still reveres his late wife, Deborah, whose presence still looms over everyone and everything.

When Jodie learns Deborah became a recluse before death, she begins to suspect Roy was behind it. And the deeper she digs, the darker Roy's past appears—obsessive, controlling, unfaithful. Increasingly convinced he had something to do with Deborah's death, Jodie knows she should go to the police, but that would require revealing her own secret. A secret that could destroy her. 

But Jodie won't be silenced. Because the truth about Roy is worse than she imagined—and now, trapped in a house built on lies, she must find a way out before she becomes the next perfect wife to vanish.

Housewives are having a real cultural moment, if, admittedly, in a very weird way. On the one hand, the aesthetics of being a traditional, stay-at-home wife have never been more in your face. Social media is flooded with homemade jams, fresh bread, clean linens, and sedate, happy smiles. On the other hand, though, there is a very intense debate taking place culturally about where the line is between enjoying taking care of your space and those you love and putting yourself in potential danger. That sounds dramatic, but if you don't have a job, no independent income, no safety net, then you are in danger girl. Now, many of the "tradition" housewives online are no such thing, because they are earning income from their social media, but that doesn't mean women watching don't end up putting themselves at a disadvantage because of what they see. A number of books recently have picked up on this trend, especially its dark underbelly, from Saratoga Schaefer's Trad Wife to Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. Thrillers and suspense novels have of course always known about the danger inherent to the overly domestic, to restrictive gender roles, to playing a role perfectly. The Housewife by Natalie Barelli fits perfectly both into the recent trend in pop culture and the more established thriller tradition.

Jodie is recently married to the well-known psychologist Roy and everything is great, except that it isn't. People won't stop mentioning how perfect his first wife, Deborah, was and how much he loved her. But if she was so beloved and amazing, why did she kill herself? And did Roy have something to do with it? Jodie is also keeping secrets of her own, though, and it becomes something of a race against time as she tries to figure out what happened to Deborah before anything about her own past is revealed. I liked Jodie as a protagonist because she is very blunt and honest about herself, even about her obsession with cleaning and cooking or her lack of understanding when it comes to social niceties. There are genuinely funny moments when she tries to interact with others or has to go stare at her perfectly arranged towels to calm down. Roy is exactly what we need him to be for a thriller like this, but also nothing more. The book might suffer a little from the "rich white ladies are only ever the worst"-syndrome, but this is balanced out slliiightly by some of the other characters. 

This is my first Natalie Barelli thriller and I had an excellent time with it. It was a perfect read for a Saturday afternoon while the world was melting outside. The Housewife moves at a pretty steady clip and chapters are never longer than they need to be. There are a couple of "twists", or rather, things that could have been twists if they had been kept from us, that get revealed in relevant and timely ways. This is a big plus for me! I am all for building suspense and sprinkling clues, but I'm not down for being kept in the dark just to get a twist ending. So I liked that Barelli gave us that info so that as the reader I felt in on it, even as I was still trying to figure things out. Unfortunately, I did not really like the main twist towards the end (I lowkey considered it early on but prayed it wouldn't happen and oh well), although I did enjoy the ending itself. I guess Barelli was trying to avoid the cliché answers but in doing so I felt she moved into another cliché that was perhaps a little bit damaging. However, overall, The Housewife was good fun and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a nice and solid thriller.

I give this novel...

3 Universes!

The Housewife is good fun and well-paced. While I didn't love everything about it, I had a real weird kind of fondness for the main character that helped me move past that.