A review by booksrbrainfood
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

4.0

This was a fun, entertaining and fast-paced book that kept me engaged.
The story is about Jane, a young woman with a challenging background who begins dog-walking for an upscale neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama. She is initially only considered the help to most of the wives and barely even registers on the husbands' radar. Then she meets Eddie Rochester, the handsome neighbor with the missing and presumed dead wife, who almost runs over Jane at their first meeting. They develop a friendship and she begins to work for him as well. The story develops from the first meeting and the mysterious disappearance and presumed death of his wife and her best friend.
This book has all the Southern Gothic vibes and leaves you laughing at the stereotypical wealthy couples described in these pages and also mulling over what happened to the missing women.
The narrators are Emily Shaffer, Kirby Heyborne, and Lauren Fortgang. In researching the narrators, it seems likely that Emily did the Southern accents. I am guessing this because her bio states that she is originally from West Virginia. I liked all the narration for the most part but felt like most of the Southern accents were a bit too contrived and surprisingly did not feel authentic. I think that is the only thing about the narration that could have been more accurate for an authentic feel. This may have been a regional difference rather than a fake accent, I'm not familiar with these narrators enough to guess.
Overall, the book itself was worth the read. I did figure out a major plot twist at about 75% but this did not reduce the enjoyment of the book. There were multiple twists so that made up for it.
I would definitely recommend this to lovers of Southern Gothics and books that have a mixture of genres.
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