Between Husbands and Wives (Susannah Glenn, Pantera)

Jennifer’s life is changed after her vehicle crashes into a car carrying a woman in labour, killing the mother and her unborn child. Escaping jail time but wracked with guilt and shame, she abandons Sydney for Queensland’s Daintree Rainforest with her husband, Jon, and young son. However, Jennifer cannot outrun her trauma, and it increasingly becomes clear that the biggest problem in her life is still within her home. The debut novel from former journalist and editor Susannah Glenn, Between Husbands and Wives is a domestic noir page-turner for fans of Wendy James. The portrayal of Jennifer and her marriage to Jon exposes ugly truths about trauma, coping mechanisms and the supports we rely on, bravely showing a woman who is often unsympathetic but is undeniably a trauma survivor. The novel is full of tension but does not conform to the conventions of a mystery or thriller. Instead, the story is an inevitable unravelling of the dark truths that Jennifer is unable to voice. Indeed, fans of detective fiction may become frustrated by Jennifer’s lengthy denouement, in which she reiterates the significance of the events of the previous chapter. If read as a traumatised woman processing events that have upended her life, though, this chapter is a satisfying resolution to Glenn’s character study of a woman who is a prisoner in her own life.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Ilona Urquhart has a PhD in literary studies and currently works as a children’s and youth services librarian on the Bellarine Peninsula. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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