The First Wife by Emily Barr
Publisher: Headline Review
Release Date: 15th September 2011
Rating: 4/5
Source: Received from the publisher.
Amazon Summary:

Lily, a young woman left alone in the world on the death of her grandparents, finds purpose when she befriends Harry Summers, a grieving widower, whose wife Sarah recently took her own life in Barcelona. The pair fall in love and Lily finally finds the security she has never had. But Lily’s life takes a darker turn when she realises there may be more to Sarah’s death than meets the eye. Anxious to find the truth before she marries her beloved Harry, Lily sets off to Barcelona in search of answers. What she discovers is more shocking than she could ever have imagined…

I’m a huge Emily Barr fan, I wasn’t able to get into her earlier work, but since The Sisterhood came out I’ve been hooked. I eagerly read The Sisterhood, followed by The Life You Want and The Perfect Lie. Emily is undoubtedly the Queen of suspense with her novels having brilliantly spooky plots with many twists and turns so I was thrilled when I received a proof copy of her new novel The First Wife. It’s billed as a modern-day Rebecca, but having not read Rebecca I have no idea how accurate that description actually is. The book actually sounded similar to Dorothy Koomson’s novel The Woman He Loved Before, not in style (they’re two entirely different authors), but plot-wise, about being the “second” wife, if you will.

The First Wife is an interesting novel. Like Barr’s previous novels, there’s an edge of suspense to it. An edge that it isn’t all as it seems and there’s a certain aura to the novel where you wonder when the bottom is going to drop out and it’s all going to go bonkers, it’s all going to implode. I thought the initial plot was excellent. I was entranced by Lily Button, entranced that this young girl didn’t know life, that her life revolved around her grandparents until they died and she was suddenly thrust into the world. I found Lily’s naivete charming, rather than annoying, and I liked seeing how Lily became somewhat smitten with Harry Summers and how their relationship evolved once his wife, Sarah, killed herself in Barcelona.

I admit, I did find the suspense lacking a bit. Don’t get me wrong, it was there, and like I said, I was waiting for it all to drop, but it was miles more sedate than The Sisterhood. The synopsis makes a big mention of a ‘shocking discovery’ about Harry’s wife Sarah but the action of the novel is relegated to those final 50/75 pages. Up until then, it’s a fairly pedestrian novel. Very readable, but not what I expect from an Emily Barr novel. I still enjoyed it, mind, because Lily’s story and how she goes from a practical hermit to being out in the world and making her own money is indeed very interesting. I liked the house where she lodged, I thought the family was lovely, and I liked her friendship with Al, and her burgeoning relationship with the Summer’s. I also liked the story about Jack, a New Zealander fed up with his life and wanting to break free and visit Europe. It was all done very well, it just didn’t make my heart race as much as The Perfect Lie did.

The characters were very intriguing people. I liked Lily, I liked her naivete, as I’ve mentioned. I found her fascinating and although she’s probably not the most affluent heroine ever, I felt she carried the book nicely. I wanted her to get a life she deserved, because if anyone deserved a nice life, it was Lily. I really liked the family she lodged with, Julia and John and their four kids, particularly Mia, who was close to Lily’s age and who was close to Lily. I never really clicked with Harry Summers. Obviously, the synopsis hints to something dangerous/shocking having happened to Sarah and I just felt suspicious of both of them and couldn’t really get a proper hold on either of their characters. All I wanted to tell Lily to do was run away as fast as she could. Not only because they were suspicious but because Harry was, frankly, old enough to be her father which made me feel very icky indeed. Jack was one of my favourite characters, his storyline did seem a bit strange, coming out of the blue, but I really liked him and I admired the fact he was willing to leave New Zealand to fulfill his dream of seeing Spain.

I must admit, I did find the latter stages of the book to be beyond the realms of believability. Lily takes off to Barcelona and I just felt that from what we knew of her thus far, it wouldn’t be in her make-up to do that. I found it hard to believe that Lily would survive the bustle of an airport and the flight to Barcelona and the enormity of being in a city where people speak a different language. It might have been necessary to the plot, but it was entirely out of characters for me and it sort of spoiled it a little bit. You don’t give us a character who in all of her 21 years has only ever left Cornwall a couple of times and then have her, on a whim (suspicious, or no) head to Barcelona. Nevertheless, the ending was very fast-paced and frantic and everything all sort of spilled out in one long shocking confession. I’d rather guessed most of it, I will admit, about Sarah, about Harry so it was rather anti-climatic in a sense, but still dramatic in others. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed The First Wife. I don’t personally believe it was as good as The Sisterhood, but it was good enough and I struggled to put it down!

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