Takes a darkly humorous look at one of the downsides on murder - how on earth do you get rid of the body? Especially during lockdown when everybody is looking suspiciously at everybody else. This novel takes an inventive look at the problem, introducing some great characters along the way, whilst also examining the serious subject of domestic abuse. Highly recommended.

I was surprised by this book as the author managed to deal with the subject of domestic violence against women and its huge increase in lockdown with such a lightness of touch and had me smiling at many of the characters antics. Important to read the author's notes at the beginning and end and I wish Ms Casale well in helping to improve the lives of abused women.
Thank you to netgalley and Penguin Books for an advance copy of this book

This is everything I want in a book!
Hauntingly funny, completely mesmerising and should totally be turned into a TV show. I wouldn’t trust anyone who doesn’t give this 5 big fat stars.

I was intrigued how anyone could make a comedy out of domestic violence, but it does work: you empathise with the women and it concentrates on their friendship and their collaborative efforts to get rid of the evidence. The premise that a woman could accidentally kill her husband and then bump into strangers who've done the same at roughly the same time is far-fetched but the author admits that in the "Author's note" at the end, which is well worth reading. Overall, it's a good thought-provoking story. I enjoyed the twist at the end too.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A timely, interesting and often funny book about domestic abuse, that shows the power of friendship and the need for self-belief and never giving up.. I was intrigued as I work in safeguarding, and it is good to think that using comedy (dark comedy of course) and a mystery to solve can bring awareness and insight. . I took the authors advice and suspended my disbelief about how very unlikely it would be to have four women all murdering their husbands in self-defense within a few streets of each other within a week, and very much enjoyed the idea that they might.
You will be cheering Sally and her friends on, but will also gain an understanding of the damage and devastation that domestic abuse, control and coercion, and forced marriage brings. The addition of a COVID lock down was helpful and added drama. It brought back memories of the restrictions in place at various times and the worries I had for those living in abusive relationships. Old and developing friendships are at the heart of the book - and the author does this well.
I would recommend this book, including to book clubs who want something different to discuss.
If there are any horticulturists among you, you will also need to suspend your disbelief about the different plants flowering at the same time as each other. Having said this - I really like the way that the author used gardening as a healing and bonding experience - so true!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book with no obligation to review.

This is a very black comedy and a quick and easy read. It starts off with an all too believable story of domestic violence and coercive control but then the situations become unlikely and unbelievable and I don't think the plans would have succeeded in real life!

The believability is really not the point thought, What the book does, in an easy and very engaging and breezy style, is provide much food for thought about domestic violence, the victims and the aftermath. In a post script the author addresses all the reservations readers might have about the plot and she also provides questions to think about or to discuss at book groups.

i enjoyed the book and, of course, I fully support without reservation all victims of domestic violence but I can't help feeling that the breeziness and laugh aloud moments could be seen to be in slightly poor taste. Do not all people deserve some dignity in death? Do two wrongs make a right? These are points to ponder.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

“The Best Way to Bury Your Husband” surprised me in the best possible way. This dark comedy follows four women and their attempts to cover up the accidental murder of their abusive husbands.

I didn’t expect a book focused on domestic abuse to be heartwarming but I found the characters endearing and was rooting for them by the end of the book.

The last few pages were eye opening and I felt that the theme of domestic abuse was dealt with really well allowing it to be an easy read. I’ve rated four stars as there were some inconsistencies throughout the plot but overall I was able to overlook this and still enjoy the book.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters and the story behind it. Whilst it's so wrong from a societal position that a this book had to be written in this way I can understand the authors thinking, rational and ultimately the correct social choice that she made. Clearly any form of domestic violence isn't acceptable or humorous but the point that the author is making is well positioned and effective. The strength of characters in the book are believable and relevant and the writing and story are well conceived. Thank you

A great book set around unsettling circumstances. The topic of domestic violence is often overlooked but I loved how the women came together to help one another and shared how important it was to heal from what they were devastatingly put through, because of violent men that know no bounds.

