Sally Hepworth is Australian. Sally Hepworth is adorable. Sally Hepworth also writes a new best-selling domestic suspense novel a year and somehow has the spare time to come to M. Judson Booksellers this month to talk about her latest. The Younger Wife presents a complex family in the midst of change: mother has dementia, father wants to remarry, daughters are suspicious, and the younger wife has plenty of secrets of her own. It’s a twisty and suspenseful, wickedly clever and often funny read.
We caught up with her in the midst of getting ready for her U.S. tour, an endeavor in packing and space and the question of what shoes to wear when. (She’s asked for prayers.) She says, “In my spare time, I’ve been trying to convince my five-year-old daughter to wash her hair, contemplating retiring my skinny jeans, and reading my eyeballs off.”
Here are the books she’s been loving lately.
Book Recommendations from Sally Hepworth
THE HENNA ARTIST by Alka Joshi
If you don’t like this book, we cannot be friends, sorry. In fact, I want to confirm that we read the same book, because you must have liked it.
It is stunning, it is flawless, and it transported me. Once I finished, I immediately downloaded the next book, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur.
THE BOOK OF LOST NAMES by Kristen Harmel
I am officially obsessed with Kristen Harmel. She makes me feel things in my soul that I didn’t know I was capable of. If I ever meet her, it might get very weird.
This book is perfection.
THE GOLDEN COUPLE by Sarah Pekkanen and Greer Hendricks
These two are magic. I started with The Wife Between Us, and every book since then has topped the one before it. The Golden Couple is the jewel in their crown.
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE STREET by Diane Chamberlain
Diane Chamberlain has not written a bad novel. She hasn’t even written a mediocre novel. They are all spectacular, but this one, perhaps, even more than the rest. Like all of her books, I was swept away, but I also learned a lot, and I put it down a more thoughtful, empathetic person. Isn’t that what books are for?
THE WAY FROM HERE by Jane Cockram
In this book, a woman is asked by her late sister to scatter her ashes across the world, revealing secrets at every stop. I have not been as captivated by a book in a long time.
You can catch Sally yourself at M. Judson Booksellers on Wednesday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. for Books Over Drinks. Your ticket includes a copy of The Younger Wife and a cocktail themed to the book, available at mjudsonbooks.com/events.
