Books: "The Wife" By Alafair Burke

The Wife

By Alafair Burke

Harper, A Unit of Harper Collins, $26.99

Alafair Burke, whose profile soared with her novel The Ex, in 2016, is back with a domestic thriller, The Wife, a story that asks how far a wife will go to protect the man she loves.

Will she stand by his side, even if he drags her down with him?

The Wife is centered around Angela, who fell in love with Jason Powell while she was catering a dinner party in East Hampton.




Angela assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, as are many relationships between locals and summer visitors. Jason, and economics professor at NYU, surprisingly had other plans, and they were married the following summer.

For Angela, the marriage was a chance for her to reboot her life, as she and her son were able to move out of her mother's home to Manhattan, where nobody was aware of her tragic past.

Six years later, with a bestselling book and a growing media career, Jason has become a cultural lightning rod, placing Angela near the spotlight she so desperately tried to avoid. 

When a college intern makes an accusation against Jason, followed by another woman, Kerry Lynch, coming forward with an even worse allegation, their perfect life starts to fall apart.

When Jason insists he is innocent, she trusts him. That faith is tested when Kerry disappears.

At that time, Angela is forced to take a closer look, both at the man she married and the woman she chose not to believe.

When she is asked to defense Jason in court, she realizes that her loyalty to her husband could unearth old secrets.

Burke, the New York Times bestselling author of eleven previous novels, is known for placing her books into the present zeitgeist.

That is true with The Wife, which fits perfectly into this current moment with discussions of women's rights and the #MeToo movement.