[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"work-reviews-detail-the-younger-wife-om6e":3,"work-reviews-list-the-younger-wife-om6e":118},{"id":4,"slug":5,"title":6,"original_title":7,"description":8,"first_publish_year":9,"original_language":10,"primary_cover_url":11,"cover_3d_url":12,"cover_blurhash":13,"preferred_edition_id":7,"community_rating_avg":7,"community_rating_count":14,"page_count":7,"estimated_reading_minutes":7,"shelves_added_this_week":14,"enrichment_status":15,"community_depth_avg":7,"community_momentum_avg":7,"community_atmosphere_avg":7,"community_craft_avg":7,"community_impact_avg":7,"community_spice_avg":7,"is_non_fiction":16,"is_romance":16,"is_indexable":17,"rating_distribution":7,"authors":18,"genres":25,"characters":50,"places":82,"subjects":86,"series":87,"editions":88,"enrichment":98,"community_distribution":7,"default_edition":114,"faqs":115,"reviews_count":116,"contributions_count":14,"quotes_count":14,"photos_count":14,"created_at":117},"01ktteq1rzp3cccnvf1x4j4z24","the-younger-wife-om6e","The Younger Wife",null,"Stephen Aston is a respected heart surgeon, admired across Melbourne for his steady hands and easy charm. He is also about to be married again — to Heather, an interior designer young enough to be his daughter. There is only one obstacle: Stephen is still legally wed to Pam, the mother of his two grown daughters, who now lives in a memory-care facility and can no longer speak for herself.\n\nTo Tully and Rachel Aston, their father's engagement lands like an insult. Heather is younger than both of them, and her sudden place at the centre of the family feels less like love than like a takeover. As the sisters close ranks, each is quietly unravelling in her own way — Tully beneath a marriage and a compulsion she can't control, Rachel behind the composure of a successful bakery and a secret she has carried since she was a teenager. Heather, meanwhile, has a past of her own that she has worked hard to keep buried.\n\nTold in rotating perspectives and shadowed by a wedding-day scene splashed with blood, The Younger Wife peels back the polished surface of an affluent family to ask who is really being protected, and from what. Sally Hepworth turns the familiar suspicion of the \"gold-digging\" second wife into a sharper, more unsettling story about coercive control, the versions of ourselves we perform for others, and the cost of finally telling the truth.",2022,"en","https:\u002F\u002Fapi.seekquel.app\u002Fstorage\u002Fcovers\u002Feditions\u002F01\u002F01ktteq1s93dsxhpyde2v67p77.jpg?v=3cb38b7462","https:\u002F\u002Fapi.seekquel.app\u002Fstorage\u002Fcovers\u002Fworks-3d\u002F01\u002F01ktteq1rzp3cccnvf1x4j4z24.png?v=6c993f17ac","L3A^w8NX00?v1CtRt.9E00Ml~Xxw",0,"complete",false,true,[19],{"id":20,"slug":21,"name":22,"role":23,"bio":24},"01kqefm0x162fnbr8nb1z319d7","sally-hepworth-t6l4","Sally Hepworth","author","Sally Hepworth is the author of Mad Mabel. Readers looking for her work will find her distinctive voice in this book. It's a good place to start if you're new to her writing.",[26,30,34,38,42,46],{"id":27,"name":28,"slug":29,"is_fiction":17},5,"Thriller","thriller",{"id":31,"name":32,"slug":33,"is_fiction":17},6,"Mystery","mystery",{"id":35,"name":36,"slug":37,"is_fiction":17},144,"Women's Fiction","womens-fiction",{"id":39,"name":40,"slug":41,"is_fiction":17},40,"Suspense","suspense",{"id":43,"name":44,"slug":45,"is_fiction":17},41,"Psychological Thriller","psychological-thriller",{"id":47,"name":48,"slug":49,"is_fiction":17},43,"Domestic Thriller","domestic-thriller",[51,56,60,64,69,73,78],{"id":52,"name":53,"description":54,"role":55,"is_spoiler":16},"01kwwsdzk5se6z6s7y4mm70hnd","Heather Wisher","An interior designer engaged to Stephen Aston and younger than both his daughters; guards a traumatic past of her own.","protagonist",{"id":57,"name":58,"description":59,"role":55,"is_spoiler":16},"01kttfr11303wdsbrs3pg2wjv9","Tully Aston","Stephen's daughter, outwardly poised but privately unravelling under money troubles and a compulsion she hides.",{"id":61,"name":62,"description":63,"role":55,"is_spoiler":16},"01kttfr11z09cnbn03syeqc4hc","Rachel Aston","Stephen's daughter, a successful baker who has kept a decades-old trauma hidden from her family.",{"id":65,"name":66,"description":67,"role":68,"is_spoiler":16},"01kk07brdze6rn6rmxnxza6g8y","Heather","Stephen's younger fiancée, viewed as an interloper by his daughters. She has secrets of her own that could unleash dangerous impulses.","antagonist",{"id":70,"name":71,"description":72,"role":68,"is_spoiler":17},"01kttfr0zczyggdcf7jjg2t2az","Stephen Aston","The charming, respected heart surgeon at the centre of the family; the truth about him drives the novel's