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A review by cinderellasbookshelf
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
3.5
The minute I finished the first chapter of Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife, I was instantly intrigued. It was a very strong start that left enough mystery to want to know more. The rest is a subtle thriller where the only exhilaration from living a humdrum life in suburbia is marriage - and murder.
An unnamed narrator, who sometimes goes by “Tobias,” and his wife, Millicent, have led a fairly normal life in their well-to-do neighborhood raising their two children, Rory and Jenna. The only excitement they feed off of each other however, is that they kill people. And this isn’t the first time they have done this.
The single POV narration gave me Joe Goldberg/You vibes. It was eerie how he thought and processed things so calmly, along with some occasional frustrations when it’s related to his children’s growing pains. Even the way he and Millicent would plot or talk about the murders was unsettling. It kind of reminded me of the two characters from Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt who would casually talk about how they would kill each other, except Millicent and Tobias’s actual plans felt more disturbing. You can feel the violent undertones even though most of the action happens off page and is only referenced in news reports.
Compared to other thrillers, this is less action heavy and is more focused on Tobias’s life than the actual murders. The suspense is beneath the surface where the underlying tension that brews from domesticity and its mundanity brings up a magnitude of questions: who is your spouse, what are they doing when you’re not together, who are your children, are they the way they are because of you? And the bigger question, how did I get here?
I’m kind of torn between if I liked the book overall or not. I liked the concept and how it’s different from most thrillers, but I also wanted it to have more punch because after a while there is only so much about a person’s daily home life you can take. It was a page turner though.
An unnamed narrator, who sometimes goes by “Tobias,” and his wife, Millicent, have led a fairly normal life in their well-to-do neighborhood raising their two children, Rory and Jenna. The only excitement they feed off of each other however, is that they kill people. And this isn’t the first time they have done this.
The single POV narration gave me Joe Goldberg/You vibes. It was eerie how he thought and processed things so calmly, along with some occasional frustrations when it’s related to his children’s growing pains. Even the way he and Millicent would plot or talk about the murders was unsettling. It kind of reminded me of the two characters from Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt who would casually talk about how they would kill each other, except Millicent and Tobias’s actual plans felt more disturbing. You can feel the violent undertones even though most of the action happens off page and is only referenced in news reports.
Compared to other thrillers, this is less action heavy and is more focused on Tobias’s life than the actual murders. The suspense is beneath the surface where the underlying tension that brews from domesticity and its mundanity brings up a magnitude of questions: who is your spouse, what are they doing when you’re not together, who are your children, are they the way they are because of you? And the bigger question, how did I get here?
I’m kind of torn between if I liked the book overall or not. I liked the concept and how it’s different from most thrillers, but I also wanted it to have more punch because after a while there is only so much about a person’s daily home life you can take. It was a page turner though.
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Stalking, and Suicide