Book 22 – The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

• Started: February 18, 2021
• Finished: February 18, 2021
• Pages: 290
• Multiple POV, Timeline Jumps, Alabama
• Rating: 4.5/5

REVIEW

I didn’t realize this going in, but apparently this book is a modern retelling of Jane Eyre. I haven’t read Jane Eyre so I cannot say how accurate of a retelling it was but from a basic glance on Wikipedia I know that a lot of the names of characters and places are used. Anyways, this was a good thriller. The characters’ decisions made sense and I liked the southern setting; it was fun to get a glimpse into the lives of the wealthy there, especially since so many thrillers take place on the East Coast. I did see the twist coming about halfway through but I was surprised by the actual ending. It was quite vague and I would have preferred if we got more concrete answers, but oh well. If you liked this book, I would recommend Verity by Colleen Hoover. It has a similar vibe and kind of open ending but I thought it worked a bit better in that book.

SUMMARY

Jane feels stuck. She has been on the move for some time, running from her past, and spends her days walking the dogs for the ultra wealthy in Thornfield Estates. It is while she is walking one of these dogs that she meets Eddie Rochester, recent widower. His wife, Bea, and her best friend, Blanche, died in a mysterious boating accident. Jane and Eddie fall in love but she struggles to understand her place in his world with the shadow of Bea constantly looming. Jane is also worried about Eddie finding out more about who she was before Thornfield Estates but, as the wedding gets closer, learns Eddie and Bea both had secrets of their own.

SPOILERS BELOW

Jane is not Jane’s real name and she would like to keep her foster home past behind her. She is overall unhappy with her dog walking job but finds bits of joy in stealing small valuables from her rich clients. One day, when she is dog walking, she is almost hit by a car. The driver is Eddie Rochester and the attraction is immediate, though to him or his money, Jane can’t decide. He buys a dog so she can start walking it and they become more and more friendly. They start dating and Jane even moves in. All the while she learns more about his late wife, Bea, and the empire she created. She feels intimidate by their wealth and the classy Bea.

Suddenly, there is a new perspective: Bea. She is alive and in the attic panic room of her home with Eddie. She saw him murder her best friend, Blanche, and since then he has been hiding in their home. She doesn’t know what his motives are and is confused with how she can still love a man who has done such horrible things.

Cut back to Jane. She is slowly acclimating to her new role as Eddie’s girlfriend. She is now friends with her former clients but can feel that there is still a wedge between them. She moves out of her old apartment, one she shared with someone knew from a group home out west. He suspects that there is more to her past than she lets on and begins to blackmail Jane, claiming someone called for her under the name Helen. Jane is nervous about her past ruining her current dream life and pays up. She finds herself falling in love with Eddie, and not just the life he represents. He proposes and she is over the moon. Unfortunately, Tripp (widower and husband to the late Blanche), doesn’t fell so rosy towards the newly engaged couple and voices his disdain for both Bea and Eddie. He claims that Bea stole all her ideas for her company from Blanche and that Eddie was a gold digger who charmed his way into Bea’s life and fortune. Jane is put off by his concerns and her feelings of unease only grow when a detective stops by and tells Eddie that Blanche’s body has been found in the lake where she and Bea disappeared. There is still no sign of Bea.

Back to Bea. She reminisces over her relationship with Blanche and how they grew apart over the years. Bea suspected that Blanche and Tripp were having relationship issues and that Blanche was jealous of both Bea’s money and husband. She journals about her day to day life in the attic and her plans to escape. She also remembers the first time she met Eddie and how he swept her off her feet.

Jane is unsettled by the detective’s visit and Eddie’s calm but defensive nature. Her mood doesn’t get any better when John decides to blackmail her for even more money. Eddie realizes that she has been taking out money to pay John and confronts her about it. She does not reveal her secrets to him but he claims no matter what happened, he does not care because he loves her. She feels better and is able to get more into wedding planning. Tripp is arrested for Blanche and Bea’s murder and Jane is relieved that Eddie is no longer a suspect.

In Bea’s journal she recounts how Eddie keeps visiting her and they even have sex. She feels as though she is getting through to him and that she’ll be able to convince him to let her go. She thinks back on how close Eddie and Blanche were and how she even slept with Tripp in order to get even.

Jane is getting paranoid in their big home. She thinks she is hearing thumps coming from the walls. Her friendship with the local ladies grow, especially now that she and Eddie are engaged and she hears more gossip about Bea. They reveal that Bea and Blanche were on the outs when they died and had been for some time. Jane is intrigued. She is also empowered when she reaches out ho the contact who had been inquiring about “Helen” and lets them know that her former roommate is an unreliable source. She confronts him one last time and lets him know that he no longer holds any power over her. It is revealed that Jane was her former best friend and an adoptive sister. She died when their foster parents refused to get her medical attention while she had pneumonia. Helen/current Jane was heartbroken and when her adoptive father had a heart attack, she walked away and pour his medication down the sink. She ran away that night and took on her friend’s identity. Out of the blue, Jane receives a text from Tripp (currently on house arrest) claiming to have more information about the night his wife died. Jane agrees to meet with him.

Bea, still upstairs, remembers how her mother embarrassed her the night they celebrated her company going public. Her mother was always a drunk and Bea had tried to keep her past behind her as she rose through the corporate world. In her journal, she talks about how she saw Eddie transform when he met Jane. How jealous she felt and how proud she was that, even though he had a girlfriend downstairs, he still returned to the attic to sleep with her. She slips her journal, really an old book that she wrote her own thoughts over, into Eddie’s pocket, hoping that Jane would find it before he did. We get one more insight into her past. She talks about how unhappy her childhood was, with both her abusive parents. She won a full scholarship to a boarding high school where she meets Blanche. They quickly become best friends and Bea spends more time with Blanche’s family over breaks than her own. They grow apart a bit during college but reconnect postgrad. At this point, Bea has created her own company and Blanche is engage to Tripp. With Bea’s newfound wealth she moves closer to Blanche. It is only then the Blanche realizes so much of Bea’s product line resembles the charming, Southern products that adorned her own house growing up.

THE REVEAL

Jane meets with Tripp and he reveals that things between Bea and Blanche were bad when they died. He also claims that Bea invited him up to the lake that weekend. He saw them before they died but then knocked out from drinking too much and drove home with a massive headache before seeing them again. It wasn’t until a few days later that he realized something was terribly wrong.

Jane is upset by this story and rushes home to find a clue as to what actually happened. She finds Bea’s journal in Eddie’s pocket and runs up to the panic room to find Bea. She is shocked to find her fiancé’s supposedly late wife up there, very much alive. A moment later, Eddie appears and Jane hits him with a decorative pineapple.

Switch to Eddie! He heads home after a normal day at work and finds Jane and Bea together. He is immediately rendered unconscious, teeth knocked out, and comes locked alone in the room. It’s now Eddie’s turn to take a walk down memory lane. He also remembers how he first met Bea, initially pursuing her for her money but truly falling in love with her ambition and beauty. They had a perfect life together until Blanche started flirting a little too much. He would never cheat, but enjoyed the extra attention. He grew worried, however, after Blanche raised suspicions over Bea’s mother’s death. She apparently fell down the stairs two weeks after embarrassing Bea at her company’s party. He was concerned but brushed off the idea that Bea had anything to do with it. Eddie realized that was a mistake when Tripp offered to give him a ride to the lake house, since Bea had invited Tripp and he figured that Eddie was included too. Eddie ended up going on his own and found Tripp sleeping and Bea emerging from the water alone. He automatically knew that she had done something to Blanche and decided to knock Bea unconscious and bring her to the panic room until they could formulate a plan for the next steps. He ended up meeting Jane and finding some semblance of peace in life with her. Now, he knows there is only one way to get out of the panic room.

Jane is downstairs with Bea and bewildered by this confident women in front of her. She is not at all concerned with the fact that she was just held captive for months by her husband who also killed her best friend. Jane quickly puts the pieces together and realizes that’s because Eddie didn’t kill Blanche. The women go back and forth and question why Eddie didn’t just kill Bea too. Jane reveals what has immediately become obvious to her: because Eddie loved Bea.

Bea can tell that Jane doesn’t believe her victim story. She recalls the night she pushed her mother down the stairs and how good she felt rising above her family. She remembers how Blanche resented her and how she planned her death, pinning it on Tripp, and the sense of relief she felt when it was done. As Jane and Bea are talking downstairs, Bea fully wraps her mind about Eddie’s love for her and how much she truly loves him. That’s why, when a fire starts in the panic room, she runs up to save Eddie.

Jane ends the book incredibly rich and able to start her life on her own terms. Eddie has been declared dead, his teeth found in the rubble. He had changed his will to leave Jane as the sole beneficiary. Jane is concerned when she hears that his body, and Bea’s, were not recovered in the fire. Eddie is accused of starting the fire as a way to kill Jane after she found out he killed both Bea and Blanche and Jane is okay with the cops believing that story. She isn’t sure if they made it but decides to keep their secret, just in case. She chooses to believe they made it out and are happy out in the world, together again.