The Housewife by Alex Kane

The Housewife by Alex Kane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 278

Publisher - Hera Books

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

Even perfect mothers have secrets…

Leah. She’s the perfect mum to ten-year-old Samuel, wife to loving husband Thomas, head of the PTA. But her closet is full of skeletons - and if the truth gets out, her world could be destroyed.

Annie. She’s the gangster’s moll with a brain. She might be a woman, but she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty to play the men at their own game. But what no one knows is the devastating secret haunting her.

Terry. He’s the king of Glasgow gangland, working his way up from estate to mansion. From drugs to guns, there’s nothing he won’t stop at to grow his dirty money. He might be a hard man, but his weakness is women.

As their three stories collide, the lives of each will never be the same. Because even perfect women hide dark secrets… Don’t they?


My Review

We open with someone being buried alive and trying to crawl out but the dirt keeps coming! Ooft nice shock opener. Meet Terry, gangster boss who keeps a tight leash on what is it, respect is earned and disrespected dealt with, harshly. We have two leading ladies in the book and flip between both, Annie seemingly comes from nowhere into Terry's life and fits in perfectly. Leah is miles away from the estate life and living with her hubby and 10 year old son Samuel. She has the PTA, drinks with the girls and a pretty tidy/nice life. As with all these types of books, everyone has secrets and things they need to hide but some are worse than others and some you just cannot outrun!

A lot of the scenes take place in the murkier parts so we see neglect, manipulation, drugs, coercion, shady and bad characters oh and murder of course! The book setting is Mainshill Estate in Glasgow, Mainshill Estate is fictional but absolutely drawn from real estates and if you are familiar with Glasgow then there are places you will absolutely recognise, see inspired Mainshill.

We see a glimpse of some of the darker side of humanity, the chapters are quite short and Kane creates a small world of dodgies, crime/gangsters and those who hang off their coat tails wanting a piece of the pie, ruled by them and the world they live in. 4/5 for me this time, perfect escapism with some shade, violence and stepping into a world of hardened criminals and some right dodgy biscuits :D

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