Book Review: The Widow By Fiona Barton

The Widow By Fiona Barton

*I feel for this book it might be best to just skip the Synopsis and read it first.*

Goodreads’ Synopsis: When the police started asking questions, Jean Taylor turned into a different woman. One who enabled her and her husband to carry on, when more bad things began to happen…

But that woman’s husband died last week. And Jean doesn’t have to be her anymore.

There’s a lot Jean hasn’t said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing. She was too busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with the accusing glares and the anonymous harassment.

Now there’s no reason to stay quiet. There are people who want to hear her story. They want to know what it was like living with that man. She can tell them that there were secrets. There always are in a marriage.

The truth—that’s all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything…
My Review: Well I’ve been eyeing The Widow for a while now. I really wanted to read it when I was working at the library but I never decided to take it out. I finally decided to pick it up once I got approved for Fiona’s new book which is called The Child. The Child has a character in it that also appeared in The Widow. You don’t need to read The Widow but I just wanted to know the character before starting that one.

So this story is about a two year girl named Bella who has been kidnapped. As the investigation begins the main suspect seems to be this main named Glen. The book starts off in the future with the death of Glen. Since Glen has passed this gives his widow a chance to tell her side of the story. It alters from past and present.

I have to say overall I didn’t love this story, I thought it was well done for a debut novel. In this book you end up getting different perspectives. One of those perspectives is the one of a reporter. After reading this book, I found out Fiona Barton was a journalist. I really liked how she used her experience to help write this book. You get to read a bit about the media and how they go about getting their story and I thought that was really enjoyable. She gives you a lot of insight and I like how she incorporated it into the story.

I did feel however that the story ended up dragging on a bit. I found myself getting tired of the book halfway through and wanted to find out what happened and be done with the story. I did find the story to get a bit more interesting later on towards the end. That was when you finally found out what happened.

Overall I thought this was a decent book. I enjoyed the characters. I did think it dragged on a little but the writing was well done. There were some interesting parts that I enjoyed. I am currently reading The Child. I can’t wait to see how I end up liking that one.

Overall Rating: 3/5 Stars