The Starter Wife

Nina Laurin

Jun 2019 · Sold by Grand Central Publishing

About this ebook

From the bestselling author of Girl Last Seen comes "a spine-tingler" (Booklist) of a psychological suspense, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Jessica Knoll.

Local police have announced that they're closing the investigation of the suspected drowning of 37-year-old painter Colleen Westcott. She disappeared on April 11, 2010, and her car was found parked near the waterfront in Cleveland two days later, but her body has never been found. The chief of police has stated that no concrete evidence of foul play has been discovered in the probe.

close the online search window, annoyed. These articles never have enough detail. They think my husband's first wife disappeared or they think she is dead. There's a big difference.

My phone rings, jarring me away from my thoughts, and when I pick it up, it's an unknown number. The only answer to my slightly breathless hello is empty static.

When the voice does finally come, it's female, low, muffled somehow. "Where is it, Claire? What did you do with it? Tell me where it is."

A woman. A real flesh-and-blood woman on the other end of the phone. She's not just in my head.

A wave of panic spreads under my skin like ice water. It's Colleen.

"Laurin knows how to ratchet up the suspense." -- Publishers Weekly

Ratings and reviews

THE STARTER WIFE is the most difficult book I've ever tried to rate, so I settled for three stars. I think it's one of those books one has to judge for oneself. I don't wish to say much about the plot or it would be all spoilers. I had to scrap almost every note I had written for my review because of the humongous plot twist. One detail had not escaped my notice, I should have put two and two together, and I didn't, so I guess I'm partly to blame, but the exceedingly disagreeable characters distracted me. Most of them were so unlikable, except for Chrissy, Derek, and Sarah Sterns, I read "angry" until almost the very end. It was a satisfying and logical conclusion, I might add. THE STARTER WIFE is, I suppose, the ultimate in unreliable narrators, but I don't believe I had ever read a book where I hated every main character. I guess in the end it was well done, but I didn't enjoy it. If the author hadn't made me hate everyone, it would have been different. I think the fact that it was all written in first person POV contributed to why I disliked the characters and failed to connect with them. I felt I had been manipulated by the author, and not in a good way. I really didn't care about what happened to the characters, but I kept reading because I wanted to know how it ended. Still, it's a miserable feeling when you have no one to like, no one you care for, no one to cheer on throughout an entire book. I've read books about sociopaths and psychopaths where I didn't wish for their swift demise as I did here. The writing itself is excellent, and although there are some inconsistencies and contradictions, there aren't any typos, which is highly commendable. However, I think there was an error in a significant date, the only one written in numbers. I found THE STARTER WIFE an extremely frustrating, confusing, and "feel-bad" book. It was so unpleasant (here's that word again), but I guess it was clever and I wasn't in this case! I will probably read other books by Nina Laurin, because she is very talented.

I like it I was getting into it

About the author

Nina Laurin studied Creative Writing at Concordia University in Montreal, where she currently lives. She arrived there when she was just twelve years old, and she speaks and reads in Russian, French, and English but writes her novels in English. She wrote her first novel while getting her writing degree, and Girl Last Seen was a bestseller a year later in 2017.

Nina is fascinated by the darker side of mundane things, and she's always on the lookout for her next twisted book idea. Learn more at NinaLaurin.com.