Den Sista hustrun

by Becca Day, Maria Lyckow (Narrator)

Varje morgon i en avlägsen stuga i de skotska högländerna stiger Mary upp före gryningen. Hon lagar frukost, sköter trädgården och matar djuren. Hon målar läpparna i sin mans favoritfärg och möter honom med ett leende. Hon är den perfekta hustrun. Tills den dag hon hittar en bunt brev, gömda under golvplankorna. De berättar om ett liv skrämmande likt hennes eget. Någon annan har redan varit där.

Genres: Thriller, Audiobook, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller

Audiobook

First published October 23, 2024

About the author

Becca Day lives in Surrey with her husband, two daughters and cocker spaniel. She studied acting at Guildford College and went on to start her own Murder Mystery theatre troup. It was this move that inspired her love of crime fiction, and when she sold the company she threw herself head first into crime writing. Her short fiction has won several prizes and The Girl Beyond The Gate is her first full-length novel. Aside from writing, she is also an avid reader and runs Reading Parties with fellow author William Shaw.

source: Amazon

Reviews

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was instantly absorbed in this book from the very beginning. I enjoyed the isolated setting, the sense of dread, the tension, and the looming danger that lurks just under the surface. I found this book to be fast paced, and kept me on the edge of my seat, feeling anxious amongst other feelings.

Mary and her husband, Cal live in a cabin in the Scottish Highlands. They live a quiet life and while Cal is at work each day, Mary tends to the garden and makes sure that their cabin is clean and there is food heating on the stove and a smile on her face when Cal returns home each day. It's a routine that works for them, or is it?????

From the very beginning, we know that Mary is not happy. She is fearful and treads lightly around Cal. She is trapped and has not been able to leave but she has a plan......

Readers are privy to Mary's thoughts and emotions as well as her day-to-day activities. We serve as silent observers to her relationship with Cal and the dynamic of their 'relationship'. I could feel the sense of unease oozing from the pages. I found myself feeling for Mary and holding my breath grew increasingly concerned for her in several scenes.

Have we seen this type of plot before? Yes, but that doesn't take away from the enjoyment and impact this book had on this reader. There are a nice number of twists in this book and there were two that I did not see coming. The book did take a turn toward the end which I did not see coming. I wasn’t the biggest fan of it, but it wasn't enough to hinder my enjoyment of the book.

*This is a tale of survival and the effects of trauma. There will be triggers for some as there is both physical and psychological abuse.

3.5 stars

Thank you to Embla Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖

[JJtheBookNerd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary is the perfect housewife, straight from the 1950s. There's even a framed note on the wall with the rules. That's the way her husband, Cal, a tree surgeon, likes it. Mary, though, unbeknownst to Cal, isn't happy and seems to have some kind of plan to leave. She then finds out she's pregnant, which makes her more determined to flee.

Next we meet Amy, a woman who is the victim of domestic violence at the hands of her husband, Rich. She befriends Cal when she hires him to cut down a tree in her garden. They keep in touch, and he helps her devise a plan to leave her husband. Once she escapes, however, things quickly take a turn for the worse.

As you can imagine, this sent my feminist side into a rage at the beginning. Cal was a piece of work; the storyline slowly unravels what kind of person he actually is, together with the true nature of his relationship with Mary.

It kept being referred to that Mary had a plan, but I don't know what she was doing; she seemed to do a lot of procrastinating and not much else. She didn't seem to have any concrete ideas at all, and to make it worse, she was writing it all down, and that all turned out a bit predictable.

I know she was in a sticky situation, but it didn't make any sense how she wouldn't have just dealt with him in his sleep. It's because of her and 'her plan' that poor Amy gets dragged into it all as well. Then finally making your escape when you're about to give birth... yeah, what could go wrong?

This wasn’t a bad read; everything works itself out by the end, but some of the plot was frustrating. A little slow to get going, but had a good amount of tension and several twists and turns as we progressed through the story.

Rating this one a 3.5/5.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary lives with her husband Cal in a secluded cabin in the Scottish Highlands. Their lives while simple seem to be perfect or is that just what Mary wants you to believe?

