Woman with a Secret - Sophie Hannah (Book Review)

I decided to give Sophie Hannah another chance and I am so glad that I did.  I could not put down Women with a Secret.  You need to read the entire book to figure out what is exactly going on.  Not all of the details add up in the beginning or in the middle to the entire picture.  The reader is getting bits and pieces of smaller stories that in the start of the book you would never know interconnect. 

In this book it follows Nicki Clements who is a housewife with two children and loving husband.  It also follows a murder of a columnist who constantly had different opinions from popular belief.  In the beginning you can tell that Nicki is hiding something from a lot of people and maybe even deluding herself into thinking her lies are the truth.  Nicki appears to be having an affair, but looks can be somewhat deceiving.  As the book goes on you learn exactly who Nicki was talking to through the computer and met once.  Although I would argue maybe we don't know who Nicki met that one time.  As the entire book makes you question what do you actually know.

Damon Blundy who took the opposite of popular opinion and put it in his columns was murdered at his home while his devoted wife was downstairs.   The police question the wife, but she seems not to be a main suspect.  Hannah, Damon's wife, has one question for the cops and that is who was her husband actually in love with because it couldn't have been her.  Once Hannah explains herself I can see what she is saying about her husband being to devoted and to caring to quickly.

During the book I thought I put together who murdered Damon Blundy and who Nicki was supposedly corresponding with online, but I was totally wrong.  The author gives the reader so many options that it  is hard to pick just one since several people had motivates in the book.  The suspense keeps going til the last few chapters.   The character development that Sophie has given the reader keeps you wanting to know more about each person involved in the book.

I guess my one complaint was the last chapter I felt was sort of self explanatory and I would like to have known more about what happened to Nicki's crazy family instead.  I feel like as a reader I want to know if she ever confronts her parents or her so called best friend Melissa.  As the reader I got so much depth into the youth that Nicki had and avoids I wanted to see where that was going at the end of the book.

This is a book I would suggest reading when you have time to sit down and finish it quickly.  It is a can't put down type of book not one you can easily read a few pages or chapters in each night.  If you love suspense and guessing the ending this book is for you. 

Great Quote:
"I know better than anyone that sometimes a possibility is enough to keep a person going, even if it never becomes a reality."

My rating 4/5

Author website http://www.sophiehannah.com/

Publisher HarperCollins Publishers

ISBN 9780062388261

Length 374

Format hardback