3/5 Star

The Best Way to Bury Your Husband is a darkly comedic look at a very real problem the world faces - domestic violence. This particular story centres around the COVID pandemic lockdown (circa 2020-2021) where cases of domestic violence - typically males being violent towards females - saw a global increase.

In the UK, where the story and author are based, a woman is killed by a man (on average) every 3 days. NZ, where I live, is the “worst developed country in the OECD” for family violence - with only 33% of that violence ever being reported. There were news stories here, during lockdown, about the increase in domestic abuse and still nothing is being done to counter that.

There are some very poignant and significant moments as the women in this story realise that they’re no longer being repressed and can think about living how they want. It’s a very well written and emotive story and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this.

I loved the first half but unfortunately I just don't have it in me to continue reading.

I love the characters and the stories but I'm now at the part where they're digging the garden and I've totally lost interest.

I can't put my finger on what it is but the story had just lost my attention completely.

If I ever do finish it I'll edit this review but to be honest, with my to be read list being as long as it is, I don't see that happening, which is a shame because it was a five star rating for the first half of the book.

This is a dark comedy with about a very real issue. Domestic violence is a very bad issue and only got worse during lockdown. This book takes that and turns it into a very dark comedic tale of woman coming together and supporting each other even after all the emotional damage they have suffered. I loved it!

Somehow Casale has managed to take a very dark subject and make it hilarious without actually reducing it to just something funny. It is not an easy balance to strike and due credit should be given to Casale's deft story-telling for keeping it both serious and darkly funny. She hold's no prisoners and I think part of the reason this book will resonate is because many women will recognize the thinking processes that the various women go through.

I think that it should also be noted that the author captured female friendship very well. This is essentially the equivalent of giving a girl in a bathroom a sanitary towel but for how to deal with a dead body, that just happens to be your husband/father. I appreciated how author showed how the multiple situations that lead to the bodies developed and the illustration of the many ways that men (toxic ones) will strive to control the lives of the women in their family, be it their wives or their daughter.

Solidly a five star read, and one that I will be happily recommending to friends.

A serious topic of domestic abuse against women in lickdown, but tackled in a darkly humorous way. 4 women find themselves in an unspeakable position.
I didn't really enjoy it and founds parts hard to stomach. I think I'm just overly sensitive.

Amazing, what a story. I love the characters, I loved each of their stories even though they weren’t necessarily happy ones. Set across the backdrop of lockdown a group of women who had all been victims of domestic violence work together to make better lives for themselves.

Note that Alexia Casale’s The Best Way to Bury Your Husband is a guide to burying, not a guide to murdering! As the publisher’s tempt notes (aka blurb) tell us, Sally didn’t mean to kill her husband and three other women reached the end of their tether too. The early chapters, where we see what the husbands did to their wives, are an uncomfortable read and I did wonder whether “dark comedy” was really an accurate description. There’s much, much, more “dark” than “comedy” for a few chapters as the author sets up the scenario, although I did like the image of Sally defiantly eating cake straight from the cake tin with her husband’s body lying at her feet.

I’m not a fan of present tense narrative with “I do this” rather than the historic “I did this”. I understand why authors do it: it’s to inject a sense of drama and suspense. We readers wonder “Who’s at the door?” and “Will the author die?”. I usually find it distracting because we know the author isn’t walking round, carrying a notebook in which they write what’s happening moment by moment. However, this book is the one exception. I really resented being interrupted as I read this book, thinking “How can people talk to me when these four women are having a moment of jeopardy and the plans might all go wrong?” I’m unsure why it works for this book but not for any others I’ve read and I think it’s because there are so many ways in which a plan to dispose of four dead husbands could go wrong, that we cannot believe it will succeed. We expect things to go wrong but we don’t know where, when or why – and as the author sets up one tense situation after another, we keep thinking “This is it. This is where it all unravels…”

I also thought, early on, “If this was a book about four husbands killing their wives, no-one would laugh, no matter what the author writes. So why should we laugh when it’s the husbands who are murdered?” I think the author nails that point in her introduction: the chances of four women within a couple of streets all murdering their husbands simultaneously are vanishingly slim but the chances of four women being murdered are sadly much higher.

