“Happy Wife,” Read With Jenna’s July 2025 pick, is all about appearances โ and how, of course, they can be deceiving. This thriller is set in an affluent Florida town. One woman, an outsider who married an insider, grapples with her life turned upside down when her husband disappears.
The novel was written by Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores, who met at school pickup at the kids’ school. Lavender, a TV writer, and Shores, who works in communication, found a way to explore their interest in true crime and insular communities in the book.
โI think it was just lightning in a bottle, you know? Itโs that moment in time where, like, right idea, right person and then right moment,โ Lavender told TODAY.com. โSo I think for us, it was a really fun process.โ
Below, Lavender and Shores shared their recommendations for books to read after “Happy Wife,” which โ chances are โ you raced through already.
“Problematic Summer Romance” by Ali Hazelwood
We love a romcom heroine. Thereโs something deeply human about their humor, their vulnerability and their courage. We always talk about Nora as a romcom heroine who comes to realize sheโs in a mystery in Happy Wife. Ali Hazelwood always walks a careful line between smart, sexy and sincere. Maya leans on her chosen family and a broken heart to find her rightful place.
“Sunburned” by Katherine Wood
Wood has a knack for transporting you to exotic locations, and then revealing the scandals of the people who inhabit them. Her latest mystery sends readers on a journey about the choices women make to survive, to reinvent themselves, and what that costs. Even when youโre on vacation. Come for the tropical setting, stay for the emotional wreckage.
“Seems Perfect” by Rebecca Hanover
Hanoverโs latest book has all the trappings of a page-turning mystery that will keep you guessing until the page. Like all of her books, no matter the genre, itโs clever and sarcastic with just the right edge of suspense. Hanover knows how to take a great story and make it just a little bit twisted. And in Seems Perfect, she reminds us how quickly things can change when you let the wrong person into your life.
“The Devil at his Elbow” by Valerie Bauerlein
If you werenโt expecting a sharp left turn into true crime, we get it. But the tragedies central to Devil at His Elbowโstores of crime and loss that gripped a small town in South Carlinaโwere the early spark of Happy Wife, spinning up questions of power, illusion and the way criminal investigations reveal the lore and legends of a small community.
“The Customs of the Country” by Edith Wharton
Wharton is the godmother of social commentary as we know it. Sharp and subversive, she wrote women like Undine Spraggโambitious, beautiful, and dangerously self-possessedโlong before โunlikableโ heroines became a trend. We love Wharton for her wit as much as for her deep awareness of the pressures facing women in her time.
