Seth has three wives. "I'm Thursday," the narrator of Tarryn Fisher's tense thriller The Wives explains. Thursday sees Seth one day a week and has no contact with his other wives, Monday and Tuesday. Often feeling insecure about her role in Seth's life, especially after losing their baby, Thursday agonizes over being perfect. She wants her shared husband to favor her--wants to feel control she knows she lacks. When she finds a bill in Seth's pants with Monday's name, Thursday secretly tracks her down, curious about her husband's life without her.
After Thursday befriends her under false pretenses, Monday divulges her husband's faults--he hides her birth control, he has a temper--but assures Thursday that her bruises were accidental. Though Seth being abusive seems ludicrous, Thursday seeks answers, needing to know if she's in danger. Yet the more she learns, the more questions she has. Why does Tuesday have a dating website profile? Do the other wives even know about Thursday? And if not, what else is Seth lying about?
Thursday's nail-biting pursuit of truth is fueled by her entrapment. She wonders how she's become the type of woman who has "forgotten what [her] own happiness means." Though she wants to change, her love for Seth keeps her stagnant. The trauma of her baby's death exacerbates her emotional instability, but her savage determination keeps her laser-focused on unraveling the real Seth, even when family and friends dismiss her. A gripping ride that will keep readers guessing, The Wives by Tarryn Fisher (Love Me with Lies series) delivers heart-pounding suspense through an unreliable protagonist bent on proving her sanity. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer