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Recipe for a Perfect Wife

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Recipe for a Perfect Wife

By: Karma Brown
Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie, Mozhan Marnò
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About this listen

When Alice Hale leaves a career to become a writer and follows her husband to the New York suburbs, she is unaccustomed to filling her days alone in a big, empty house. But when she finds a vintage cookbook buried in the basement, she becomes captivated by its previous owner: 1950s housewife Nellie Murdoch.

As Alice cooks her way through the past, she realises that within the pages Nellie left clues about her life. Soon Alice learns that while a baked Alaska may seem harmless, Nellie's secrets may have been anything but. When Alice uncovers a more sinister, even dangerous side to Nellie’s marriage and has become increasingly dissatisfied with her own relationship, she begins to take control of her life and protect herself with a few secrets of her own.

©2020 Karma Brown (P)2020 Penguin Audio Fiction Women's Fiction Marriage

Critic Reviews

"A brilliant, brooding, timely novel." (Mary Kubica)

"Explores the joys and limitations of the role of wife." (Fiona Davis)

"A nail-biter of a tale, and one that kept me up long past my bedtime." (Jennifer Robson)
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I enjoyed the majority of the story and thought the performance was great. *Spoilers* I do wish however that we had more Nellie. Her story was very interesting, and I would love to have known more about what happened to her in the end. As for Alice and her husband, they were entertaining but ultimately I didn't understand what the point of their ending was. Perhaps it was to show that in this day and age some women have more power in their relationship and don't have to poison their husbands to get the life they want?

Overall entertaining read!

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interesting take on regular expectations on marriage in both the 50’s and then modern times- enjoyed the recipes too

reversal of expected marriage rules

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