I absolutely adore my husband-he's lovely and helpful and almost perfect. HOWEVER. I get frequent migraines, and one of the things that helps is putting on a cold compress. I do that for myself , it seems like a simple enough thing to handle. When my husband's feeling unwell, it's still me helping with the cold compress! This book's an absolutely on-the-nose exploration of the invisible burden that all women carry. In the exhortations of women having it all, somehow it's been taken for granted that women have to be able to manage it all, without a division of labour really happening. Something that enrages me is how easily workplaces that could, adapted to work-from-home during Covid19-this is something women have required since absolutely forever, and it's never been considered at all. Something happens that affects men as well, however, and within a matter of weeks, solutions have been found for it. In some ways, work-from-home for women during Covid19 has actually made their lives a little harder-this might be anecdotal, but many of my women colleagues have complained that chores that were earlier done by their husbands or children around the house, now fall on them, since they're around at home! Women really can never have it all!
Getting off my soapbox now, and onto the book-Nora Spangler is trying her best to have it all, and is barely managing a demanding job, a pre-schooler and running her household. She's also looking for a new house, and comes across what seems like a perfect suburban community. She meets the other women living there, who seem to have it perfectly together, and what's more important-also seem to have perfect husbands who genuinely shoulder the burden of housework, unlike most others who seem to demand a prize for executing routine chores! She gets involved with a legal issue for one of them, and things aren't what they seem. I love how Baker weaves in the genuine difficulties that women have, managing home and work, with a fascinating who-dun-it, and has excellent commentaries on female friendships and how your expectations from those evolve, as your lifestyles change. The book's filled with zinger after zinger, and it's hilarious but also incredibly perceptive. Stepford Wives make for a horror story, but Stepford Husbands? Those might actually be the answer to a more perfect world!

The Husbands had an interesting plot. I can't say it's a conventional thriller. It's a domestic mystery, that is thought provoking. It would make a good book club pick. I liked the writing and the story line.
My thanks for this copy.

Well, Chandler Baker surely knows how to write a suspense book that keep you on the edge of your seat! I adored reading Whisper Network earlier this year, with its Greek #MeToo chorus, so naturally I wanted to sink my teeth into The Husbands straightaway. Thanks to Little, Brown and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Conversations around who carries the emotional load in a family are difficult conversations. Women, usually rightly, feel like they are carrying the majority of that burden, if not all of it, but many modern men rankle at the thought they aren't doing anything. While yes, in comparison to previous generations, men are doing more and more, the mental burden of planning it all out, remembering all the birthdays and events, directing all the various tasks, usually falls on women. And it feels like a double-edged sword, because if you drop that burden others might help. But it also all might come crumbling down around you. These are the difficult cultural conversations around Feminism that cannot get fixed by passing legislation or starting initiatives. Each set of partners needs to sit down and discuss their own responsibilities and roles from the get-go and keep each other accountable. And that is hard, but necessary work. While The Husbands might not provide direct answers to this situation, it does provide the kind of biting sarcasm and humour that can help bring some levity into the situation, at least for the women.

Nora adores her husband, she really does. And he is so kind and supportive now that she is pregnant with their second while trying to become partner at her law firm. And yet... she is working herself to the bone trying to stay on top of everything while he seemingly coasts by, pleased at but not understanding all the effort she puts in. When their house-hunting leads them to a community where the women thrive professionally and the men do their share, it seems too good to be true. And maybe it is. To a certain extent The Husbands is limited by its own story because it is very straightforward. The husbands' behaviour is so marked that the tension of the story doesn't come from "what's wrong here?" but from the question "when will Nora key into it and then what will she do?". It was the latter question I got more and more obsessed with, wondering what I would do in her shoes. As someone who is career-driven, it would be great to have someone who picks up all the slack at home. But if Feminism strives towards equity, then surely just a role reversal isn't the right step? And so you go back and forth, fascinated, amused, exasperated, until the very end.

