Wife After Wife

February 10, 2020
Hayfield recasts the saga of Henry VIII’s many marriages in contemporary London in her ambitious if underwhelming adult debut (after the middle grade Spine-Tinglers series). Alternating between flashbacks from bitter, middle-aged media mogul Harry Rose and several women who married him, the tale traces Harry’s destructive romances as he rises up the ranks of the Rose Corp. In 1985, the handsome and charismatic Harry marries his pregnant girlfriend, Katie Paragon. Later, while she struggles with the loss of their stillborn daughter, Harry begins a series of affairs. Katie, a Catholic, initially refuses to divorce him, but he determines to marry Ana Lyebon, a new Rose hire, in 1992. Harry’s second marriage endures until the new millennium, when Ana catches wind of his infidelity and demands a divorce, along with half of Harry’s assets, leading him to set in motion a plan that results in her death (“You give me nod, I make problem go away,” a Russian associate tells him, though Harry doubts his sincerity). He quickly marries his secretary, Janette, with whom he’d been carrying on for years. When a journalist’s exposé hints at the truth about what happened to Ana, Harry must reevaluate his personal relationships. While Hayfield’s transposing of a tyrannical king into the form of a media mogul doesn’t go smoothly, the strong characterizations of modern women caught up in an age-old story of men behaving badly are impressive. Readers, however, will long for a sharper, more incisive take on romantic workplace entanglements. Agent: Vicki Marsdon, High Spot Literary.

November 15, 2019
The story of Henry VIII and his six wives has been told and retold, but Hayfield transforms it into a contemporary glitz-and-glamour novel starring media mogul Harry Rose. The bulk of the book focuses on wives one and two: gentle Katie Paragon, haunted by multiple miscarriages, and edgy Ana Lyebon, whose ambition is both her attraction and her downfall. The other wives' stories are less fleshed-out but still clever: Janette Morrissey is Harry's secretary, Anki from Cleveland has a deceiving online avatar, Caitlyn Howe is a sexy reality TV star, and Clare Barr is a former nurse who knows exactly what she's getting herself into. Hayfield stays mostly true to the story, though timelines are compressed, beheadings are replaced with other public deaths, and Harry's son survives childhood thanks to vaccines. Other figures from the historical record are cleverly recast?Wolsey and Cromwell's counterparts are Harry's cutthroat lawyers, and daughter Eliza (soon to be the subject of a sequel) is a sharp-witted feminist poised to take over the family empire. This page-turner will delight both Tudorphiles and readers who love a dishy tell-all about rich people behaving badly.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)