Beth and Cath are leaving their husbands.

This is a story about two very different women.

One is wealthy and having an affair with a man who gives her the kind of love that her cold, detached husband does not.

One is living hand to mouth, suffering at the hands of a violent partner who would rather see her dead than leave him.

You may think you know these women already and how their lives will unfold.

Beth will live happily ever after with her little girl and her soulmate.

Cath will go back to her abusive husband.

And these two women will never cross paths.

But you will be wrong.

On the 3.15pm train from London to Bristol, Beth and Cath are about to meet and discover they share one shocking thing in common.

I didn't find much originality in the story. I can think of several books that were based on this same theme. It also promised me a "jaw-dropping twist"...so okay let's see what this is. Sorry...I knew what it was going to be by the third chapter. There are two main characters, Beth, who has it all. A baby, a nanny...who just disappears without a trace, a beautiful home...she's living the life. The police semi-investigates the nanny's disappearance but say they see no evidence that anything has actually "happened" to her...she just left. As soon as the police leave, Beth tells her husband she wants a divorce because she has "fallen in love with another man, who makes her feel things her husband never did". I thought that they were more like roommates than a married couple anyway. The rest of the book delves into all the crazy and arsine, things her husband does to manipulate her into coming back. She should have just slit his throat in the night and said, "good riddance", end of book. But no... she meets Cath, a woman on the train to London, and forms a crazy plan and talks Cath, a woman whose husband has almost beat her to death on numerous occasions, to go along with it. The running theme throughout the book was, “How well do you really know someone”? I guess I missed the 'jaw-dropping twist", but seeing what stupid, unbelievable thing Beth would come up with next earned it 3 stars. ( )

This was an audiobook narrated by James Lailey. It tells the story of two women – Beth Lawlor and Cath Patterson. Beth is caught in a loveless marriage to Evan but a shocking event helps her make up her mind to leave him and start a new life with her lover. Cath is trapped in a relationship with a physically and mentally abusive junkie named Saul. She knows she has to leave him but fears that if she does he will find her and kill her. A chance meeting leads to a shocking turn of events, and detective Dan Riley is soon put on the case…

The book is told from three points of view – those of Cath and Beth, which are both told in the third person, and that of Dan, which is told in the first person. I preferred the narration for Dan’s parts but I think Beth and Cath’s parts were told with a lack of emotion, which didn’t greatly impact my enjoyment but was noticeable. I do think a female narrator might have been better for those chapters, as they are telling female points of view, but it didn’t stop me liking the book.

This is the third book in the Dan Riley series, which I didn’t realise until I started listening, but it makes no difference as it can easily be enjoyed as a stand alone novel.

Anyhow, I don’t want to give away anything else about the storyline, but I will say that I enjoyed this book a lot and would definitely consider reading or listening to more books by this author. If I had to nitpick, I would say that a couple of chapters – in both cases conversations between two characters – could have done with cutting down somewhat, and also the whole premise of this story relies on a huge coincidence which struck me as very unlikely. But if you can suspend your disbelief and just go with it, this is on the whole an enjoyable and interesting read (or listen). If you are a fan of mysteries I would probably recommend this one. ( )

You should never underestimate a woman’s revenge. When her nanny and friend vanishes, Beth decides that - since it all will finally come out anyhow - she can also make the first step herself: she tells her husband Evan that she’s going to leave him for her affair Nick. Evan seems to accept this calmly, they have lived next to each other but hardly with each other for years now, calling this a marriage was embellishing the situation. But he warns his wife that she will be sorry for this step. At that moment, Beth doesn’t have a clue what he means, how powerful her husband actually is and first of all, WHO she has been married to all these years. With her decision to leave him, she has triggered a ball that will send her directly into hell. But Beth is a fighter, much more a fighter than Evan could ever imagine.

Anna-Lou Weatherley’s novel really deserves the title “page-turner”. From the first chapter when the nanny goes missing to the very end: it is a rollercoaster ride of emotional ups and downs that fascinatingly and almost addictively keeps you reading on. The author has created enemies who fight on a very high level – a wonderful read that I enjoyed throughout.

“The Stranger’s Wife” is a psychological thriller combined with some serious issues that make you ponder quite some time after having finished reading it. I totally adored the idea of a woman fighting back, not accepting fate and a bullying husband who knows all the important people and thinks that life runs according to his personal laws. Having his evil character slowly unfold was exciting and frightening at the same time since you always wonder how well you actually know the people around you and how much and what they might hide. Yet, the story also showed that marital abuse and physical as well as psychological violence happens in all social classes, the rich can be affected in the same way as the poor, money does not make a difference when it comes to aggressions.

A marvellous plot with interesting and multifaceted characters, thus I can easily pardon the fact that it needed a kind of coincidence to make everything fall into place. The novel literally absorbed me and I hardly could put it down. ( )