Review: The Quiet Wife by Diane Saxon

                                                         

Print Length: 331 pages

Publisher: Boldwood Books (February 20, 2025)

From Goodreads.com: I want to be ordinary. To fade into the shadows where no one notices me and live a quiet life. A normal life.

But I am not ordinary. Not anymore.

I’ve been keeping a secret. From my colleagues, my friends and most importantly, my husband - who knows nothing of my past life.

Twenty years ago, at college, a boy became obsessed with me. Craig Lane believed he could make me love him back if he just tried harder. When I rejected him, he did something so horrifying, it’s the stuff of nightmares. All my nightmares.

Now I’ve been informed by Victim Support Services, that boy - now a man - has been released from prison. The news terrifies me.

Am I safe? Or does Craig still carry the same obsession he did when we were seventeen? I don’t know. I’ve ignored every letter he’s ever sent me.

Now strange things have started to flowers have been left on my doorstep, my cat keeps going missing. Someone is watching me. Knows where I live. I am sure.

Worse, something even more sinister could be stalking me from the shadows. Because I have another secret...

My past is coming to get me. One way or another.

                                                         *******************

My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Before I even get into my review, I feel I need to mention that there could potentially be trigger warnings for this one that are not mentioned. Those warnings include stalking, forced imprisonment, rape, and the mention of abortion. 

The synopsis of this one caught my attention immediately, and after seeing the early praise for this story with people calling it "complex, dark and disturbing" and "unputdownable with a tense, fast-paced & terrifying plot", I was beyond excited to read it. 

Sadly, what I got was an overly predictable story with characters who were not likable in the least (some for less obvious reasons than others) that I could (and did) easily put down and forget about for extended periods of time. This was truly disappointing because this novel had such amazing potential (take for example my favorite line of the novel in which Soriah says "it's not the dark that worries me, but the monsters that hide in its shadows"). It's obvious this author knows how to write, it was just some of the creative choices they made seemed flawed. 

For example (and to give credit where it is due), there was one instance where I was caught a bit off-guard because I thought the author was going one way with the story, but instead they decided to go a completely different route. However, I felt like that reveal came much too soon because it instantly not only put me on my guard, but made me wonder how Soriah didn't see it herself. I wish the author would have held off on this plot point just a little bit longer (or maybe not included it at all as a different point in the story as to not make it a huge red flag for the reader when it happened, but that would have allowed Soriah to know the truth).

Looking past the plot to the characters, as I mentioned prior, none of the main ones were very likable. Craig and Gilly for obvious reasons,  but Soriah and her husband Marcus for less obvious reasons (at least at first). Marcus immediately comes across as a user (and a shady one at that). Seriously? You have to go away for a weekend and stay at a hotel in order to attend an awards ceremony for your job, the same job that says due to budget cuts your spouse can't attend? Could he be any more obvious? Also, I'm still confused as to whether or not there was an actual awards presentation as there was no mention of him bringing one back with him when he came back, only more instances of him being an uncaring git towards his wife. And then we have Soriah, who was just ..... a doormat. For her entire life. She didn't stand up to Craig. She didn't stand up to Gilly. She should have reported the admin from her school when things first began to escalate, but she didn't. Then later on... she didn't stand up to her husband. For heavens sake, she didn't even stand up to her parents at times. I really would have hoped that after everything that had happened to her when she was eighteen, that she would have learned how to stand on her own two feet and be assertive. 

Despite these things however, I do feel like there will be other readers who will enjoy this one a lot more than I did. I would give this author another chance to see if maybe it was just this particular story that didn't jive with me. 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.