A Reliable Wife
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4.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The year is 1907, and Ralph Truitt, a wealthy but lonely country businessman in his fifties, advertises in a Chicago paper for a 'reliable wife'.
Catherine Land, a beautiful thirty-four-year-old, responds that she is a 'simple, honest woman', but the photo she sends with her response is of someone else.
Slowly we learn of Catherine's intentions and of Ralph's past. They both carry regret and sorrow and both have chosen very different ways to deal with what life has brought them. As the time they spend together grows, neither Catherine now Ralph has counted on the secrets they will uncover about each other, nor on the emotions and events that will be borne from their unusual arrangement.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1907 Wisconsin, Goolrick's fiction debut (after a memoir, The End of the World as We Know It) gets off to a slow, stylized start, but eventually generates some real suspense. When Catherine Land, who's survived a traumatic early life by using her wits and sexuality as weapons, happens on a newspaper ad from a well-to-do businessman in need of a "reliable wife," she invents a plan to benefit from his riches and his need. Her new husband, Ralph Truitt, discovers she's deceived him the moment she arrives in his remote hometown. Driven by a complex mix of emotions and simple animal attraction, he marries her anyway. After the wedding, Catherine helps Ralph search for his estranged son and, despite growing misgivings, begins to poison him with small doses of arsenic. Ralph sickens but doesn't die, and their story unfolds in ways neither they nor the reader expect. This darkly nuanced psychological tale builds to a strong and satisfying close.
Customer Reviews
Absolute page turner.
Captivating interest from first to last page. Full of twists and turns and well developed characters. Loved it.