Turns out Cal abducted her years earlier - not a spoiler as it's made known in the synopsis.

Then Mary discovers she's pregnant and the stakes of her escaping become not only more perilous but imperative. She must save her child.

Will she succeed in her plans to escape a monster? You'll have to read this to find out.

Been there, done that in a million other stories. It's competently written just not really surprising in any way. My biggest problem was that I just didn't care about Mary which is really important to a story of this type. It took me days to get through this but in fairness my preoccupation with the election and the anxiety that comes along with it may have played a factor in my response. 3 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Embla Books for my complimentary copy.

[Heather Coffee_Kindle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Release Date: 23rd October 2024

4.5 stars rounded up.

Mary is the woman in the cabin int he Scottish highlands with her devoted husband Cal, it all seems picture perfect, living off the grid in a 1950's martial set up, until memories start coming back to Mary that this isn't where she belongs, and isn't her choice to be this isolated, her fears are confirmed when she finds letters from the previous Mary addressed 'to the next woman', these events are exacerbated by Cal noticing Mary getting a few wrinkles and no longer being the 'perfect' wife.

Mary then tries to initiate a plan for her escape.

This book had me gripped, it's a fast paced thriller, which keeps you guessing and hooked. The art of writing such a horrifically grim book, that keeps people turning those pages is a skill, as this is not an easy read, but I just had to keep reading.

I felt like I could really understand Mary and why she was doing what she was and some of the decisions she had made, rather than just frustrated at her. It really puts you in Mary's head.

Trigger warning: contains physical and mental abuse, manipulation and sexual assault.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC.

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[Danielle-Gemma💜 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* rounded down. A really great read, very different to what I’ve read before but I feel like the storyline lost its way at the end and it could have ended much better

[ReadWithRyan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t really enjoy this one. I love a captivity trope and don’t mind it being repetitive but I had a few problems with this one.

Firstly, it was so predictable to the point where I read 50 pages and knew 2 plot twists that would happen before the end. I didn’t believe that the MMC was as scary as he was meant to be and the way his dialogue was written made me cringe.

This book doesn’t add anything new to the genre and I would recommend reading The Last Thing To Burn by Will Dean, Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter or Gray After Dark by Noelle W. Ihli if you want the captivity trope done better with substance and depth.

[SAMIRA · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

honestly i hate the plot. i hate how lauren was coerced into doing dumb shit just to increase the page count.

for instance, watching cal sleep but not stabing him. he told you he would kill you. you know he killed his ex wife. what is this "i don't have it in me" about ?

also, the way she was endangering herself to save the baby was stupid im very sorry. there's just no way anyone would do that

instead of going to some town n getting some help, you choose to go back ? and risk getting both of y'all killed ?

i just really dislike the way she was written. sure, trauma is a bitch, but damn

and the way amy turned the whole situation around really fell flat to me because wasn't she presented as mentally & physically weak when lauren freed her ? i know adrenaline is a thing but damn, she suddenly seemed like she inhaled 5 redbulls

cal's mom changing her mind also felt too abrupt. too plotdevice-y. you're telling me suddeeeeenly realized her son is in the wrong ? after her little speech on how everything was just his "wives"' fault ?

anyway, very rushed ending, irritating plot. the only good thing is, it was "well written" as in it was fast paced & the author didn't bore me with unnecessary description. la forme n'a malheureusement pas pu sauver le fond

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has lots of suspense and great potential but ultimately I struggled to believe that the main female character could be so hopeless. Perpetuates the "useless female" portrayed in so many movies.

[Maren’s Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a remote cabin in the Scottish Highlands, lives a woman named Mary, who is the perfect wife to her husband, Cal. She makes sure dinner is on the table when he gets home, wears his favorite lipstick when she greets him, and dusts and re-dusts the house to his specifications. But when Mary discovers a stack of letters detailing a life similar to hers, addressed to the “next woman”, Mary begins to worry about who lived there before and just how much longer she herself has as his wife.

