wish booksellers and reviewers would stop comparing each and every thriller with a slight twist of plot to sitelinkGone Girl and sitelinkThe Girl on the Train.
I've read both and this book doesn't resemble either of them, remotely,
It's a debut book for Fiona Barton, Interesting that she chose to focus on the wife and then widow of the accused child kidnapper and perhaps killer, The point of view flipped between the widow, the cop, the journalist, the mother of the missing girl, and the widow's husband, Still not sure if this headhopping really works, since the whole idea of the book was seeing it from the widow's point of view and the other characters were wooden and onedimensional.
The book is only okay for me, It was easy to follow, a fast paced read, But the characters were kind of flat, I was propelled along only by the morbid curiosity of what was going to pop out of the box at the end rather than caring about any of the players.
Sadly, the ending wasn't much of a surprise either! EXCERPT:, . "He was there one minute giving me grief about what sort of cereal I should've bought, and the next, dead on the road, . Not much blood though. He would've been glad. He didn't like any sort of mess, "
ABOUT THIS BOOK:When the police started asking questions, Jean Taylor turned into a different woman, One who enabled her and her husband to carry on, when more bad things began to happen, . .
But that womans husband died last week, And Jean doesnt have to be her anymore,
Theres a lot Jean hasnt said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing, She was too busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with the accusing glares and the anonymous harassment,
Now theres no reason to stay quiet, There are people who want to hear her story, They want to know what it was like living with that man, She can tell them that there were secrets, There always are in a marriage,
The truththats all anyone wants, But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything
MY THOUGHTS: Put simply I loved this book!
Jean's husband Glen, a cold controlling man with a penchant for porn, is accused of abducting Bella
Elliot the gorgeous toddler daughter of Donna.
Jean, ever the dutiful wife, stands by her man despite the things she discovers about him along the way,
After Glen's death, everyone wants to talk to 'the widow', sure she knows more than she let on, hopeful that she will reveal all now that Glen is not there to control her.
The dispassionate style of writing only serves to emphasise the awfulness of what has happened, All the time I was reading I could feel a sinister undercurrent like there was something going on that I was unaware of that Jean or Jeanie as she is sometimes, knew or had done something that she wasn't telling us about.
But until the end, I had no idea what it was, I became immersed in this book, totally, I wanted to get to the end to find out what happens, but I wanted it never to end,
This is a beautifully written debut book and I look forward to reading more from Fiona Barton,
THE AUTHOR: My career has taken some surprising twists and turns over the years, I have been a journalist senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on Sunday, where I won Reporter of the Year at the National Press Awards, gave up my job to volunteer in Sri Lanka and since, have trained and worked with exiled and threatened journalists all over the world.
But through it all, a story was cooking in my head,
The worm of this book infected me long ago when, as a national newspaper journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I found myself wondering what the wives of those accused really knew or
allowed themselves to know.
It took the liberation of my career change to turn that fascination into a tale of a missing child, narrated by the wife of the man suspected of the crime, the detective leading the hunt, the journalist covering the case and the mother of the victim.
Much to my astonishment and delight, The Widow is available now in the UK, and around the world in the coming months,
However, the sudden silence of my characters feels like a reproach and I am currently working on a second book,
My husband and I are living the good life in southwest France, where I am writing in bed, early in the morning when the only distraction is our cockerel, Sparky, crowing.
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Bantam Press for providing an ARC of this book for review, All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions,
Please refer to my Goodreads, com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday, wordpress. com.
This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday, wordpress. com
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As the story opens fortyish Glen Taylor has recently been killed when he tripped in front of an oncoming bus,
As it happens Glen was the prime suspect in the disappearance of a twoyearold girl, Bella Elliot, who was kidnapped from an English suburb several years ago and never found.
Arrested and tried at the time, Glen got off because of a flawed police investigation, Glen's death reminds the public of his alleged misdeeds and his widow, Jean Taylor, is once again hounded by the press, Jean agrees to be interviewed by reporter Kate Waters, who's thrilled to be getting the scoop,
The story is told from rotating points of view including the widow the reporter the detective, Bob Sparks and Bella's mother, Dawn Elliot,
As the tale unfolds we learn that Glen was addicted to online porn, especially images of child abuse or pretend child abuse, with women dressed as underage girls.
Glen was also a manipulative, narcissistic husband who seemed able to con his wife into thinking he was a decent guy who had her best interests at heart, . . despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary,
Jean seems to be incredibly naïve and selfeffacing, She realizes Glen's doing something not quite kosher when he shuts himself up with his computer, but she calls it "Glen's nonsense" and pushes it out of her mind.
Jean is desperate to have a baby, but tests reveal that Glen is sterile and he won't even consider adoption, Given Jean's obsession with children one would think she'd insist Glen change his mind or get lost, but Jean just makes excuses for her husband and hangs in there.
