When I saw a tweet that was reaching out looking for new reviewers for a book blog, I was intrigued. I follow a few book blogs on Bloglovin, so know they existed, but I had always just assumed the blog owner reviewed all the books themselves. That is, until I read Whispering Stories book blog. Woah does that blog review a lot of books! So many, in fact, that the blog owner, Stacey, cannot keep up with demand and has had to bring in a team of reviewers! I praise Stacey on the success of her blog and am thrilled to now be part of the team.

The first book I chose to review was The Weekend Wives by Christina Hopkinson*. The book stood out to me from the very first glance – how cute and insta-worthy is the cover art?! My below review was written for Whispering Stories and you can check out my review over on their website here.

I loved the sound of The Weekend Wives from the synopsis – I knew it was going to be a ‘chick lit’, and thus most probably a fairly easy page turner. I’m glad to say I was in fact right! You could easily read this book in one sitting, but also just as easily read only a few pages at a time if you wished. It isn’t too complicated or advanced in terms of both plotline and vocabulary, so this book would be suitable for a wide range of abilities.

The story itself follows three main protagonists whose family lives are tested as their partner works away for long periods of time, often returning solely on the weekends – hence ‘The Weekend Wives’. Each character is likeable and has a developing plot of their own throughout the book.

Emily has an annoying dog and a love to gossip, but when a disaster occurs, she is forced to see her family values from a different perspective. Tamsin slowly begins to learn that her loving husband isn’t quite everything he seems, and the uprooting of an event that happened decades ago will put Sasha on rocky ground. Each character’s storyline inevitably ends up turning their lives upside down – but will this be for the better or worse?

What I loved most about this book, is that the true revelations behind their storylines are not what you expect, at all. From the synopsis, I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen to each character, but I was indeed very, very wrong.

The only negative thing I would say about this book, is that there are some sex scenes that are overly cringey and a bit too ‘much’ in my opinion. I wasn’t expecting some of the vocabulary used, and I’m not a fan of erotica and the such, so some of it I had to skim read through! That being said, there isn’t pages and pages of it – only a few paragraphs or sentences dotted throughout the book.

I do have to especially praise Christina Hopkinson for thinking outside the box in terms of plots for each of the characters – it was nice not to see what I expected – three extra marital affairs with younger woman. This book is a lot more interesting than that! She also explores some difficult subjects well – with enough reservation and respect for the topics, but also getting deep enough to really make you think about the reality of the plot.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the read, and will give this book  3.5 stars – whilst I wouldn’t choose to read the book over and over again, I would highly recommend any fan of chick lit to give it a go!

I hope you enjoyed reading my book review of The Weekend Wives! If you have any book recommendations you think I’d love, please let me know in the comments below!

If you want to check out what else I’ve been reading, why not have a look at my previous book reviews?