How To Be A Good Wife by Emma Chapman

Marta lives with her husband Hector who is twenty years older than her, he has looked after her since he found her in the city as a teenager not long after her parents died. On their wedding day her mother-in-law gave her a book called How To Be A Good Wife which she must follow, and it's full of advice such as 'never bother your husband with domestic matters' and 'after a hard day at work, your husband will want a hearty meal to replenish his spirits'. The story is set in Scandanavia (we don't know exactly where) and told from Marta's point of view. Their grown up son Kylan left home a few months ago and Marta has decided to stop taking the medication that Hector says she needs, she has no recollection of her life before meeting him but now she's slowly remembering things from her past and starts seeing visions of a girl, but what is real?

For the most part this book was good but I was expecting more from it, I don't think it helps that it's been compared to other novels that I really enjoyed (Before I Go To Sleep being one of them) because it increased my expectations. At first I found it very difficult to get into, but once the story picked up it was almost impossible to put down, although the ending isn't predictable I was still left feeling a little disappointed with it. A good debut but not great.

Rating: 3 out of 5