The first half of this book pulls you in almost immediately and is engaging, thought-provoking and at times chilling. But around the 50% mark, the story kind of peters out, and becomes repetitive in the worst way. This is also where the story develops major plot holes I couldn’t explain away no matter how hard I tried.

This brings us to an ending that felt like a fever dream more than anything else. I struggled to understand the MCs decisions or lack thereof, nor her naivety around what was happening (ie couldn’t distinguish a house from a hospital with a nursing staff). Also, I wanted way more information and story around the second character we meet in the later half of the book, and yet she must have been more of creative tool than a pivotal character, there simply to further the plot and nothing more.

A book club pick that sadly none of us loved.

Read if you like:
▪️domestic suspense
▪️psychological thrillers
▪️isolated settings
▪️dual POV
▪️Scottish Highlands setting

Available on KU and free with Audible.

[TheConnieFox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an anxious read. It starts off slow, but it builds steadily. This is a thriller book that has a lot of twists, questioning what is real and what isn’t. This author wrote this book perfectly, in my opinion. I will be reading more books by this author!

This story is about a woman named Mary that does everything for her Husband, while he is away at work. She cooks, cleans, gardens, feeds the animals and makes sure everything is in perfect condition before he arrives home from work. She even continues to do things for him while he is at home. However, old memories start coming back to her and things aren’t exactly what they seem to be. This couple lives in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. There are deep dark secrets where she lives and she stops at nothing to figure them out! So, what is real and not real where she is living?

This is an eerie, twisted, horror book that had me feeling anxious and confused. This book contains violence, sexual assault and abuse. Read the full list of the content warnings in the beginning of the book. Overall, I rate this anxious book a 3.5/5 stars!

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a decent read, though it’s similar to many other books out there. Mary strives to be the perfect wife to Cal, who goes to work every day and leaves her at their very secluded home to cook and clean for him. It’s a bit of a slow burn initially but you know way something is definitely not right. As the story continues, the reader gets more insight into how Mary ended up in her current situation.

While I did enjoy Mary’s will to fight for what is right I couldn’t exactly figure out why it took her so long to do so, and I don’t feel that the author really told me that. There were a couple good twists in the book and I felt that the second half was very fast paced. The end was pretty good- I thought it tied the loose ends together well.

Overall, decent read- while not super unique, it did provide some good twists and o found myself engaged throughout. I’d give it 3.5 stars. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[vivivivivivi •on hiatus• · Rating 2 out of 5]

*MAJOR DV TRIGGER WARNING*

A pretty strong start of a woman held captive in a secluded cabin, and then pretty early on I realised it’s kinda a tired storyline.

Also, half the book goes like this:
“Are you okay?”
“I’m just tired.”
“Ok go make me a sandwich.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m just feeling under the weather.”
“Ok go get undressed so you can perform wife duties.”
“Are you okay?”
“I think it’s the food.”
“Ok remember to fix up the bathroom.”
“Are you okay?”
“I just have a headache”
“Ok eat this painkiller.”

And then boom. 80% in, she’s in a specialised ward. And then a bunch of rushed twists and turns and then it ends.

It’s a short book and makes a quick read, but it’s super predictable and I didn’t find the writing compelling. Didn’t even connect to our protagonist or felt anything for her…

[Tara B · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 a little repetitive but enjoyed the read.

[Chloe Cherrington · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was not impressed by this book at all.
For me personally I found it very predictable and at some point very unrealistic.

Such a shame as the blurb gave this book such great potential.

Shame.

[Ashlee Keene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t stop reading! Instantly hooked and absorbed all the feelings in the book. It had a few twists that I didn’t see coming at first and was intense until the end. Such a great read!

[Natalia Farnham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one fast and crazy ride! Super quick read and will keep you reading to find out what the heck is going on! Need to read more from her for sure!

[STEPH · Rating 3 out of 5]

The male main character in this book made me feel different kinds of hate and loathing. I wanted to pummel, break, and hurt him every time he appeared on the page. He’s manipulative, controlling, and just plain cruel.

