Lead Review

• Book: Her Husband’s Lover
• Location: Cambridgeshire, South London
• Author: Julia Crouch

Review Author: tripfiction

3.75*
As the book opens, Louisa Williams is looking back over her marriage. She has lost both her husband, Sam, and their two young children. The three are dead. He was chasing her tiny car in his Porsche, vowing she would never get away from him. A crash results and the fatalities ensue. Louisa is badly wounded and takes months to recuperate.

“Now” she is trying to get her life back on track. She is wealthy, Sam left her a small fortune, so it is up to her how and where she embarks on her new life. She chooses a flat in London, really high up, overlooking a large building site. Work there comes to a halt as a burial site is found and the archaeologists must carry out their work. A burial plot of plague victims, it seems. Death is following Louisa around. In London now there are scorching temperatures, there is drought and once again the city has its own plague, suffering from the effects of global warming.

In the background lurks Sophie, a successful model who fell foul of drugs, accused her photographer of rape but her story had too many holes and he was acquitted. She has lost everything. However, in recent times she was Sam’s lover and she is determined to make Louisa cough up the inheritance due to the child that she and Sam sired. Louisa sees her as a black, crow-like creature, the epitome of evil.

Teetering from a high rise crane is Adam (he was trying to make a film of the building site, rather than having any suicidal ideation), the most lovely man you could wish to meet and environmentalist to boot. Serendipity brings Louisa and Sam together. He tolerates the clear lies she is telling and supports and protects her as much as he can from Sophie.

As you will have guessed, this is not a simple story and there are many twists and turns along the way, which the author generally handles very well.

For me the characters were a weakness. They were a mêlée of stereotypes – in the main – of ghastly people. The drunkard, the liar, the pothead, the abuser, the philanderer. In general they all (including Adam) felt rather two dimensional and their under-development then made some of the storylines feel a little distasteful. I got a bit fed up with the heat everywhere (yes, I know it added to the cloying storyline) and the alcohol abuse just went on and on, which made the book feel overly long. The “Then” and “Now” got a little confusing at times.

Having said that, I read the book quite happily, I wanted to know how things panned out. The author is a gifted writer and can keep her audience hooked. Could Adam really be the lovely, moral, sweet man depicted? Was Sophie not entitled to some money from the estate as she had a child with Sam – he was, after all on the brink of leaving his wife for her? Who really killed Katie, Sam’s first wife?

Setting isn’t strong as far as TripFiction is concerned.

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