turn.",{"id":74,"name":75,"description":76,"role":77,"is_spoiler":16},"01kttfr12rfszk1smg3y6qjb98","The Former Wife","Stephen's current wife, who is in a precarious position and can no longer speak for herself, prompting her daughters to seek the truth.","supporting",{"id":79,"name":80,"description":81,"role":77,"is_spoiler":16},"01kwwsdznbdvp6ddwb5hqy1yer","Pam Aston","Stephen's first wife and the mother of Tully and Rachel, now living in care with dementia and unable to speak for herself.",[83],{"id":84,"name":85,"description":7,"is_fictional":16,"real_world_location":7},"01kn4hb877nw32y4ewmdt48ppf","Melbourne, Australia",[],[],[89],{"id":90,"title":6,"edition_name":7,"format":91,"format_label":92,"page_count":14,"audio_duration_minutes":7,"narrator":7,"publish_date":93,"cover_url":11,"cover_blurhash":13,"isbn_13":94,"asin":7,"publisher":95,"language":10,"quality_score":96,"submission_status":97},"01ktteq1s93dsxhpyde2v67p77","unknown","Unknown","2022-04-05","9781250229618","St. Martin's Press",7,"approved",{"summary":99,"pace":100,"complexity":100,"complexity_score":101,"audience":102,"mood":103,"themes":108,"setting_period":7,"content_warnings":111},"A respected heart surgeon plans to divorce his ailing wife and marry a woman younger than both his adult daughters. To Tully and Rachel Aston, their father's fiancee Heather looks like an interloper after his money — but each of the three women is guarding a private wound, and the family's polished image hides something darker. Framed by a wedding day that ends in blood and told through shifting perspectives, Sally Hepworth's domestic thriller turns a familiar second-wife suspicion into a tense study of secrets, control, and the truths a family would rather not face.","moderate",4,"adult",[104,105,106,107],"tense","mysterious","dark","emotional",[109,110],"multiple-povs","unreliable-narrator",[112,113],"abuse","eating-disorder",{"id":90,"title":6,"edition_name":7,"format":91,"format_label":92,"page_count":14,"audio_duration_minutes":7,"publish_date":93,"cover_url":11,"cover_blurhash":13,"isbn_13":94,"asin":7,"publisher":95,"language":10},[],3,"2026-06-11T04:23:14.000000Z",{"data":119,"links":162,"meta":163},[120,134,148],{"id":121,"slug":122,"title":123,"user":124,"work_id":4,"is_draft":16,"verified_reader":16,"featured":16,"body":7,"overall_rating":27,"depth":7,"momentum":7,"atmosphere":7,"craft":7,"impact":7,"spice":7,"spoiler_level":130,"locale":7,"feed_item_key":131,"like_count":14,"comment_count":14,"top_likers":132,"viewer_can_reply":16,"created_at":133,"updated_at":133},"01kwc9hz1bk2x8jg1249gxh6kf","review-of-the-younger-wife-by-thoughtful-bookworm","Review of \"The Younger Wife\" by thoughtful_bookworm",{"id":125,"name":126,"username":127,"avatar_url":7,"is_system":16,"published_reviews_count":128,"books_read_count":129},572,"Thoughtful Bookworm","thoughtful_bookworm",362,365,"none","rv-01kwc9hz1bk2x8jg1249gxh6kf",[],"2026-06-30T12:55:07.000000Z",{"id":135,"slug":136,"title":137,"user":138,"work_id":4,"is_draft":16,"verified_reader":16,"featured":16,"body":7,"overall_rating":116,"depth":7,"momentum":7,"atmosphere":7,"craft":7,"impact":7,"spice":7,"spoiler_level":130,"locale":7,"feed_item_key":145,"like_count":14,"comment_count":14,"top_likers":146,"viewer_can_reply":16,"created_at":147,"updated_at":147},"01kvj6v70hksrv09k4bnzsq9fz","review-of-the-younger-wife-by-thegeminibookshelf","Review of \"The Younger Wife\" by thegeminibookshelf",{"id":139,"name":140,"username":141,"avatar_url":142,"is_system":16,"published_reviews_count":143,"books_read_count":144},518,"kat ꨄ","thegeminibookshelf","https:\u002F\u002Fapi.seekquel.app\u002Fstorage\u002Favatars\u002F518.webp?v=1781950077",391,406,"rv-01kvj6v70hksrv09k4bnzsq9fz",[],"2026-06-20T09:47:29.000000Z",{"id":149,"slug":150,"title":151,"user":152,"work_id":4,"is_draft":16,"verified_reader":16,"featured":16,"body":7,"overall_rating":101,"depth":7,"momentum":7,"atmosphere":7,"craft":7,"impact":7,"spice":7,"spoiler_level":130,"locale":7,"feed_item_key":159,"like_count":14,"comment_count":14,"top_likers":160,"viewer_can_reply":16,"created_at":161,"updated_at":161},"01kvey61xtjndgr9w1nr1j8c67","review-of-the-younger-wife-by-thelibraryofsp","Review of \"The Younger Wife\" by thelibraryofsp",{"id":153,"name":154,"username":155,"avatar_url":156,"is_system":16,"published_reviews_count":157,"books_read_count":158},485,"Soph","thelibraryofsp","https:\u002F\u002Fapi.seekquel.app\u002Fstorage\u002Favatars\u002F485.webp?v=1781838746",312,329,"rv-01kvey61xtjndgr9w1nr1j8c67",[],"2026-06-19T03:18:23.000000Z",{"first":7,"last":7,"prev":7,"next":7},{"path":164,"per_page":165,"next_cursor":7,"prev_cursor":7,"has_more":16},"https:\u002F\u002Fapi.seekquel.app\u002Fapi\u002Fworks\u002F01ktteq1rzp3cccnvf1x4j4z24\u002Freviews",20]