-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
by Stacia Pelletier
Over the course of one momentous day, two women who have built their lives around the same man find themselves moving toward an inevitable reckoning.
Former Lutheran minister Henry Plageman is a master secret keeper and a man wracked by grief. He and his wife, Marilyn, tragically lost their young son, Jack, many years ago. But he now has another child - a daughter, eight-year-old Blue - with Lucy, the woman he fell in love with after his marriage collapsed.
The Half Wives follows these interconnected characters on May 22, 1897, the anniversary of Jack's birth. Marilyn distracts herself with charity work at an orphanage. Henry needs to wrangle his way out of the police station, where he has spent the night for disorderly conduct. Lucy must rescue and rein in the intrepid Blue, who has fallen in a saltwater well. But before long, these four will all be drawn on this day to the same destination: to the city cemetery on the outskirts of San Francisco, to the grave that means so much to all of them. The collision of lives and secrets that follows will leave no one unaltered.
"Pelletier keeps readers hooked right up to the book's satisfying conclusion." - Publishers Weekly
"While the four-person narrative style gives us various perspectives and allows insight into the characters' denial of their situation, it ultimately limits development of their personalities. Best for readers interested in San Francisco and Richmond district history." - Library Journal
"Well-crafted characters struggling alone with shared grief furnishes a coursing river on which this intriguing story effortlessly flows. Tough to put down." - Kirkus
"The Half Wives is a profoundly hypnotic and mesmerizing work. The characters do not capture you as much as claim you, as the writing - languid, heartbreaking, and hopeful - pulls you deep into their world. The backdrop of Old San Francisco comes gloriously alive, as though the mist of the city itself rose from every page." - Kathy Hepinstall, author of Blue Asylum and others
"Stacia Pelletier's The Half Wives is set in the past, but it is a story for any time: a poignant, sometimes heart-rending, beautifully crafted, always gripping tale of loss and love, and the human need to try to set things right. A great read." - Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd
This information about The Half Wives was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Stacia Pelletier is the author of Accidents of Providence, which was short-listed for the Townsend Prize in Fiction, and the forthcoming The Half Wives. She earned graduate degrees in religion and historical theology from Emory University in Atlanta. A two-time fellow of the Hambidge Center, located in the mountains of North Georgia, she currently lives in Decatur, Georgia, and works at Emory University's School of Medicine.
If you liked The Half Wives, try these:
by Ann Packer
Published 2026
The bestselling, beloved author returns with her first novel in over a decade, an intimate and profoundly moving look at a long marriage and the ways in which a startling request can change a couple's understanding of who they are, together and apart.
After the Funeral and Other Stories
by Tessa Hadley
Published 2024
A masterful collection of stories that plumb the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships.
by Tessa Hadley
Published 2020
The lives of two close-knit couples are irrevocably changed by an untimely death.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
