Book Review: His Other Woman, by Louise Voss

His Other Woman,

by Louise Voss

Publication: July 2, 2021

About:

When my husband vanished, I could never have imagined that finding him again would be worse than losing him…

Not long before before our daughter’s wedding, my husband plans a trip away. I encourage him to go: I know he needs a break. I drive him to the airport, wrap my arms around him and kiss him goodbye, telling him I’ll see him soon.

Then he vanishes. And no one believes me when I say he would never have left us, not so cruelly, leaving our messages unread and our calls ignored.

I spend weeks in our empty house, surrounded by pictures of our family, desperately searching for answers. I go shopping with my daughter for her wedding dress, hoping beyond hope that he will come home in time to walk her down the aisle.

But when we find him, he doesn’t remember us – and he has done something I may never be able to forgive. I just want my husband back… but is he still the man I married?

*My Review*

I have been in sort of a reading rut lately, so I decided to get my NetGalley shelf organized and try to tackle at least one book on my TBR a week. HIs other woman started off a little unusual for me. Liam has suffered a tremendous loss, his mother is not well, and he just hasn’t been himself. Despite his daughter’s upcoming wedding, Liam takes off for a hiking trip in Spain planning to keep everyone updated. However, once he lands in Madrid and lets everyone know that he has arrived, they don’t hear from him again.

This is a tough one to review because I really enjoyed this book at times. I found the overall premise of the novel an interesting one. I’m not sure I agreed with much that happened, but it was interesting nonetheless. Watching the characters change and evolve throughout the novel, and then very realistically regret their decisions helped make this more relatable to me because who hasn’t made decisions that they later were smacking themselves for?

Unfortunately, there were so many other times that i didn’t enjoy this book. First, why didn’t Liam just let everyone know what he had decided when he left on his trip? Lord that would have saved some drama? And what in the hell was up with Alanda’s sudden lifestyle change later in the book? What was happening with Liam suddenly cycling all of the time even though his leg still hurt too bad to take a walk? And then there was Katya… I admit that early in the novel, I found her extremely immature and almost not completely stable. This was confirmed towards the end of the book when that little twist came along, but I liked nothing about her from beginning to end.

And my main confusion is that this is described as “heartbreaking.” I didn’t see any real emotional connections between any of the characters that could categorize this novel as heartbreaking.

If you are a fan of women’s fiction with a disappearance and a ton of obstacles to overcome, then His Other Woman may be your next favorite read. It’s a bit slow to start but once it picks up, you really can’t help reading along despite all of the moments you have to stop and wonder what in the world these people are thinking. This was a 3-star read for me despite some issues, simply because of the creativity the author put into the conflicts and resolutions.

*Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. 

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