Evelyn, After

I can’t remember why I chose to purchase Evelyn, After by Victoria Helen Stone, but I think it has something to do with my book club’s prompt of “a book that starts with the first letter of your name.” And the premise intrigued me: Evelyn, mostly happily married wife of a prominent psychiatrist, is called in the middle of the night to get his car out of a ditch. But it turns out he’s not alone. He’s got a woman with him. His patient. With whom he’s been having an affair. And then later, Evelyn learns that someone is dead.

I thought this would be a kind of twisted book of the complacent-housewife-turns-avenging-angel-or-demon sort of story, where I’d watch her slow unraveling as her husband and the patient’s (Juliette’s) lives also come unwound. I thought it would be a psychological thriller sort of thing. Instead, it was kind of like a coming of age story (or middle age), filled with infidelity on both sides and lies all around, and Juliette’s unwitting husband smack-dab in the middle.