The vivid descriptions of the Loch are haunting. I could live an isolated life with the love of my life—but under very different circumstances. Cal’s idea of marriage is twisted, and my heart went out to Mary—and to all the other Marys in the world.

Although the first half of the book really pulled me in, it became quite boring and repetitive after that. The twist at the end felt completely unnecessary. The addition of a certain character, meant to explain Cal’s nature, didn’t add anything to the plot in my opinion—and I don’t think it should’ve been done that way.

Still, this kept me going for a day. Not quite memorable, but for a domestic thriller with an isolated setting, it’s… okay.

[Hannah C · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was mild. I didn’t like “Mary’s” character at all. The Stockholm syndrome was so strong in her that I didn’t care if she ever escaped. The whole book is her thinking about escaping and having a million chances to do so but she makes Cal dinner instead.

Cal was so boring. Also he’s supposed to be this “gorgeous and charming” guy, but the way his character was written was very “where’s my hug?” energy.

[Erin Mortensen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was too repetitive for me. The chapters run together because they’re doing the same things over and over until about 70% through the book

[Laur · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This isn’t a house of love, it’s a cabin of fear.” Riveting and suspenseful, I binged this book. Edge of your seat true listening experience! Brilliant narrator made you feel and live every emotion. Twists and reveals. I’ll be looking forward to more from this great author.
Heck yes! 5 Stars ⭐️

[Jade · Rating 1 out of 5]

A strong start, I was turning the pages quickly but after a few chapters it became repetitive and a hard slog to finish. It was promising in parts, I did feel creeped out by Cal at points but found the bulk of the writing boring. Predictable ending and I felt like some of ‘twists’ at the end were pointless and didn’t add anything to the story. Forced myself to finish it but would not recommend.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC!!

[Amanda Nikhol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was nuts

[Frank Spinelli · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. Halfway through I gave up. This is a ridiculous story with a completely implausible plot. She’s held captive for ten years and not once did she think, let me stab him while he sleeps.

[Gabrielle Branch · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ I LOVED this! It’s so much like The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean!

[Ishani Guha-Shepherd · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 🌟
A highly predictable but intense read. Set in the Highlands of Scotland, a woman's marriage seems perfect on the surface, but underneath, there is a tale and a half of woes, sacrifice, trauma, and lies. At times, I struggled with the subject matter, and I expected the book to have a mention of triggers. The last 20-30% picks up in pace, and then the ending is pleasantly satisfying but confusing. Ultimately, it's a disappointing read.

[Curt Dunnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Woman in the Cabin” by Becca Day is a fast-paced, 4-star thriller! A flashback to 2016 kicks off the story as Gemma writes a letter expressing her fear that she might die that very night. Most of the book is told from Mary’s perspective as she lives in a secluded cabin with her husband, Cal. It’s far from a typical marriage, and Mary is deeply unhappy with the expectations placed upon her.

The story contains themes of mental and physical abuse, so readers with these triggers may want to steer clear. While the storyline isn’t entirely original, I felt the author brought a fresh and compelling spin to it. I was on the edge of my seat from the very beginning! The book dives deeply into Mary’s daily struggles, creating a vivid and emotional connection to her character. Packed with twists right up until the final pages, it kept me guessing. I’m excited to explore more works by Becca Day!

Thanks to Embla Books, Becca Day, and NetGalley for providing me with the opportunity to read this ARC and share my honest review.

[Donny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although quite predictable it kept my attention and was quite a good read, I did feel it was a little far fetched towards the end with the introduction of a family member and a little rushed in the explanation as to why Cal was the way he was.

[Soph · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only review I can possibly muster up is ‘yeah, it was alright’ because yeah, it was alright. Mildly interesting twist in the last few chapters but the ending felt incredibly rushed given the first 3/4 of the book were a slog and I almost dnfed this one.

[Allison Binsfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

She’s not the first Mary. She’s not the last Mary. And her name is not Mary. Held in a cabin for the past decade Mary does whatever it takes to get away. Not only to save herself, but to save her unborn baby.