The Wife Between Us

Starred review from November 6, 2017
Hendricks, who spent more than 20 years as a book editor, joins forces with Pekkanen (The Best of Us) to create a jaw-dropping psychological thriller. Unreliable narrator Vanessa Thompson is obsessed with her ex-husband’s fiancée and on the verge of becoming unhinged. She gave up everything—her job as a preschool teacher, her New York City friends—to have a fairy tale life in Westchester with too-good-to-be-true hedge fund manager Richard. After a series of failed fertility treatments, their marriage unraveled, and Richard leaves her for his younger assistant. Hendricks and Pekkanen chronicle a marriage gone wrong through the alternating accounts of the shattered Vanessa in the present and her vibrant younger self in the past. This is not another eye-rolling story about the jealous ex-wife stalking her replacement, as readers will discover as Vanessa’s motivations are revealed. Unforgettable twists lead to shocking revelations all the way through the epilogue. 250,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders and Associates.

March 5, 2018
Voice actor Whelan rises to the challenge of narrating this psychological thriller by Pekkanen and Hendricks, which is told from the perspective an unreliable narrator named Vanessa Thompson. She appears to be a scorned woman with an alcohol problem and a disturbing fixation on the younger woman who is engaged to her ex-husband. Even though by now there have been enough novels with unreliable narrators to reduce the element of surprise, the authors use plenty of literary trickery to provide at least three genuine jaw-droppers. Since one of them is more easily hidden on the page than in audio format, reader Whelan is faced with the problem of keeping the secret while playing fair vocally, a task she carries off so subtly it’s unnoticeable until the big reveal. She provides the proper voices for Vanessa, the hot mess of an ex-wife, the about-to-be-wed buoyant Manhattan preschool teacher Nellie, and the man in their lives, Richard, a hedge fund manager who sounds a little rigid. It’s worth noting that, after twisting its plot to the breaking point, this ultra-deceptive novel ends with the advice that “the truth is the only way to move forward.” However, Whelan’s proven ability to coyly project deceit leaves listeners with no guarantee. A St. Martin’s hardcover.