Books Read: Black Widows by Cate Quinn

 Blake's dead. His wife killed him.

The question is: which one?

The only thing the three women had in common was their husband.

And, as of this morning, that they're each accused of his murder.

Blake Nelson moved into a hidden stretch of land - a raw paradise in the wilds of Utah - where he lived with his three wives:

Rachel, the chief wife, obedient and doting to a fault.

Tina, the other wife, who is everything Rachel isn't.

And Emily, the youngest wife, who knows little else.

When their husband is found dead under the desert sun, the questions pile up.

But none of the widows know who would want to kill a good man like Blake.

Or, at least, that's what they'll tell the police...

Book Links: Kindle or Hardcover

I'd like to thank Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour and Orion Publishing for my digital copy of Black Widows via NetGalley to review.

As soon as I read the blurb for Black Widows I was definitely intrigued and wanted to dive straight in and see how this story was going to play out as it centred around a lifestyle that most of us know very little about, polygamy - the practise of marrying multiple spouses. Living in the middle of the Utah desert is husband Blake and his three wives Rachel, Emily and Tina. And when he's found dead, all eyes of the investigation were firmly on this marital arrangement and it's fair to say I never knew just who to believe.  

The short chapter format worked really well especially as narrated in alternating chapters from each of the wives point of view so that we get to see just how different the women were, the role they played within the marriage and the dynamics between the three of them. It's not long before we discover that the original wife Rachel is more accustomed to this lifestyle as she grew up in a cult until her teenage years and as the story progressed I began to emphasise with her a little bit more, I found her pretty cold to begin with, as her deeply hidden memories come to surface and we see how she had suffered at the hands of 'family'. 

As for the other two sister-wives, neither of them were brought up in the Mormon or Latter Day Saints faith so the lifestyle is completely alien to them but yet somehow Blake managed to draw them in as if he was their saviour. Emily was the second wife, but also the youngest, and really was completely naive. As the story progressed we see how badly she has been affected by the estrangement with her deeply religious mother and it's almost as if she was looking for that figure in Rachel even though she wasn't that much older than her. Life had led Tina down a dark path of vice and drugs on the streets of Las Vegas which is where her path crossed with Blake who offered her security.  

As I learned more about each woman and what they had experienced, I found my opinions of them constantly changing especially when it came to who was responsible for killing Blake. Everyone had a motive and as I mentioned at the top, I really didn't know who to believe. 

If I had to give any criticism it would be that I did find my concentration waning a little in the middle section of the book due to the repetitiveness of the same events playing out from each point of view. But that's only a small gripe in what was a gripping read especially the final 20% that I flew through in the middle of the night as I wanted to get to the truth and discover who our killer was. 

Black Widows was an uncomfortable read at times with its dark and taboo subjects, but yet at the same time a compelling read with an unexpected surprise or two.