Book Review: Dead To Her by Sarah Pinborough

Dead To Her by Sarah Pinborough

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published February 11th 2020 by William Morrow

The wild mainstream bestselling success of Sarah Pinborough makes me super happy. She is an incredible writer, who worked her ass off in the salt mines of the horror genre for years. I am sure there are Oprah or Reese Witherspoon book club readers who think she has only three books to her name. I had the thought today as I was finishing this book that it would be interesting to get their reaction to older Pinborough books like the Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy. Those are nasty dystopian novels with a serial killer that would make your most hardcore horror readers cringe.

Before the wild success of her novel Behind her Eyes (coming to Netflix soon as a series) I didn't picture a SP novel being grouped with novels like "The Wife Stalker," or "The Other Mrs."  That said in the wake of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train Pinborough with her detail-oriented ability to plot was perfect to become the master of the feminine thriller.

I am certainly not the target audience for this novel, as this novel seems perfectly calibrated for the middle life crisis housewife that wants a thriller that speaks to them.  I am sorry if that seems reductive, I read Pinborough because I love how she plots and twists narrative with incredible skill. What she has also done is brilliantly targeted an audience over the last three books and reinvented herself.

Pinborough said in a Bustle.com interview: " I wasn't fueled by outside gender politics as it were, but rather my own. I reached an age a few years ago — I'm 46 now — when I became interested in telling stories about women – the good, the bad, and the ugly of women — and therefore they couldn't just be victims. That didn't interest me. I think, especially with Cross Her Heart, all the action in the novel is driven by women. There are men in my books obviously, some good and some bad, but they're not "in charge" of the book. For my past few books, and the one I'm currently writing, it's all about exploring female dynamics."

Dead to Her has many well-drawn characters but the bulk of the narrative is focused on Marcie. She is the second younger wife of a wealthy southern lawyer in Savannah Georgia. Marcie was a waitress who had a steamy affair with Jason and now has woven herself into the wealthy culture of the small town. The high society and southern backdrop make it feel different from other very British feeling books of SP's catalog but the novel seems to capture the feeling nicely.

I went into this cold, not knowing anything about the plot and so I was perfectly misdirected in the early pages. If you want that feeling preserved stop reading and come back when you are done.


If you read the description you are getting an idea of the first act, Marcie is the second wife of Jason whose older widower boss has returned with a younger black wife. She is beautiful and taking Marcie's role as the hot young second wife. The first act treads the tropes with rough edges. You really feel  Marcie's spite growing venomous as the younger Keisha flirts with her husband and opens wishes death on her wealthy older newlywed husband.

It is the rest of the novel that takes off. The story is driven entirely by the women at this point. The men around them are not exactly nice guys, and they think they are pretty important. Marcie might seem helpless at times, slave to her new privilege but that is the hidden subtext of this thriller.  It is the women in the orbit of this patriarchal subculture taking ownership of their lives and their stories at the heart of this book for both the heroes and villains.

It is Pinborough so don't assume for any amount of pages you know who is who.

Dead to Her is a great novel, that is subtle good. It appears on the surface to be fluffy thriller entertainment but it is a stealth piece of feminism. Not in a raised fist militant way, but in a grounded way it sticks a dagger into the heart of subtle but painful habits of patriarchy like a thousand cuts. There are plenty of sharp observations of male behavior that will not be fun for some men to read, it is a pity because it might be a good way for them to learn how they are treating their partners.

The more I think on it the better I think it is.  Sarah Pinborough, damn sister... you did it again!