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Cate Holahan

The Widower's Wife: A Novel Paperback – August 8, 2017

by Cate Holahan (Author)

1,359 ratings

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USA Today Bestseller
ONE OF KIRKUS’ BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

A cruise ship tragedy leaves behind a sea of secrets—and hints of foul play—in “one of those rare thrillers that will really keep you reading all night” (Kirkus)

Ana Bacon, a beautiful young wife and mother, tumbled off a cruise ship into dark and deadly waters. Ana is gone—leaving behind her wealthy husband and adorable daughter—but not everything about her disappearance adds up. What secrets did she leave behind?

Investigator Ryan Monahan is a numbers man. So when his company sends him the Bacon case, which could net a ten-million-dollar payout, Monahan doubts that her death is just a tragic accident. But the husband has a substantial alibi and a number of witnesses claim to have seen Ana fall, and the official ruling seems to hold up.

Still, the more Monahan uncovers about Ana’s life, the more he realizes how many people would kill to keep her secrets hidden. And the closer he gets to the truth, the greater the odds grow that he, too, will take a fatal fall.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Crooked Lane Books
Publication date

August 8, 2017
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.96 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

168331266X
ISBN-13

978-1683312666
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Widower’s Wife:
"One of those rare thrillers that really will keep you reading all night."
—Kirkus starred review

"Holahan once again creates a compelling heroine who can tap into bottomless reserves of strength when push comes to shove. A fast read for domestic-suspense fans."
—Booklist

"In this chilling cat-and-mouse tale...Holahan keeps the action going."
—Publishers Weekly

"Ryan Monahan is so intriguing that readers will be anxious to read about his further adventures."
—RT Book Reviews

"Impressive, exceptional, original, The Widower’s Wife is a compelling page-turner of a novel from beginning to end—and clearly established author Cate Holahan as an especially skilled novelist of the first order."
—Midwest Book Review

"A terrific mystery."
—Book Reporter

“Cate Holahan did a great job of weaving together a tale of how far desperate people will go...I can’t wait to read her next book.”
—San Francisco Book Review

"The contrasting perspectives give the reader an all-encompassing knowledge of the situation, which tends to keep the pages turning...The Widower’s Wife is a great tale for late summer beach reading."
—Noir Journal

"The suspense never ends...The characters are finely drawn, the mystery of what happened a good one...This is a book sure to make my Top Reads of 2016 List."
—Kings River Life

"This twisty thriller is riveting."
—Stop You’re Killing Me

"This book is one of the year’s better thrillers...certainly one of the most original!"
—Popular Culture Association

“Ingenious and engrossing. The Widower’s Wife is a twisting, Gone Girl-esque thriller full of lies and secrets that kept me delightfully off balance right to the end. Cate Holahan is a star on the rise.”
—Brad Parks, Shamus, Nero, and Lefty Award-winning author of The Fraud

Praise for Cate Holahan’s Dark Turns:
"Journalist Holahan’s debut will appeal to fans of precocious teen conspiracies like Sara Shepard’s Pretty Little Liars series, as well as to fans of grown-up, plucky-heroine-must-fight-for-herself thrillers."
—Booklist

“Holahan nails the preppy ambience, the cliques, the conspicuous consumption, and the coltish beauties such as golden girl Aubrey Byrne...[in] this Black Swan pas de deux with Tartt’s The Secret History.”
—Publishers Weekly

"A simply riveting read from beginning to end, Dark Turns aptly demonstrates the impressive storytelling talents of author Cate Holahan."
—Midwest Book Review

"A skillfully developed whodunit."
—Popular Culture Association

"In this twisting danse macabre of jealousy, obsession, vanity, and revenge, Cate Holahan gives more than a superb debut performance. Dark Turns provides a master class in murder."
—Jan Coffey, USA Today bestselling author of Trust Me Once

"Cate Holahan’s debut novel, Dark Turns, reads like a mash-up of Black Swan and a particularly juicy episode of Gossip Girl."
—Charles Dubow, IndieBound bestselling author of Indiscretion

About the Author

Cate Holahan is the USA Today–bestselling author of The Widower’s Wife, Lies She Told, and Dark Turns, all published by Crooked Lane Books. An award-winning journalist and former television producer, her articles have appeared in BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, The Record and on web sites for CBS, MSN Money, NorthJersey.com, BusinessWeek.com, and CNBC. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, two daughters, ages 7 and 6, and dog Westley.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crooked Lane Books; Reprint edition (August 8, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 168331266X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683312666
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.96 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #239,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,056 in Domestic Thrillers (Books)
- #2,675 in Private Investigator Mysteries (Books)
- #3,835 in Supernatural Thrillers (Books)

Customer Reviews:
1,359 ratings

About the author

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Cate Holahan

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Catherine "Cate" Holahan is the USA Today bestselling author of The Widower's Wife (August 2016), Lies She Told (Sept. 2017), Dark Turns (November 2015), and One Little Secret (July 9, 2019). An award-winning journalist and former television producer, her articles have appeared in BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, The Record newspaper, and on many web sites. She is a graduate of Princeton University and lives in New Jersey with her husband, two young daughters, and sometimes-good dog.

Customer reviews

5 star		42%
4 star		33%
3 star		17%
2 star		5%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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avidreader

Spellbinding.

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2022

Verified Purchase

Loved this book. Did not want it to end but I also wanted it to end so I could see what would happen. I pretty much guessed it all along but still it kept me reading it and loving it.Some of the characters you will love and some you will hate so bad its scary.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

DEADLY SECRETS

Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2017

Verified Purchase

Ana Bacon, a beautiful young wife and mother, tumbled off a cruise ship into dark and deadly waters. Ana is gone–leaving behind her wealthy husband and adorable daughter–but not everything about her disappearance adds up. What secrets did she leave behind?