I greatly enjoyed Chandler Baker's Whisper Network, in which her legal knowledge shone through and centred the occasionally very Dramatic plot twists. The same counts for The Husbands in which Baker once again proves herself to be an excellent suspense writer. She hits the perfect balance between schlock, drama, high stakes, and justified outrage that fuels the reader throughout her book. The frustration and self-denial that runs through Nora's inner monologue must be very recognizable to many women, which could make The Husbands something of a release valve for their own emotions. Considering how fraught the conversation around the emotional load is, I wonder whether this novel can start conversations or will fortify the trenches that have already built up. Delightfully naughty and sharply incisive, The Husbands was definitely a conversation-starter for me and I'd highly recommend it to anyone up for some fun yet smart suspense!

The Husbands is a great follow-up to Chandler's Whisper Network. Equally smart and thrilling, Baker continues to impress with her insight and her willingness to up the ante.

9/9: Edited to add link

Really enjoyed this. Thought provoking and really well written, it’s a completely new way of looking at domestic division and written with the same empathy, humour, and appreciation as The Whisper Network but with a brand new angle - the heroine has grown up. So often women in literature don’t have ‘big jobs’ or their stories don’t seem reflective of real life. I loved this for that reason alone.

I enjoyed so much about the book. The plot, the characters, the writing, the pacing. It all left me with a sense of such accomplishment on the part of the writer. A real gem.

I would find it hard to put this book into a category. It’s not thrilling and it’s not a mystery and nor is it a saga. For me the book failed to make any impact and the plot was predictable and quite far fetched.

What a different storyline to the one I was expecting! Although I did understand the direction half way through, the mystery did have me enticingly engrossed and it’s great to read something slightly offbeat! The world created sounds pretty wonderful and unfortunately unrealistic, but it was superb to fantasise for the short time that it took for me to read this book. Persevere through the first few chapters and you’re guaranteed to race towards the end… Thank you NetGalley.

This author is so very in tune with women's thoughts and feelings. I was a huge fan of The Whisper Network and bought so many copies for friends. The Husbands, is contemporary, with the mystery angle to the forefront. Just enough hints and clues to keep you hypothesising and guessing. Interesting characters and original format. So well crafted and flowing throughout.

I enjoyed this and found the storyline intriguing. As a wife and mother myself, I identified with many of the issues that were raised in the book about husbands and life as a working mother. And while the story is perhaps a little far-fetched, it will definitely make many women think, just for a moment, whether perhaps things could be different!

Looking for a new house in which to raise their expanding family, lawyer Nora is struggling to keep on top of everything that needs doing, the routine of keeping a house, looking after a small child and her work. The mental load is real. After viewing a house in a new community, Nora finds herself drawn to the professional women who live there and who genuinely seem to have it all, with husbands who not only contribute fairly to the running of the house, but seem to enjoy doing so. As Nora takes on the personal injury case of Penny whose husband was killed in a house fire, she is drawn in more and more, finding out just what is going on in this small, close-knit community.

The Husbands is a great read. It is a cleverly written thriller and at the same time highlights the inequities many women feel today. Nora is a successful attorney working hard to be become a partner in the firm. She has a young daughter and is pregnant with her second child. Her husband Hayden works hard also. However the workload within the home is very unevenly divided from Noras perspective. The Husbands is a fast paced story, with some very interesting characters. Witty and thought provoking, it will provide lots of discussion for book club members.

I enjoyed reading Chandler Baker’s ‘The Whisper Network’ and very much welcomed the opportunity to read another of her thrillers. This was a bold, fantastic and very compelling read, exploring gender equality, mostly in the home. The author's writing style is transfixing and her plot is well-structured throughout. The pacing yo-yos somewhat but for me, this was in keeping with life's patterns and there is an undertone of malice. Possessing an intriguing cast of female characters, The Husbands is a wild trek to the shocking finale and an enlightening, very worthy, formidable read.

Disclosure: Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group/ Sphere for providing a digital ARC of The Husbands by Chandler Baker via Netgalley for review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Well, this was certainly original. I didn’t, however, love it. I found the plot overly far-fetched and did not like way it tackled the issue of working motherhood. So much of it was extremely cliche and dare I say sexist! So… two stars from me. One for originality and another because I actually finished it. Sadly nothing beyond that.

