A Quiet Wife

Definitely a good book for a lazy weekend. I really enjoyed the various characters and the way that the author introduced the story.

A quiet wife appealed to me being a woman of a certain age! I could see several parallels between Sheila and myself and was interested to see how life changed for her with retirement!This book highlights how we as women/ wives tend to put our husbands and childrens needs first and that with time, greater financial security and no childcare issues we can embrace retirement and indulge in what interests us in our latter years! Shelias foray into retirement was fraught with angst initially but with time developed into what she wanted/ needed! A nice insightful read.

Sheila MacDonald is 60 and has just retired from her job. She thought her husband was going to retire too and that they would start doing all sorts of things together, a new chapter. However, he is busy with a new project at work and will probably be working a couple of more years. So, Sheila is left trying to figure out what to do with herself now. I found the novel so charming. The way Sheila noticed things that her husband said or did. The soft gentle love that they have for each other that comes with growing together. I also found her relationship with her daughter, Caitlin, interesting. Sheila is a little jealous of the relationship that her husband, John and Caitlin have. I liked the way it touched a little on how relationships differ within families.

Epitomizing a wife who has always put her husband's needs and demands first Sheila has just retired from a job she loved and which she excelled at. She looks forward to retirement as her husband has also scheduled his own retirement around hers. They had planned to spend more time at their property in France and had several ideas in the pipeline. All Sheila's dreams go up in smoke when she realises that John has no intention of keeping to his promise of retirement and that life for him is even busier than ever. He, like always seems to only hear what he wants to hear so that any complaint of which there are very few from Sheila's side is brushed aside as if of no importance. Sheila starts looking at other things which she is interested in and one is a History group but at home she is being swept into a scheme of baby sitting her grandson without a by your leave even, on a joint effort of both her husband and her daughter Caitlin. It is almost a passive bullying tactic which makes Sheila begin to realise that she has to assert herself or go under. A pleasant reminder that life does not end at retirement and that you are never too old to stand up for yourself even in a marriage of over forty years! Not being taken for granted is very important and this highlights this.

First I would like to say thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc In Return for an honest review. What a plot, I have to say it had me gripped from the start, it had all the different types of betrayal all rolled into one book.. I thought the characters were all well developed, and the different storylines were very original. I throughly enjoyed this book.