The English Wife
A Novel
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- 11,99 €
Publisher Description
A scandalous novel of murder, secrets, and betrayal set in the opulent world of Gilded Age New York and London.
From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig comes The English Wife, a dark and scintillating tale of a marriage gone wrong, filled with mystery, mistaken identity, and romance. Annabelle and Bayard Van Duyvil live a charmed life in New York: he's the scion of an old Knickerbocker family, she grew up in a Tudor house in England, and their fairytale romance led to marriage and twins. But when Bayard is found dead with a knife in his chest on the night of their Twelfth Night Ball and Annabelle goes missing, rumors run rampant.
Bay's sister Janie forms an unlikely alliance with a reporter to uncover the truth, convinced her brother would never have killed his wife. But as she delves deeper into the couple's lives, everything she thought she knew about them starts to unravel. Who were Bay and Annabelle, really? And why did Bay die with the name "George" on his lips? Step into the gilded world of wealth and privilege in this gripping historical thriller of love, lies and murder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of romantic suspense will best appreciate this whodunit set in 1899 from bestseller Willig (The Ashford Affair). Janie Van Duyvil feels insignificant and out-of-place at a fancy Twelfth Night dinner party that her brother, Bay, and his wife, Annabelle, throw at the ancestral family home in Cold Spring, N.Y. Her self-pity is quickly superseded by horror after a cousin of hers stumbles on Bay lying on the ground outside the house, bleeding from a dagger wound. Bay utters the name George before expiring. Annabelle's subsequent disappearance and a tabloid's instant assertion that Bay murdered her before committing suicide heighten the tragedy of his death. Determined to exonerate her sibling, Janie turns investigator, finding passion and love along the way. Flashbacks to 1894 London introduce a woman known as Georgie and describe her initial encounter with Bay, interrupting the momentum of Janie's story line, and awkward prose ("Fragments of poetry danced through her mind like crystal baubles") is a minus.
