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The Serial Killer’s Wife is a fantastic book that is a thriller drama that will keep you turning the pages.
Written by Alice Hunter, the book was published by Avon with 382 pages. It is a fairly recent book, only released in the spring of 2021, but you can now get it as an audiobook, e-book, or paperback.
If you fancy picking up a new book and going on a literary adventure that wins over your heart, soul, and mind, this book is definitely worth a try. It is rife with gripping tales of tragedy and is a non-stop thrill.
However, not every book is for everyone, and it is always worthwhile taking a look at book reviews before you buy any book.
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So, today we will introduce you to the book, its premise, what we thought of it, the author, and what the consensus from readers about this book is.
Let’s get reading!
When you pick up a book in a bookstore, you will always automatically go straight to the blurb to get an idea of what the book is about. Instead of you searching around to find this first glimmer of what the book is about, we have provided this for you, here:
Every marriage has its secrets
Both Beth and Tom Hardcastle are the envy of their neighborhood. They have the perfect marriage, house, and family.
However, when the police knock on their door one evening, Beth panics. Tom should be back from work by now, what if he has crashed his car? She fears the worst.
But, the worst is really beyond imagination.
As the interrogation begins, Beth finds herself questioning everything she thought about her husband. They say that he is a monster, and they are also saying, she knew.
Beth has a rather idyllic life, with a handsome husband, a sweet young daughter, and a successful business, it is all she or most of us could ever dream of. However, this book tells us, life is never what it seems to be.
We always keep secrets, even if they are small ones, from the world beyond our families, from friends, but some keep secrets even from their partners, and Tom was keeping the biggest secret of all.
Tom is a serial killer, and when the news of his interrogation and eventual arrest spreads throughout the community, Beth starts to fear for the life and family she has built for her child. She won’t let it happen, because she may just have a few of her secrets.
This is a fast-paced book, full of suspense, nothing short of being an addictive read full of twists and turns. There are enjoyable and easy shorter chapters inside the story that help to move it along, without slowing it down too much.
There is no need to worry about getting bogged down with over-the-top, lengthy descriptions, or unnecessary detailing. You only know what you need to know, and the core of the story only gets revealed bit by bit, despite it being a fast-paced tale.
It is not difficult to get hooked by the story from the get-go, but the sudden plot twist at the end will astound you without any doubt.
It is a story told from both Beth’s and Tom’s perspectives, and therefore, we find that the previous career of Alice Hunter, when she worked with prisoners, had been a massive help in aiding the story.
The characters are enjoyable, Beth being likable and compelling, even sympathetic at times.
Should you be a fan of psychological thrillers, you are bound to be fascinated by her mentality, and also her actions, as she is the sanest of these two main characters.
However, Tom’s character gives you a new way to look inside the mind of a killer with the messed-up logic and shocking depravity you would expect and want from realistic storytelling.
Although it is significantly harder to feel so invested in, such as Beth, he does prove to be the perfect foil for Beth, and he does add an intense depth to the story that would be seriously missing were he not in it, or not as significant.
We would expect you to get sucked in pretty early in the book, as it does not take too long to get going at all. Your thoughts will be wrapped up in it until the very end, so we greatly recommend adding it to your reading list as soon as you can!
It is just as important to know and understand the author of a book to understand where the premise of this story came from. Of course, for this tale, we are looking at an author who worked with criminals.
She completed a psychology degree and eventually became a facilitator of interventions in a prison. In this role, she was a crucial part of a team that offered rehabilitation programs to men in prison who were there for a vast number of different offenses.
This meant that she even worked with those who had committed some seriously violent and vicious crimes, putting her at the heart of the criminal mind and its dark psychology.
Before this, Alice was a nurse, she worked in the NHS (United Kingdom healthcare). Now, she puts the experience and knowledge she gained in her previous careers to craft compelling, thrilling, and realistic works of thriller fiction.
This book in particular, The Serial Killer’s Wife, is an example of her work that draws strongly upon her knowledge of the criminal mind and psychology, and everything else that she gained knowledge and experience from her time working with criminals and in prisons.
Alice Hunter is the perfect person to write thriller crime fiction, thanks to her up-close-and-personal experiences with real-world events.
It is always a good idea to check out what other readers think of a story before you go ahead and buy the book. It can give you a better idea of how it has been received by different readers.
Of course, it is worth noting that not every book is for everyone, and not everyone will like it, so there will always be a few negatives here and there, so while it is worth reading what others think, it is also important not to put too much stock into it.
The ratings for this book also tend to vary depending on where you look.
If you look on Amazon.co.uk, you will see there have been 14,199 reviews, averaging 4.2 stars. However, Waterstones has only 48 reviews but averages at 5 stars.
Meanwhile, on goodreads.com (affiliated with Amazon.com), there have been over 13,266 votes and an average rating of 3.9 stars.
The book was well-written and easy to read. It’s an enjoyable story and kept me entertained. A great book to read on holiday – Mike, 4 out of 5 Stars.
Wow! What a thriller! I really enjoyed the concept of this book. The idea of focusing on the wife and the themes of knowing or not knowing was really clever and interesting. I loved the short chapters, it made it super quick and easy to read – Nicole, 5 out of 5 stars.
I was excited for this book, unfortunately, for me the book missed the mark. Beth as a protagonist wasn’t very compelling, and I wasn’t very invested in the story. The plot dragged on at times which made it really hard to read. – Eeva, 2 out of 5 stars.
While we cannot say that this book is for everyone, it is the ideal piece of reading for anyone who is into crime thrillers.
The fact that our author comes from a background in crime and psychology gives it that realistic touch helping us see better into the world of a serial killer and those around them.