My Thoughts: Before the fatal cruise, Tom and Ana were barely holding on financially. Tom had been unemployed for a while, and his beautiful wife Ana had lost her job recently under mysterious circumstances. Many secrets are hidden behind these closed doors. What will Tom and Ana do to find a way out of their financial difficulties? How will they protect their three-year-old daughter Sophie?

The Widower's Wife: A Thriller is told in alternating narratives, from Ana’s first person voice in August, leading up to the end of that cruise; and then we have the voice of an insurance investigator, Ryan Monahan. His narrative begins in November, as he tries to determine if he should pay out the insurance benefit. He has some serious concerns about the story Tom is telling.

The back and forth storyline shows the reader Ana’s thoughts and what she and Tom had planned, and as we read Ryan’s narrative, we see how far off track their plans led them.

This was a story I could not stop reading, wanting to know how it all played out, but there were also some twists that strained credibility and kept me from truly immersing myself in its outcome. In the end, I decided to go with it and imagine that all would work out for my favorite characters. 4 stars.

7 people found this helpful

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Mahlen Petry

A good read

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2021

Verified Purchase

This isn't my usual genre, but I enjoyed it. The author's presentation was kind of unique to me. It's written using alternating chapters between an insurance investigator, Ryan, written in 3rd person and in 1st person by the woman, Ana, whose death he was investigating. She had just taken out a $5 million double indemnity insurance policy a week or 2 before her "accidental death" of falling off a cruise liner. Ryan is trying to determine if it was truly an accident, suicide (was she depressed), or murder (did she have enemies). When every other chapter is written in 1st person from a dead woman it has you wondering. From Ana's chapters is where we get the back-story. I'm generally not a big fan of flashbacks, but this seemed to work. A good read overall.

Helpful

AnneM

Good read but a little too long

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2021

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed reading this book, but I felt it was too long. The last third of the book dragged, and I felt the author was just trying to reach a certain page count before tying everything up. The writing was good, however, and I liked the protagonist.

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2017

Verified Purchase

I started to read just a couple of chapters to see if I'd like this book...I ended up reading half of it before I fell asleep. I finished the next day.

I must say, I'm a hard one to fool...I usually guess whodunnit within the first few chapters of a book, or minutes in a movie. This book had me guessing until the denouement, which is VERY hard to do!

I won't say much about the plot, since it would be easy to spoil great twists unintentionally, and that's one of the wonderful parts of the book.

The story alternates between third-person from an insurance investigator's POV, and a first-person account of events several months prior, by the woman whose death he's investigating. The author unravels first the mystery, then the investigator's resolution, in a way that keeps a reader turning pages. Isn't that what a great thriller is all about?

I liked the way the characters developed, chapter by chapter, until the mystery of the Widower's Wife's death is revealed. By then, there is still a lot of story left to tell.

I can't say more without giving away too much. If you like thrillers, you'll love this book!

One last thing. I'm a writer and an editor, so things like typos and grammatical errors drive me crazy. Just a few pages in to The Widower's Wife, there's a mistake, using 'gate' instead of 'gait.' That sent up a red flag, and I was prepared not to be able to read the entire book, if it was laced with error after error.

For those of you who are also bothered by such things, have no fear. As far as I could see, that was the ONLY such mistake I found.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Clifford Family

Beach-Read Ease with Serious Stakes

Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2016

Verified Purchase

There are so many things Widower's Wife gets right, it's hard to know where to begin. Probably first is the telling, two POVs, our victim and the insurance investigator assigned to decide whether to pay out on the policy. Like the best authors, Holahan leaves us with a cliffhanger at the end of each section, compelling us to want to skip ahead, only to play by the rules, read the next section in order, which ends with a cliffhanger so good, you want to skip the next section to find out what happens there, too. She does this throughout the book, which is how the narrative proves so gripping, pulls you along in such an engrossing and invested manner. There is is also both a lightness and gravitas to the prose as well, so that we get a sense of the playfulness in the language despite the heaviness of the subject matter. Ana's motivations, integrity, and resolve are always believable and empathetic, and when she find herself in too deep, we have the hope and faith she can make it, despite all the odds staked against. Perhaps the niftiest trick the Widower's Wife pulls off: beach-read ease with serious stakes. Not easy to pull off. This is a funny, sexy, thrilling whodunit, with a some killer lines, delightful twists, and rollicking climax. A can't-put-down book, and I won't be surprised when this one gets optioned and made into a big-time film.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

jane

Great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

Great read

hd 136

excellent read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2017

Verified Purchase

excellent read

Elizabeth Shopped Here

Naive Characters and Spelling Challenges

Reviewed in Canada on January 17, 2017

Verified Purchase

The storyline is intriguing but the heroine is almost too naïve, as is the insurance investigator. The author realty needs better editors: at location 2265 "gate" should be "gait" and, in two places (location 2523 and 3452), "discrete" should be "discreet."

3 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Suspense to the Max

Reviewed in Canada on March 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

Suspense to the max. I highly recommend it to those who enjoy thrillers and suspense. Lits od twists and turns that would keep you at the edge of your seat and continue reading till the wee hours of the night.

One person found this helpful

JD

Three Stars

Reviewed in Canada on October 22, 2016

Verified Purchase

find the story very slow

4 people found this helpful

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The Widower's Wife: A Novel Paperback – August 8, 2017

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