Not only "The Husbands" did not live up to its hype (or its predecessor), the book left me slightly annoyed - such a great idea, alas poor executed. I could not warm up to the heroine, her "secret" was not shocking, the thriller part of the book did not start until the very end and, if you are a careful reader, you could see where the story was going early on (SPOILER: ideal husbands do not exists, they have to be created). Oh well. To sum up: I found "The Husbands" boring and could not wait to finish the book.

"The Husbands" is not a domestic drama, and it is not really a thriller. It is too slow and somewhat predictable. I do not think you will warm up to any of the characters and, as a consequence, you won't be too involved with the story. "The Stepford Wives" this is not. Saying that, I am sure this book will make be subject to a number of glowing reviews in the media and social media because of the important inequality it portrays.

I do appreciate Chandler Baker's great sense of humour and, strangely, I still think the film (and there will be film) will be funny and scary in equal measure, but probably thanks to Kristen Wiig rather than the book on which the film will be based. Does it make sense? It does.

With many thanks to the publisher and @NetGalley for providing a free copy in exchange for a fair review.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group/Sphere for an eARC via NetGalley, of ‘The Husbands’ by Chandler Baker in exchange for an honest review.

I had enjoyed Baker’s 2019 ‘The Whisper Network’ and welcomed this opportunity to read another of her feminist thrillers.

Nora Spangler is a successful attorney, hoping to make partner though she’s struggling to balance her career with being a mother to four-year-old Liv. Her husband, Hayden, also has a demanding career but Nora feels that the burden of housework and parenting always seems to fall to her.

The Spanglers are considering buying a house in the exclusive Dynasty Ranch neighbourhood. Nora is introduced to a group of high-powered women, all of whom have enviably supportive husbands. When she agrees to help one resident with a wrongful death suit, she finds herself pulled into the lives of these women. Nora begins to suspect that there's a dark secret at the heart of this seemingly perfect world.

This was quite an engaging novel even though I found it rather predictable, especially after seeing it compared with an iconic novel from the early 1970s about men wanting their wives to be compliant homemakers rather than have careers and interests.

Also, I did wonder why Nora and Hayden, who clearly had good incomes, just didn’t hire a nanny/au pair and a cleaner to take the pressure off themselves on the domestic front. I guess that if they’d done so there wouldn’t have been a novel as Nora wouldn’t have been under such pressure.

I recognise that I am someone who doesn’t necessarily relate to Nora’s situation with Hayden in ‘The Husbands’. Still, I can imagine this novel will appeal to women who are struggling to find a balance between work and home.

Overall, I felt that ‘The Husbands’ was entertaining and that its conclusion was very clever.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

The Husbands is my first Chandler Baker book and I loved it. Think a cross between a Liane Moriarty book and the Stepford Wives and turn it on it's head. It explores gender equality but primarily at home rather than in the work place. So many valid issues and injustices are raised and I found myself being outraged on Nora's behalf. However, as always, there's a twist and a price to pay for what we consider to be perfect happiness. An enlightening, formidable and, in parts, scary read.

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

A great account of how a woman who has a career and a family is expected to do everything. The story is centered around Nora who meets a new group of friends who appear to have perfect 'Stepford' husbands. All is not as it seems and the plot gets stranger the further you read on. Be careful what you wish for.

I loved this clever, feminist thriller that probes what women would have to do to be able to "have it all". It's a page-turning thriller that had me sharing excerpts with friends saying "you need to read this!"

Nora the main character is a lawyer, mother, and wife looking to move into an "idyllic" suburban neighbourhood where not everything is as it seems and to become a resident some screening appears to be required! The story becomes slightly more complicated as Nora is asked by one of the residents to investigate the house fire in which her husband died.

Described as Little Fires Everywhere, meets The Stepford Wives and Get Out, this indeed lives up to its description. It had me gripped, singing its praises when only a few chapters in and shouting at the pages that "this is so true! Down with the patriarchy!"

