Three women are connected by their romantic involvement with the same man. At first they have only this in common, but come to realize that they actually have another thing in common...they all want revenge against him.
Phillip Rochester is controlling, abusive, and narcissistic. Imogen, Phillip's second ex-wife, is dealing with the messy fallout from their divorce. He is becoming incredibly difficult, even going as far as demanding that she move out of their house by the end of the month or he will sue for sole custody of their son.
In an act of desperation and madness, Imogen does something so unthinkable and completely out of character, yet it gives her all the power in the relationship for the first time. What she could never anticipate is that both Phillip's other ex-wife and his new girlfriend would get caught up in her plan. These vastly different women become the most unlikely allies to take revenge on the same man that wronged them all.
In this psychological thriller, Jakeman opens with Phillip's funeral. Her twisty plot plays out between the past and present to reveal how Phillip died. This is an efficacious way to quell the reader's desire for revenge on such an abusive individual.
Imogen's character descent is fascinating. At first, she's a typical unreliable narrator—her perception is her reality so the reader naturally sides with her where the exes are concerned. But the more the story plays out, and the further across the line she goes, the more we learn about the other women.
This dark debut was originally titled Sticks and Stones, though I much prefer the current title, The Exes' Revenge. Jakeman's novel is not only hypnotic, but incredibly satisfying from start to finish. The pace is spot on, as is the revenge and there is also some dark humour sprinkled throughout which is incredibly clever. I literally could not stop reading and stayed up way too late. Thank you, Jo Jakeman, for taking me on this ride!
JO JAKEMAN won the Friday Night Live competition at the York Festival of Writing in 2016.
Born in Cyprus, she worked for many years in London before moving to the countryside with her husband and twin boys.
The Exes' Revenge is her debut thriller.
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