Book Review: The Three Mrs. Wrights | Linda Keir

If you’re looking for a soapy suspense novel that is (bonus!) available on Kindle Unlimited, then Linda Keir’s The Three Mrs. Wrights is your next read. I thought this book was like a good Wednesday-night blockbuster movie that you might watch on the streaming app of your choice—not too deep, no shocking twists, but a whole lot of fun!

The Three Mrs. Wrights | Characters

Lark is struggling to make a career out of designing board games. She lives in Los Angeles, CA with her roommate, Callie, and recently broke up with her serious boyfriend, Dylan. She meets Tripp on a business trip to Buffalo and the two hit it off.

Jessica has recently completed her ivy league medical school and turned down a fellowship at Duke and moved to Chicago to join a medical start up committed to developing technology that detects childhood cancer before it is diagnosed. She is also engaged to the handsome Jon who is the founder of the company.

Holly is married to Jack and the couple have three kids, Ava, Logan, and Paige. Holly also has a medical degree and successful private practice. She is passionate about horses and runs a charity called Horse Stability which raises money to support horse rescue and adoption. Her volunteer Brian is helping her to execute on her ten-year vision to build out her charity.

Jonathan M. Wright III is the same person as Tripp, Jon, and Jack.

The Three Mrs. Wrights | Plot

Lark is about to be forced to give up on her life’s dream of being a board-game developer when she is in Buffalo for a pitch meeting with investors and has a one night stand with the handsome Tripp Mitchell. After a whirlwind date to Niagara Falls, Tripp flies to visit her in LA and offers to fund her game himself and help her establish her own board game company, Larkspur.

Jessica has followed her life plan to a T—ivy league education, followed by medical school, and then meet the perfect husband. She is just now checking the last box with the handsome Jonathan Wright, her fiancé and the owner of a start-up developing technology to detect childhood cancer before diagnosis. Jessica is thrilled to move to Chicago and work for Jonathan’s company, but they have to keep their relationship under wraps at work until his messy divorce is final.

Holly is known proudly as the Barrington Hills Horse Lady. She owns a charity dedicated to support horse rescue and adoption, has her own stable, a successful private medical practice, and three lovely children. Her life would be nearly perfect, if only her husband Jack didn’t continue to have affairs right under her nose. Holly has resigned herself to her marriage to a man who doesn’t respect their vows, until she learns that he has escalated with his most recent love interest and hired her to his company.

Three women, three relationships, but only one Mr. Wright. If only the three can set aside their pain and work together to take him down once and for all… But Jonathan M. Wright III didn’t become who he is through a lack of wits and charm. Who will win, Mr. Wright or the three Mrs. Wrights?

The Three Mrs. Wrights | Review

I wouldn’t call this a psychological thriller in the traditional sense, I would consider this book to be more of a women’s fiction with dramatic suspense. The reader knows from the beginning that all three women are in relationships with the same man, so there isn’t a twist that pulls that card on the reader. Instead, this is the story of a man who is an absolutely brilliant liar and manipulator, and the three women he is using until they catch onto his game.

What I liked

Even though the book starts with the three women being somewhat (or fully) in the dark about Mr. Wright’s true nature, the story quickly becomes one of female empowerment. Holly should be the most to blame since she has been aware of (and looked the other way from) her husband’s affairs for many years, but somehow she comes across as a strong, poised, and philanthropic woman who is taking the emotional burden of her marital issues on herself to give her kids the life and family she wants them to have. Holly is without question the most savvy of the three women.

I also liked that there was a sort of Theranos-like plot involving Mr. Wright’s company with Jessica at the helm. While Jessica was the hardest for me to connect with as a character, I liked that her story was less about her relationship woes, and more about her figuring out what her boss and fiancé was up to at work including potentially defrauding their investors. Jessica is someone with a life plan that she derailed when she met Jon. She is the weak, nerdy doctor her thinks, though. In fact, Jessica begins to suspect something is up at work much sooner than in her relationship, and I liked that it was clear immediately he picked the wrong woman to mess with.

What didn’t work

 Lark was the hardest to fit into the story for me, because I wasn’t as clear why Tripp / Mr. Wright would bother with the engagement and investment in a board game company that didn’t seem to fit into his broader life. I was even more surprised and befuddled when he proposes to her. I felt that Lark’s story and connection to the broader narrative was the weakest point of the book, and I kept wanting her chapters to move on so I could get back to Holly and Jessica’s stories.

The book begins with Lark meeting Tripp and their one-night-stand so I almost wonder if the story (and book) would have worked better if the teaser didn’t give away that it was three women marrying the same man upfront. It would have been quite a twist if we saw more of Lark’s story play out with Tripp buying her the office space in LA and founding her company, and then moved back in time to learn that he had two other women he was married or engaged to. That would have been a jaw-dropping moment that would have made the story more compelling.

The Three Mrs. Wrights | Ending

Nothing ground breaking with the ending of this book, as it is pretty clear from the start that this will be the story of the three women finding out about what is going on. The big intrigue to me is the Theranos-esque fraud plot that Jessica is unraveling, compounded by her learning that Jon / Mr. Wright is definitely not divorcing his wife. While the book itself is a lot of fun, I did think the ending was drier than I anticipated.