The Wives of Hawthorne Lane

By Stephanie DeCarolis
** Publication Date 16 Sept 2025 **
​4.5 stars


Hawthorne Lane is one of those culs-de-sac that most women dream of. The perfect houses. The families all friends. The big events like Halloween where everyone meets up together and puts on a festival for the neighborhood. Those beautiful facades are hiding some very dark secrets.


Georgina, beautiful and married to a very successful lawyer. She’s the type A behind the festival. Never a hair out of place and a fabulous cook to boot.


Libby, newly single due to her husband asking for a separation. Owns a floral shop in town.


Audrey, ravishing beauty and editor of an entertainment magazine, married to a best-selling author.


Hannah, new to the neighborhood. Recently married to a man twelve years older but together they are so happy. Until reminders of her past start appearing in her mailbox.


Four women whose lives appear just perfect on the outside, but behind closed doors, their lives are sometimes anything but. When a body is found dead in the woods behind their homes after the Halloween festival, it shines a light on the neighborhood and these women more than ever before. But who had the motive?


Great novel. So well pieced together with the police interviews interspersed throughout the novel. A lot of bombshells dropped here and there also. As with her novel The Perfect Sister, DeCarolis is a master at weaving together interesting, dysfunctional people to form fantastic mysteries. These four women are all extremely different and while not necessarily likable, at least in some ways, admirable. Their lives are not perfect. And of course there is one busybody in the mix for humor. 


Really fun novel for the fall. Definitely recommend.