My enormous thanks to Alainna Hadjigeorgiou at Orion for sending me a copy of The After Wife in return for an honest review and to her and Tracy Fenton for inviting me to be part of this blog tour. When Rachel and Aidan fell in love, they thought it was forever. She was a brilliant, high-flying scientist. He was her loving and supportive husband. The After Wife is an emotional story about love, loss, longing and belonging. My goodness me.
What a book! As a result of reading this book I really had to question what it is that makes us human and gives us our unique identity. And the identities of the characters are so well drawn. I believed in every aspect of them as people and every action they carried out. Even the more peripheral characters like Jess are clear and realistic, but it is iRachel who is the most hypnotic.
I wanted iRachel to succeed as she became as real to me as any character I have ever read about. The After Wife has a hugely entertaining and interesting plot.
Cynically I was expecting it to be somewhat unrealistic. It was, instead, completely convincing. However, I feel the plot is almost incidental to the exploration of the themes of love, identity and humanity.
The writing is poignant and beautifully crafted so that I felt as if I were part of the story too because my emotions were so invested in the people and outcomes. I absolutely loved The After Wife. It will resonate in my life for a very long time. I thought it was fabulous. She lives in North London with her husband and two sons. She is an avid lifelong learner, and works at a London university.
