[Book Birthday + Review] The Widow by Fiona Barton

Title: The Widow

Series: No

Author: Fiona Barton

Publisher: NAL

Published Date: February 16, 2016

Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, General Fiction (Adult)

Format: EBook, Paperback

Pages: 336

Rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis (From Goodreads)

THE #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

For fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, an electrifying thriller that will take you into the dark spaces that exist between a husband and a wife.

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 woman’s husband died last week. And Jean doesn’t have to be her anymore.
 
There’s a lot Jean hasn’t 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 there’s 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 truth—that’s all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything…

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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 2008, have trained and worked with exiled and threatened journalists all over the world.

But through it all, a story was cooking in my head…  [Read More]

My Review

The Widow is a dark and terrifying journey into the idea that, can we really know the people that surround us?

The Taylors, Jean and Glen, are put through the ringer when Glen is accused of a terrible crime. He is found innocent, but how innocent is he really? Jean would know if her husband was a monster right?

Throughout the trial and the subsequent years of trying to put their life back together, Jean has stuck by her husband and maintained his innocence, even when she begins to wonder if he truly is not guilty after all.

After an accident leaves her a widow she is finally free to tell the truth about the horrible day and who her husband really was…

This novel really is a twisted journey into a horrific crime. I will try to be as cryptic as possible considering that you don’t really know the crime until further in the book. Which was really neat, although you get the feeling of what it probably was early on; and it is sick!

The story unfolds much like Gone Girl in which you learn about what happened from brief snippets into the past, each in a different POV; the detective in the case, Jean, and Kate Waters the reporter.

There are so many red herrings in this book that by the end of it you’re not sure who committed the crime, but you’re still shocked by the end of it. Glen is a disgusting man who controls his wife so much that she can barely think on her own. At time you feel sorry for her but at other times you wonder how she could stand by him so adamantly when she knows that his alibi is a lie. The more you learn about the 4 years of Jeanie’s life since the trial the less you start become sorry for her. Of course she still inspires pity, but at the same time she also inspires anger. The detective who investigates the case pursues Glen so relentlessly that coupled with the doubts of Glen’s guilt; of this particular crime (he’s still disgusting without the crime), even he becomes unsavory. Even the reporter isn’t someone you really like all that much.

I really enjoyed reading The Widow. It is an excellent start to what I am sure will be and amazing career for Fiona Barton. I will absolutely be looking forward to what she does next.

I received this novel from Netgalley and the publishers in EBook format, as well as a paperback from a Goodreads Giveaway all in exchange for an honest review.

Jackie