Anyway, there are definitely moments of black comedy as the story develops. My favourite line comes when Sally and Ruth bump into a stranger dragging a suitcase down the street at midnight and ask, “Do you have actual body parts in there, or is this a trial run?” This book isn’t just a comedic novel, though. It’s a message to all abused women, “It’s not your fault. You don’t have to put up with this because people WILL help you.” There is a secret safe house for women and children in our area and we’ve donated stuff, e.g. armfuls of new clothing from M&S’s 70% off sales; unused toiletries; children’s toys. Relevant charities and the police often deliver women to the refuge without anything other than the clothes they and the children are wearing because they couldn’t alert the abuser to the fact they were leaving – we like to think that the women will have something new of their own, rather than only being offered clothing picked up at charity shops.

Sadly, I guess that the chances of an abused woman being able to read a book called The Best Way to Bury Your Husband are not high. It’s such an unfair world.

#BuryYourHusband #NetGalley

A true testament to female solidarity, I'll be thinking about this book for a long time. There's no way I could give this anything less than five stars!
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I loved everything about this and I devoured it in just over 3 days (for an ebook, that's pretty quick for me!). The dark humour throughout offers some light relief to an otherwise heavy topic but not once did I feel this took away from the seriousness of it all— as Alexia states in her author's note, "I’m trying to make people laugh – and then think." and that's exactly what she accomplishes with this book. I adored the writing style & loved the narration of Sally; she and every other woman involved were highly likeable & I was consistently rooting for them even after finishing the last page.
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The concept for this story was what drew me in and kept me reading. Though it's a fiction, the entire thing still feels like such an important read and with it being set during the Covid Lockdown, it felt even more stark and really did make you think about all the real women that were and are going through what the characters were going through. Some scenes in this book did feel far-fetched but as I understand from Alexia's author's note, this was intentional; the probability of a group of women getting together to bury their husbands is very unlikely, compared to the rates of male violence against women and girls. I thought Alexia did well in making the women involved so diverse; it made it more evident that no matter what someone's culture, age or background is, they too can and do still suffer through domestic violence.
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Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It was entertaining as well as being thought-provoking, sensitive and emotional. I'd recommend this to everyone but be aware of the triggers going into it; there were some graphic scenes of domestic violence which I understand may be hard to read for some people.

Thank you Netgalley for the free eARC!

I was absolutely drawn in by this title and cover, and knew I'd have to request it!
A brilliant piece, twisting humour and a serious and important content together into an entertaining read - the author touches on the harsh reality of domestic violence and sensitivity, whilst crafting an over-the-top comedic storyline that is still tinged with hopefulness.
I loved the four women in the centre of the story, particularly their friendships, and the setting of the covid-19 lockdown really hit home for me.

When dark humour meets female rage … you get The Best Way To Bury Your Husband.

This books perfectly tackles a very difficult underlying theme of violence against women in a truly humerous and engaging way and highlights the strength of female friendships.

Each character has their own defined voice and personality and the backdrop of the pandemic was very honest of, sadly, so many women’s experiences.

I hope this book will shine a light on a very difficult topic whilst being completely consumable, relatable and darkly funny.

I shouldn't have been laughing at this book as much as I did!! I've always been a fan of dark/ dry humour, and this really hit the nail on the head for me. Tied in with some much relate-ability from the pandemic, it was so easy to level with the characters and it was personally great to read a novel like this set in the UK - more often than not this genre is American which I do still enjoy, but reading something closer to home is a refreshing break