The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives
Cut along the dashed lines and pass the cards around the table.
Where did you do most of your reading of this one, and did you need the lights on? Tell us your reading setup for a book like this.
What was the first small domestic detail (a kitchen, a routine, a tidy house) that gave you a chill rather than comfort?
The book lives in ordinary rooms. Which scene of plain daily life stayed with you longest, and what did it make you feel about your own routines?
When you read about these women being judged by neighbours and strangers, what came up in you: protectiveness, frustration, recognition, something else?
The title promises secrets. What is a kind of secret you think a person can keep out of love rather than out of guilt, and did the book make you more or less generous about that?
Was there a moment where you felt genuine tenderness toward one of these wives? What did it feel like to be moved by someone the world has already decided about?
By the time you closed the book, had your sense of how much a person can truly not know about someone they share a bed with shifted? Talk about where you landed, without giving anything away.
This story spends a lot of time on the cost of staying. Without spoiling how things go, what did the book leave you believing about whether these women get to have a life after, and did that feel merciful or bleak to you?