Throughout the police investigation and trial, and its aftermath Jean apparently believes in her husband's innocence and supports him,
Detective Bob Sparks is convinced Glen is guilty though there are some other possible suspects, Bob is crushed by Glen's acquittal, is haunted by the mystery of Bella's disappearance, and despite instructions from his superiors can't let go of the case,
Journalist Kate is thrilled with the opportunity to interview Jean and quickly squirrels the widow away, to hide her from other reporters, Kate is convinced she's going to squeeze 'the true story' out of Jean now that Glen isn't around, but Jean may be more clever than she appears on the surface,
Bella's mother Dawn beats herself up for leaving the child unsupervised in the yard 'for just a couple of minutes, ' She starts a 'Find Bella' drive and cooperates with the press and the police, perhaps even going a little too far at times,
As the tale unfolded I wasn't sure who to believe, and I suspected one character after another of being the kidnapper, The resolution of the story is believable but to be completely honest I would have liked more shock and awe, This is a good psychological suspense novel, recommended to fans of the genre,
You can follow my reviews at sitelink blogspot . sitelinkThe Widow is a standalone, psychological thriller written by seasoned journalist and now fiction writer: sitelinkFiona Barton, The inspiration for this debut novel stemmed from all the people on the edge of high profile crimes: the wives, the parents, the children of the perpetrators, Ms. Barton recognized that these individuals are often just as affected by events, but all the focus is elsewhere, She often wondered what they knew and what they should have known, So she gained further inspiration from documented criminal cases as well as her own imagination and wrote a story about the widow of a man found guilty of a horrible crime.
The story is told through the perspectives of five different characters and the time frames fluctuate from present to past and back again,
In sitelinkThe Widow, Ms, Barton wrote about a parent's worst nightmare and the investigation that ensues, She wrote about the alleged perpetrator and the submissive little wife that stayed by his side, She wrote about the behavior and tactics used in journalism to score the coveted story, But ultimately, she wrote about power dynamics in relationships, whether it's between a husband and wife or a journalist and subject, Is the dominant personality really the one in charge When all is said and done, who actually holds the power sitelinkThe Widow is layered with complex characters who may end up surprising you.
This was a good book and I enjoyed it a great deal, Check it out!
My favorite quote:
"He looks like the bloke next door, But then monsters rarely look the part, You hope you'll be able to see the evil shining out of them it would make police work a damn sight easier, But evil was a slippery substance, glimpsed only occasionally and all the more horrifying for that, "./stars
I can't seem to muster up much excitement about this book, It was decent, it kept me listening, but somehow it was not fulfilling, There were twists and turns but most of them I saw coming,
I did enjoy the alternating chapters and the voicing by the cast, but really As far as thrillers go, this just wasn't that, thrilling.
Thanks to my local library for the audio download, Libraries RULE! Does anyone want to start a letter writing campaign or club to ban misleading book jacket summaries Cause I will provide snacks at all the meetings and get cutsie tshirts made on my own damn dime.
The book jacket for sitelinkThe Widow by Fiona Barton would have you believe that you are about to read a psychological thriller all about the widow of a man accused and found guilty in the court of public opinion at least of kidnapping and murdering a two year old girl who's remains have never been found.
She's spent her life covering for him and supporting him but he's dead now and she doesn't have to do that anymore, Reporters and news agencies are desperate to score an interview with her and the police are still sniffing around but she knows the score, She knows they all want the truth and she knows they'll pay to get it and she's such a master of manipulation that she can make them believe anything.
The book jacket says that's what this is about, But the book jacket is a LIE!
This book is about a dishrag of a woman who married a horrible man who's probably a child murdering pedophile.
She continues to be a dishrag after he is dead, She's mousy and introverted and has to be told to eat or she'd starve to death, Its about her telling incredibly boring stories about how horrible he was, Its about some reporter trying to get her to tell her story and some cop who shows up repeatedly to get her to tell him where the body is.
It is also boring, boring, boring,
I'd say the biggest problem is there is absolutely no mystery here, You are told whats going on, you already know who did it, and then you get to the end where what you already knew is verified by the characters and if you are me you put the book down and stare at it quizzically for a minute thinking "heh"
Look I'm not saying that every mystery has to have a twist ending but don't sucker me into thinking I'm going to read a book about a woman who's such a master manipulator that she's managed to con a pedophile into marrying her so she can use him as a scapegoat, or a book about a quick witted narcissist who's playing every single person she encounters who think they can get her to do anything when you're really writing some kind of lame character study.
This was honestly a huge waste of time, Its not badly written but there is also absolutely no story, The "plot" is just typical Lifetime Movie tropisms about husband's with secrets that we already know and the sad sacks that marry them because they were put under the guy's amazing speeelllll.
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Enjoy For Free A Viúva Assembled By Fiona Barton Available As Manuscript
Fiona Barton