Occasionally, I like to read something tragic to remind myself that my life is pretty good. So when I read that this book was about a woman whose husband leaves her once he returns home from war and finds her pregnant, I wanted to find out more. Philippa and her husband, Richard, have always had a very close relationship. He goes off to fight and comes back over a year later to find that she is with child. Without even bothering to ask what has happened, he beats her so badly that she loses the child and almost dies. We find out quickly that it is his own brother who has done this to his wife. Richard takes his then five-year-old daughter, Madeleine, with him, and refuses to hear any other explanation from his wife. For seven years.
That's where we come into the story. Richard learns that his brother has been stabbed by a woman and is dying. Upon visiting his brother on his deathbed, he finds out that the woman stabbed him because he was attempting to rape her. And that's when Richard realizes he has made a terrible mistake....
He immediately gathers up his daughter and returns to Philippa--who actually welcomes him in! This is where the story began to fall apart for me. Every action Philippa takes from the moment Richard shows up at her door makes no sense to me. The story also starts to drag here, and when another plot point finally enters the picture, it seems contrived, like beta readers may have said, "Something else needs to happen!" so the author threw something together really quickly. This leads to more actions that don't make sense on the part of both lead characters and an ending that is anything but mind blowing.
While I really loved the concept, I felt that it was poorly executed. I understand that women were treated much differently back then, but the story is set up to make it seem like Philippa and Richard have the type of relationship that isn't bound by the laws and restrictions of the time. Yet, her reactions seem right in line with how a woman would be expected to react.
Another important detail I found lacking was character and setting description. While I agree that some authors spend too much time describing the scenery and the outfits of each day for every character, I felt like I was having trouble imagining what these characters and their homes looked like because there was so little detail included. I had actually switched the time period to Regency in my mind inadvertently for the whole middle section of the book, and it didn't really matter. We find out Richard has a beard somewhere towards the end of the book.... I have no idea what their houses looked like. Things like that are problematic when one is really trying to get involved in the story at the same level as the author.
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| Could Costa's Portrait of a Woman be our Phillipa? |
There were a slew of punctuation errors as well, which drove me crazy. Same old story--commas missing before transitional phrases, periods at the end of quotation marks instead of commas, etc. Nothing egregious, just annoying.
The cover is lovely, however!
If you really like Medieval romance novels with tragic premises that don't quite turn out the way you'd expect, then by all means, give this one a try. You can purchase The Wronged Wife here for the current price of $4.99. You can also read my three star review on Amazon here. If you appreciate my review, please give it a "yes" vote on Amazon so that other people see my reviews. I don't promote my blog through my reviews, but it will help other people make an informed decision.
If you've read this book or anything else by this author, please let us know in the comments!
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