A Reliable Wife

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And now that we are in a gothic mood, let me suggest two more! A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin, 2009) opens in 1097 with 54 year old Ralph Truitt standing alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for a “reliable wife”. But the woman who steps off the train is not the “simple, honest woman” that Ralph is expecting… Many authors have employed the mail order bride device, but this one is really complex and suspenseful. Who is Catherine and what is her true intent? What secrets is Ralph hiding? Their stories are peeled away layer by layer and readers are rewarded by a big conclusion. Also, the author does such a good job describing the cold and lonely mid-west, that my teeth chattered at times while reading this!