The Husbands by Chandler Baker

Many women feel they need to have 36 hours each day in order to make sure that their family have what they need, they’re able to accomplish the professional goals they set for themselves, and to have a bit of “me” time.  Does this sound familiar? The Husbands by Chandler Baker explores the division of labour in the household and what lengths some women will go to get a bit more help from their husbands. Be ready for a wild ride!

Plot Summary

Nora Spangler is an attorney and working in the year leading up to her chance to make partner.  Her life is frantic. She has an active four year old daughter, she’s pregnant with her second child and a husband who feels he is contributing to the responsibilities of the household.  Nora, however, feels like she is always working harder.

When the couple begin house hunting they find themselves looking in the  exclusive Dynasty Ranch neighbourhood.  The realtor explains that the there are many other highly regarded professional women who live in the area, but they don’t have a female attorney yet.  Nora meets several of these women and is asked to handle one of the women’s wrongful death case resulting from a fire in which her husband was killed.  Nora is intrigued to find that  these women seem less frazzled and appear to have plenty of time on their hands despite being busy professionally.

As Nora begins working through the wrongful death case, she begins to unravel an explanation as to why these women seem to have it all . A husband that takes on more of the household responsibilities may just be worth killing for.

Book Review

The Husbands was a highly engaging read.  The characters were well developed and interesting.  The underlying theme that many women feel they have to do it all is one recognizable to many.  It was fascinating to see the lengths these women would go to in order to have husbands that were willing to take on more.  Ironically, the imbalance of workload represented was such that the men were taking on more than their fare share of household responsibilities.

It was interesting to see thriller elements in the last third of the book.  The book reads more like Women’s Fiction with a sense of mystery and setting reminiscent of Desperate Housewives.  The story is told from multiple points of view which is used well to create great depth of characters.  Without giving anything away, I enjoyed the robotic feel to some of the characters which is explained later in the book.  All in all, this was a very good read and one that is sure to stay in my memory for quite some time.

Audiobook Review

I listened to the audiobook version of The Husbands which was narrated by Allyson Ryan who  gives a great performance. The tone of her voice, and her cadence made this book easy and enjoyable to listen to.  I would not hesitate to recommend the audiobook version of The Husbands to those that enjoy this format.

What I Liked:

• The theme of division of workload in the household
• The use of highly skilled professional female characters that band together to create change
• A satisfying conclusion to this thought-provoking story.

I Recommend This Book To:

Those readers that enjoy great fiction or slow burning thrillers.

My Rating:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Add The Husbands to your Goodreads shelf

Acknowledgments:

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for the honest review provided here.  This book published on August 3.

Similar Books I’ve Reviewed:

Just My Luck by Adele Parks

Are We There Yet? by Kathleen West

Finlay Donovan Is Killing it by Elle Cosimano

Thank you once again for reading and supporting my blog.  Let me know in the comments if this is a book that interests you!  I hope that you have a wonderful day. ☺️