Highly recommended reading if you love a thriller that makes you feel seen as a woman trying to juggle it all. I may not be a parent but I absolutely resonated with the characters and their daily struggles.

The Husbands is a scathing and enthralling feminist thriller and a novel that asks: to what lengths will a woman go for a little more help from her husband? Nora Spangler is a successful personal injury attorney working at Greenberg Schwall in Austin, Texas, but when it comes to domestic life, she packs the lunches, schedules the doctor appointments, knows where the extra paper towel rolls are and designs and orders the holiday cards. Her husband works hard, too, but why does it seem like she is always working so much harder? It's got so bad she finds it difficult to contain her rage. But this changes when the Spanglers go house hunting in Dynasty Ranch in preparation for their new baby’s arrival, an exclusive suburban enclave neighbourhood where Nora meets a group of high-powered women - a tech CEO, a neurosurgeon, an award-winning therapist, a bestselling author - each with enviably supportive husbands who dote on their families.

However, looks can be deceiving and not as picture-perfect below the surface as it may initially appear. On their visit, Nora get chatting to one of the Ranch residents, Penny March, a prominent advice columnist who ends up retaining Nora to help in her husband’s wrongful death case after he was burned alive in a devastating blaze that also incinerated their home. Despite having initial reservations about the suit due to it being a conflict of interest given the client is likely a future neighbour and Nora wants to make a good first impression, she takes it and this concern dissipates when she realises she can kill two birds with one stone by showing her value to the law firm and making some badly needed new friends. Nora begins her investigation into the house fire but finds herself becoming increasingly suspicious about it all.

As the case unravels, Nora uncovers a plot that may explain the secret to having-it-all. One that's worth killing for. This is a compulsive and enthralling thriller that very much calls to mind a Stepford Wives gender-swap and imagines a world where the burden of the "second shift" is equally shared--as well as what it may take to get there. I must admit, I thought it may be along the same lines and using the same well-known tropes of the genre as many other family dramas, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chandler has taken the domestic thriller to a whole new level. She creates a realistic storyline filled with drama, slipping facades, twists and misdirection as well as an interesting and distinctive cast. I also enjoyed the social commentary interspersed throughout this convincing tale in which Nora unwittingly places herself into a perilous situation. A powerful sledgehammer of a novel. Highly recommended.

Nora and Hayden are happily married with daughter Live aged 4 and another baby on the way. However, with both of them working, Nora feels that Hayden could do a lot more around the house and help with childcare especially when the new baby arrives. Whilst looking for a new home in affluent Dynasty Ranch Nora sees a neighbourhood, where husbands help more and wives have time to socialise. But is this community hiding secrets?
I found this title a little difficult to settle into, I felt uncomfortable being witness to a couples private life and their disagreements. Whilst their are plenty of topics for discussion, I did not warm to the characters.
I will be interested to see the film version, I expect it will transfer to the big screen very well.

Welcome to Dynasty Ranch - a suburban oasis where all your American dreams can come true…and some of your nightmares!

The Husbands is a slow burning thriller that explores marriage, motherhood and the subversion of traditional gender roles. Think The Stepford Wives crossed with Get Out and a liberal sprinkling of Desperate Housewives and this book is the result.

We meet Nora, a frazzled personal injury lawyer and expectant mother, struggling to juggle all the pressures and demands of daily life. When she and her affable husband Hayden stumble across the community of Dynasty Ranch whilst house hunting, it seems like all their dreams of domestic bliss might just come be coming true. An affluent enclave, where the women have it all, including doting, strangely subservient husbands at their every beck and call. Yet behind the white picket fences, manicured lawns and gleaming SUVs, a very dark secret is lurking.

The Husbands is a darkly funny, domestic thriller with a sharp feminist edge that starts off slowly and gradually gathers the pace. It’s not my usual sort of book and I will say it’s a little far fetched in places, but sometimes you just need a good old yarn and this is certainly a fun summer page-turner that I ended up really enjoying. I just couldn’t put it down! Another book I see coming to a screen near you soon.