The Book:
The Hunting Wives by May Cobb
Published May 18th 2021 by Berkley
Date read: May 6, 2021
The Characters:
Sophie and her husband Graham
Margot, Callie, Jill
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
The Hunting Wives share more than target practice, martinis, and bad behavior in this novel of obsession, seduction, and murder.
Sophie O’Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life with a beautiful home in an idyllic rural community. But Sophie soon realizes that life is now too quiet, and she’s feeling bored and restless.
Then she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target practice and dangerous partying. As Sophie’s curiosity gives way to full-blown obsession, she slips farther away from the safety of her family and deeper into this nest of vipers.
When the body of a teenage girl is discovered in the woods where the Hunting Wives meet, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation and her life spiraling out of control.
The Ending:
Brad’s girlfriend Abby was the girl who turned up dead. When the murder weapon turns up with Sophie’s fingerprints on it, she assume Margot had been framing her so that Brad would be free to date her. Sophie confronts Margot, and Margot admits that she broke up with Brad and then has sex with Sophie. Sophie decides that Callie must be framing her, but Callie was clearly a red herring. Margot turns up drowned.
Sophie finds out that Abby went to an abortion clinic in Dallas, and then that Callie and Jill had taken her there. Jill had killed both Abby and Margot to protect Brad. Sophie and Graham do not get back together.
The Review:
This book was so compulsively readable. I absolutely love reading about rich people, and rich people behaving badly is all the better.
The Hunting Wives are the epitome of love-to-hate characters. They’re undeniably awful people, cheating on their husbands, sleeping with teens, and driving under the influence in pretty much every scene. They’re grown-up mean girls and a trainwreck (or car crash…) waiting to happen, but I couldn’t put this book down.
I’ve seen almost every review saying that they finished this book in a day or two, and I am in the same boat. I couldn’t get enough of these awful women, and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen to them!
My one issue with this book was with these adult women hitting on seventeen-year-old boys. (Minor spoilers ahead)
If the genders were reversed, I’m sure this book would get absolutely trashed. I definitely don’t think it’s okay for adults to seduce children. I was lucky enough to get to chat with the author about this, though , and she explained it really well. She chose seventeen on purpose to underscore how awful the Hunting Wives are, and to up the contention between the mother of these boys and the woman the boy was in a relationship with. Seventeen is the age of consent in Texas, but young enough to still be icky. I hope I explained that right, because I’m paraphrasing what the author said!
One of my favorite parts of #bookstagram is getting to connect with authors like May, and to learn why they wrote scenes a certain way!
QOTD: Have you ever been shooting? Skeet, hunting, or at a range? I haven’t, but my coworkers keep trying to convince me to go to the shooting range with them. It’s too expensive of a hobby for me, though!
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