Reviews with content warning for Stalking - The Replacement Wife

Elisa is suspicious of her brother in law, Josh. He has a concerning history with women (i.e. dead wife and missing fiancée). Now he’s dating a new woman shortly after his fiancée disappears and Elisa is worried about what might happen to her.

I loved this book. I finished it so quickly and I’m definitely looking forward to future books from this author.

I wouldn’t say there are necessarily huge twists in this book. Rachel’s involvement in certain aspects may not exactly be expected, but I knew from the beginning she was involved. Rachel and Josh were pretty much who I expected them to be.

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colleensreadingadventures's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

2.75

Actual Stars 2.5-3

I’ve heard such great things about Darby Kane’s Pretty Little Wife. So I was ecstatic to win The Replacement Wife on Bookstagram from my friend Kate @communikatetions.

Unfortunately after actually reading it, I think this might not have been the best book to start with.

Elisa is getting over a serious tragedy that took place almost a year ago now. She is a wife and mother to a young child, so for everyone’s sake she is slowly trying put her life back together. It hasn’t been easy but she’s feeling semi back to normal. That is until she finds evidence that her brother-in-law Josh might not be the man she thought he was, he might in all actuality be a murderer.

Sure Josh has had some bad luck with women. His wife died from a home accident and his recent fiancé went missing with no trace several months ago. But Elisa always thought of Josh as a good guy. He truly mourned losing his significant others. That is until she finds evidence that his wife’s death might not have been an accident after all. And his missing fiancé might not have left on her own because of pre-wedding jitters. And now there are even more women popping out of the woodwork.

Josh brings home his newest girlfriend Rachel. Elisa’s concern for Rachel, that she might not be safe with Josh leads her to dig into his past. This starts a snow ball effect and causes serious conflict with Josh, Rachel and within her small family. Things spiral out of control as Elisa starts to suffer from a mysterious illness and she begins to question if everything she thought she learned is real. Is she being pulled under from her past trauma and Josh is actually perfectly innocent or is he the sinister predator Elisa believes him to be?

Unfortunately I had quite a few problems with the story.

I felt The Replacement Wife was all over the place. First of all there were way too many women popping up for it to be believable. One in particular didn’t click with the story and just confused me. There also was quite a bit of gaslighting and gaslighting is not always a favorite for me, but If done right it can actually add to a plot. That was not the case here and it did not work out, I hate to say it but I feel like it was done kind of sloppily.

Also if I had Elisa’s husband, we would have been divorced by the end of the book…WTF!! Harris acts like his brother Josh is a paragon of virtue when he knows perfectly well he is not. He knows his brother had some issues in the past but he turns a blind eye. The person he is supposed to hear out is his wife Elisa, which he does not. He shows her zero support, making her second guess herself!

Elisa put way to much trust and effort into helping Rachel. She voiced her concerns to Rachel and if she chose not to listen, hey she’s a big girl let her deal with the possible serial killer boyfriend on her own. You warned her no need to stress yourself out. Especially considering the way Rachel was acting.

The way that Josh and Rachel together and singularly showed up unannounced and uninvited pretty much everyday, sometimes multiple times a day into Rachel’s home, just letting themselves in and then including themselves at the dinner table drove me nuts! I don’t know that I would call that a story flaw, it just irked me. If I were Elisa I would be posted at my front door with my taser, someone would be getting zapped! 😂

I didn’t understand Elisa and Harris’ little boy’s behavior issues. It was raised in a manner that I thought it might be an actual part of the plot or a good reason to be included. I was throwing some crazy theories around in my head. But then nothing, I guess it was just filler or I really missed something. Maybe it was just me. 🤷‍♀️

Ok….I think I ranted about my dislikes quite a bit and you probably get the gist I wasn’t overly thrilled with it. I do feel like The Replacement Wife had the potential to be a really good story with some tweaking. And there are some redeeming qualities.

I appreciated the aspects of Elisa’s trauma. How it can change a person’s life both mentally and physically, their perceptions and interactions with others. I really felt for her and how she had to decipher if she was looking at things correctly because of her experience.

