The Second Wife

Just like the book that preceded this (Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman), I started reading Wives Behaving Badly thinking it was a fluffy book that would helpfully distract me from some of my worries. It did distract me - in part because it is well-written and addresses key themes of love, fidelity (and its real meaning), family and work. A surprisingly good read.

The story of Minty Lloyd, second wife of Nathan Lloyd, and mother of five-year old twin boys. Minty is an intelligent ambitious young woman who worked in magazine/news publishing. Her immediate boss, Rose, and she had been close friends until she embarked on a passionate affair with Rose's husband, culminating in him leaving his wife and marrying Minty.Before the marriage Rose is fired by the company and Minty takes over her job. She has been the ultimate bitch having stolen both her friend's job and husband. Relationships between Minty and her adult step-children are fraught to say the least as she is regarded, with justification as a home-wrecker. Following the birth of the twins she works part-time, and wishes to work full time, but show more her husband is against it. She becomes slightly obsessed that he now regrets marrying her, and imagines he is having an "affair" with his ex-wife. It begins to dawn on her that marriage is a complicated business, and when Nathan dies suddenly of a heart attack she is forced to come to terms with her past behaviour, and with the realities of being a parent. Ironically the person she is most able to share her loss and grief with is her former friend Rose, Nathan's first wife.
A light, undemanding read with some nice touches about corporate life and the role of women today, as well as some sharply perceptive insights into marriage, divorce and jealously. show less

Just not my type of book. Almost ended up on my DNF list but found time to finish listening while purging my sewing stash. I didn't realize this was a follow up to "The Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman" I had read years ago but had forgotten. After I found that out the title finally made since. Many women will like this book so use your own judgement.

OK, they're right.
Those people who say this sequel isn't as good as The Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman are completely correct. It does improve as it progresses, but Ms Buchan has a tendency to make the characters into caricatures, in my opinion. In this book the characters are much more black and white than in the original, and hence makes for less interesting reading - I related less to the characters this time. The plot was less believable.

All this is not to say it's a bad book...it's not. I gave it three stars, and found it quite readable. I never seriously considered abandoning it part-way through. It's just not top-drawer, and I'm glad I got it from the library for "free" (well, I do pay taxes that support the library).

A so/so sequel to "Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman," which was a much better book. Easy and fast read, but lacking the depth of emotion in the first book. This one is narrated from Minty's perspective, aka "the other woman." Unfortunately, Minty was the most one-dimensional character in "Revenge," and this book did little to add meat to her bones. Likewise, the other characters seemed more like caricatures rather than an extension of their personalities from the first book. Not a horrible read, but my advice is to skip it in favor of her other, better books.

This sequal to Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman focuses mostly on Minty, the best friend who stole Rose's husband. Those who rooted for Rose in the first book will be pleased to see Minty less than charmed by married life, and Nathan seemingly unhappy, distracted, and still with Rose on his mind. Those who look for neatly packaged happy endings probably won't be wild about this one, but it does end nicely.

This is the sequel to: " Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman", which of course I had never heard of until I began to write this review..... and another odd thing (not really if you know me); I began this book at well over a year ago, put it down next to my bed & forgot all about it, because, well after all, I have all those Library books w/ due dates on them, and this had no due date at all.

From Amazon: "Minty and Nathan are married and have twin boys, but Minty's life as a second wife is more difficult than she'd anticipated: Nathan's friends shun her, she's deemed a threat by other married women, Nathan's adult children despise her and full-time motherhood isn't her cuppa tea. So Minty goes back to work at a London television production show more company, only to find a young, unattached and ambitious colleague nipping at her heels.

Things go from manic to molten after Rose (Nathan's first wife & Minty's former best friend & mentor) reenters the picture and a tragedy (Nathan's death) sends what's left of the family into a tailspin."

The only wives "behaving badly" were Minty's two friends... and Nathan's daughter, Poppy (who in-between bouts of hatred turns to Minty for help) and his Daughter-in-law.

The book was ok, just run of the mill "chic-lit", nothing great, no great story, but from the point where I picked it up again it held my interest and I finished it in two nights. show less