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The Mad Wife
By Megan Church
Sourcebooks Landmark, Sept 2025, 352pp.

The Short of It:

Holy smokes.

The Rest of It:

My favorite thing is to read in bed, late into the night. This one night, I poorly planned my reading, scrolled up and turned the last page. What? So, I did what any reader would do. I began to frantically scroll through Hoopla and Libby to find my next read. Fast.

The Mad Wife is what I settled on. I loved the retro cover and I have a thing for domesticity and minutiae. I dove right in.

Wow. The wife in this story isn’t mad like angry, although there is plenty to be angry about. No, Lulu Mayfield has been deemed MAD by well-meaning neighbors, her own husband, and the doctors who see her. Diagnosed with Hysteria.

In the 50’s, that seemed to be a thing. Raising baby after baby with little to no sleep and still responsible for putting dinner on the table every single night, keeping the house presentable, and maintaining an attractive appearance (hair, makeup, and the like). It was the norm, and apparently women who couldn’t do it were prescribed meds to help, or even worse.

Lulu Mayfield is a likable but flawed character. She has a darling son, and a newborn baby but motherhood is never easy for her. Not like it is for the other moms in her suburban neighborhood. They seem to do it without any effort at all. Every morning she gazes at the empty home across the street, daydreaming that it’s hers and she can enjoy just a little bit of peace.

That home is not empty for long. Bitsy and Gary move in with their daughter Kathleen and things are not quite right. Bitsy is friendly, but distant. Lulu watches them when they don’t know it, and Bitsy is off in a way that’s hard for Lulu to understand. What is going on over there?

Lulu has some good friends in her circle, but no one truly understands the isolation that she feels or just how bad she’s gotten. As she struggles to do daily tasks, she fails miserably. She begins to question the point of living. Even with her children, she finds herself to be a poor example of parenting and an even worse example of a doting wife as her husband struggles with insecurities at work.

This is a marvelous read. I couldn’t help but root for Lulu. She’s so fragile and yet no one sees how despondent she is. Doctors!! Oh my gosh, male doctors are still doing this today. Dismissing serious symptoms and calling it anxiety. Lose some weight, get some exercise. Sure. When you can’t even lift your head off the pillow, how the heck are you supposed to do that?

Church’s writing stirs up empathy and rage!! I often found myself absolutely outraged at what Lulu was subjected to. Reading the book definitely reminded me of those early morning hours spent with a screaming infant and how easy it was to feel so alone in the world.

There is a twist that I will not mention. You need to discover it for yourself.

Well done. Highly recommend.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

The Last Flight
By Julie Clark
Sourcebooks Landmark, 9781728215723, June 2020, 320pp.

The Short of It:

This is the “it” book making the rounds this summer and it’s quite the page-turner.

The Rest of It:

On the outside, Claire Cook has it all. A beautiful home with gleaming appliances, people who are literally at her beck and call whenever she needs them, her work for the foundation is rewarding and satisfying but her marriage to Rory is a constant reminder that things are not golden in the Cook household.

Rory Cook, an up-and-coming political figure comes from a well-known family and expects Claire to behave and act a certain way. If she doesn’t respond appropriately in public then as soon as he has her behind closed doors, he makes it clear to her that whatever she’s done must never be done again.

After fearing for her safety one too many times, she comes up with a plan. On an upcoming business trip, she plans to disappear and never come back. New identifying documents have been purchased and the morning of her plan, she is energized with renewed hope. Until she is forced to change her plans.

When her careful plan to escape is ruined by Rory, she does the next best thing by switching airline tickets with a stranger. She’ll head to Oakland, California and Eva, the woman she meets at the airport will head to Puerto Rico as Claire. This will buy her a little time.

What Claire doesn’t plan on is Eva’s plane crashing into the ocean shortly after takeoff. Could it be a blessing that Claire is considered among the dead?

This is a tightly wound story told through alternating points of view, Claire’s and Eva’s and it held my attention until I turned that last page. It reads like a movie script. There is just the right amount of intrigue and all of the supporting characters all have a role.

My only complaint, is that I really expected some of the story to be set in Puerto Rico. I was looking forward to spending a little time there but since the plane crashes (not a spoiler) before getting there, no time is spent there at all. So you won’t get a vacation-like setting in this one but you could easily read this one on a beach in one sitting.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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