Book Review - My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney

Title: My Husband’s Wife
Author: Alice Feeney
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2026
 
Description: Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently movied into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife.
 
One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying.
 
Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person’s date of death, including her own. Secrets start to unravel, and as the line between truth and lies blur, Birdy feels compelled to right some old wrongs.
 
Review: Alice Feeney’s books have become a hit or miss for me. I gave some five stars, I gave some two stars. “My Husband’s Wife” fall right in the middle.
 
Meet Eden Fox. She and her husband Harisson just moved to a seaside village called Hope Falls. When she returns from a run, Eden realizes her key doesn’t fit the lock. A strange woman opens the door, claiming she is Eden and lives there with her husband Harisson. This woman has taken over Eden’s life and her husband is in on it.
 
The premise really intrigued me, it’s a terrifying situation. Eden is being gaslit and her isolation in the village of Hope Falls is palpable and oppressive. There is also a separate storyline, set six month earlier, that follows a woman named Birdy who inherited Spyglas, the house that Eden is living in now. The first half of the book grabbed my by the throat, because the threat is so personal and psychological.
 
Where the book lost is for me is in its credibility. Feeney loves plot twists and she has done some of the best in previous books. But she goes overboard with them at a certain point. The conspiracy that is going on in this book is so complex and dependent on coincidence that it undermines the foundation of the story. The subplot surrounding the “Death Date” clinic also feels at times like a superfluous element from another genre, distracting from the core of the story.
 
The craftsmanship of the writing style and the page-turning quality are undeniable. It’s an entertaining roller coaster ride, provided you’re willing to suspend your logical mind for a while. The book is steeped in Feeney’s characteristic darkness and unreliable characters, which I loved. But the balance between a brilliant plot and total implausibility sometimes tips just the wrong way.
 
Rating: 3/ 5