I really didn’t know if Josh was truly the bad guy. It was obvious he was a bad guy to some degree but I wasn’t sure to what extent. So I was definitely kept guessing about him and other aspects.

While I don’t think The Replacement Wife was for me, I do think Darby Kane is obviously a talented writer and I look forward to reading more of her work.

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jeannine6's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

3.5

Added .5 ⭐️ Because it takes place in the Philly burbs.

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xlivinglikejen's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No

4.0

I’m giving it 4 stars because I literally didn’t want to put this book down. It was addictive & fast paced. There were three unreliable characters, which helped keep me guessing for a while. This is the type of psychological thriller/family drama you could binge read in a weekend.

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reading_and_roaming20's review

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mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I went into THE REPLACEMENT WIFE thinking it might be hit or miss, but I was optimistic after a mysterious first chapter. I was sucked in and ready for a good solid book binge. By the end, I felt like I had been through the same scenario far too many times.

The main issue I took was the constant use of gaslighting against our MC, Elisa. I’m good with it here or there, but when I say “constant” I mean chapter-after-chapter CONSTANT.

While I do love an unreliable narrator, I do not love it so much when it is the barrage of other characters treating her like an unstable, weak head-case, to the point that she is constantly questioning her own sanity, that makes her so unreliable.

Also, wtf with her brother-in-law and his girlfriend constantly letting themselves into her home? Like imagine you’re in your kitchen, enjoying a good, old fashioned mid-day mental breakdown and your brother-in-law walks in. Or how about you just need a night to question your entire life from the comfort of your bathtub and instead you have to cook dinner and entertain your husband’s family for the third time this week. Um, what?

Listen, there were some good twists. I didn’t see the identity of Concerned coming and had a few guesses as to who the mystery narrator might be. It wasn’t completely predictable.

Until it was. And then I just wanted the end to end so I could move on. This book could have dropped 100 pages of “wow Elisa, that sounds insane, you really should chill” and found its way to the same conclusion. Had it been 315-ish pages instead of 415, I may have enjoyed it more.

All-in-all, not a win for me. That said, it sure does seem like I’m in the minority given its average rating of 3.68 on both @the.storygraph and @goodreads so if it sounds like it may tickle your fancy, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try! Sometimes thrillers hit people differently! (I’m talking to you, people who didn’t love THE SILENT PATIENT. Y’all blow my mind.)

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irl_bookworms's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

With a dead wife and a missing fiancée and a new girlfriend in the picture, Elisa is convinced her brother-in-law, Josh is a murderer. The more Elisa starts to dig and the more women appear (and disappear) in Josh’s history the more it becomes clear that something isn’t right. As she struggles with a mystery illness and panic attacks, Elisa fights to prevent someone else from becoming Josh’s next victim…or is something deeper going on?

This domestic suspense novel was super fast and fun to read. While I do find the unreliable narrator with possible substance abuse problems overdone in the thriller/suspense genre, I did really enjoy picking apart this story which unfolded almost like an episode of a True Crime Podcast. I had my theories about what was going on and while the one I really expected to see didn’t pan out, I still really enjoyed how Kane pulled off the final twist. Kane kept me on my toes till the last page and I had a great time.

The Replacement Wife doesn’t really reinvent the genre, but if you’re a fan of True Crime or thrillers with a familiar plot and some new twists, I think The Replacement Wife will be a very fun time!

CW: Missing Persons, death, gaslighting, suggestions/descriptions of domestic abuse,& drug and alcohol use.

*I received an eARC from HarperCollins Canada in exchange for my honest review*

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kaylasbookgram's review

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mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

What would you do if you believed a member of your family was a killer? Maybe even a serial killer?

This is the nightmare Elisa is living. But no one will take her concerns seriously.

I absolutely loved this book with all the twists and suspense. I loved that I wasn’t fully sure who the “bad guy” was until the end because it kept pointing to a few different characters. This was my first Darby Lane book and I can’t wait to read more of her work.

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