The Younger Wife

How it reads

The Younger Wife is thriller (domestic thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.

It's set in a suburban setting, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are family, secrets and class and society. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 346 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.