Title: The Best Way to Bury Your Husband
Author: Alexia Casale
Publisher: Viking
Synopsis:
When Sally kills her husband with a cast-iron skillet, she’s more fearful of losing her kids than of disposing of a fresh corpse. That just wouldn’t be fair—not after twenty years of marriage to a truly terrible man. But Sally isn’t the only woman in town reaching the brink. Soon, Sally finds herself leading an extremely unusual self-help group, and among them there are four bodies to hide. Can they all figure out the perfect way to bury their husbands . . . and get away with it?
First to join is former nurse, Ruth, who met her husband as a single mom. Now her son is grown and her husband’s violence builds by the day until an attack on the stairs leads to a fatal accident—for him. A few doors down, Samira’s last straw comes when she discovers her husband is planning a campaign of violence against her eldest daughter, who has just come out. Janey, Sally’s best friend, has just had her first child at forty-two. Sleep-deprived Janey needs a hero to slay the monster in the fairy tales she whispers to her daughter each night . . . and as her husband’s violence escalates, it might just be her.
Together, fueled by righteous anger but tempered by a moral core, the four women must help each other work out a plan to get rid of their husbands for good. Along the way, Sally, Ruth, Samira and Janey rediscover old joys and embark on new passions in work, education, and life. Friendship and laughter really are the best medicine—and so is getting away with murder.
My review:
Even though this book is about women suffering domestic abuse and killing their husbands during Lockdown, I found this book to be quite a cosy, almost light-hearted read, which I didn’t expect… I think the author’s writing style just lends itself to this.
The characters throughout are likeable and although there is obviously a very serious overarching theme to the book, it has plenty of dark humour. There are strong female friendships and emotional moments that add to the depth of this novel.
You very much have to suspend your disbelief for parts of this novel, but if you can do that, you can escape into what is a surprisingly heartwarming novel about… wives killing their husbands! (Husbands that definitely deserved it).
Many thanks to the publisher, Viking, for providing a copy of this book on which I chose to write an honest review.
The Best Way to Bury Your Husband is out on 14 March 2024.