The life and times of the Smart Wife--feminized digital assistants who are friendly and sometimes flirty, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wife--at your service, an eclectic collection of feminized AI, robotic, and smart devices. This digital assistant is friendly and sometimes flirty, docile and efficient, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. She might go by Siri, or Alexa, or inhabit Google Home. She can keep us company, order groceries, vacuum the floor, turn out the lights. A Japanese digital voice assistant--a virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azuma--sends her "master" helpful messages during the day; an American sexbot named Roxxxy takes on other kinds of household chores. In The Smart Wife, Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy examine the emergence of digital devices that carry out "wifework"--domestic responsibilities that have traditionally fallen to (human) wives. They show that the principal prototype for these virtual helpers--designed in male-dominated industries--is the 1950s housewife: white, middle class, heteronormative, and nurturing, with a spick-and-span home. It's time, they say, to give the Smart Wife a reboot. What's wrong with preferring domestic assistants with feminine personalities? We like our assistants to conform to gender stereotypes--so what? For one thing, Strengers and Kennedy remind us, the design of gendered devices re-inscribes those outdated and unfounded stereotypes. Advanced technology is taking us backwards on gender equity. Strengers and Kennedy offer a Smart Wife "manifesta," proposing a rebooted Smart Wife that would promote a revaluing of femininity in society in all her glorious diversity.

A bold dive into the problematic development (and developers) of "smart wives"--feminized digital assistants who are friendly, sometimes flirty, docile, efficient, occasionally glitchy, and perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wife--at your service, an eclectic collection of feminized AI, robotic, and smart devices. This digital assistant is friendly and sometimes flirty, docile and efficient, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. She might go by Siri, or Alexa, or inhabit Google Home. She can keep us company, order groceries, vacuum the floor, turn out the lights. A Japanese digital voice assistant--a virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azuma--sends her "master" helpful messages during the day; an American sexbot named Roxxxy takes on other kinds of household chores. In The Smart Wife, Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy examine the emergence of digital devices that carry out "wifework"--domestic responsibilities that have traditionally fallen to (human) wives. They show that the principal prototype for these virtual helpers--designed in male-dominated industries--is the 1950s housewife: white, middle class, heteronormative, and nurturing, with a spick-and-span home. It's time, they say, to give the Smart Wife a reboot.

A stylish psychological thriller with the compelling intrigue of The Silent Wife and Turn of Mind and the white-knuckle pacing of Before I Go to Sleep—in which a woman suffering from bipolar disorder cannot remember if she murdered her friend. Dana Catrell is shocked when her neighbor Celia is brutally murdered. To Dana’s horror, she was the last person to see Celia alive. Suffering from mania, the result of her bipolar disorder, she has troubling holes in her memory, including what happened on the afternoon of Celia’s death. Her husband’s odd behavior and the probing of Detective Jack Moss create further complications as she searches for answers. The closer she comes to piecing together the shards of her broken memory, the more Dana falls apart. Is there a murderer lurking inside her . . . or is there one out there in the shadows of reality, waiting to strike again? A story of marriage, murder, and madness, The Pocket Wife explores the world through the foggy lens of a woman on the edge.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year “Brilliantly breathes life not only into the perils of living at sea, but also into the hidden dangers of domesticity, parenthood, and marriage. What a smart, swift, and thrilling novel.” —Lauren Groff, author of Florida Juliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her stalled-out dissertation on confessional poetry when her husband, Michael, informs her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. With their two kids—Sybil, age seven, and George, age two—Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their forty-four foot sailboat awaits them. The initial result is transformative; the marriage is given a gust of energy, Juliet emerges from her depression, and the children quickly embrace the joys of being at sea. The vast horizons and isolated islands offer Juliet and Michael reprieve – until they are tested by the unforeseen. A transporting novel about marriage, family and love in a time of unprecedented turmoil, Sea Wife is unforgettable in its power and astonishingly perceptive in its portrayal of optimism, disillusionment, and survival.

It was 1950. Strikingly beautiful, 20-year-old Joan Haverty had arrived in New York and was working as a seamstress. During a deteriorating attempt to reconcile with her lover, fate intervened when Joan heard a stranger's voice calling up to her loft from the street below -- It was Jack Kerouac, needing directions to a party Thus began Joan's stormy romance with and brief marriage to the leather-jacketed archangel of the Beat Generation. She bore his tirades, his passion, his troubled poetic genius, and also bore his child while Kerouac was writing his great signature novel, On the Road.

*"A whip-smart, funny, and searing look at the wild world of startups." —Good Morning America Book Club Buzz Pick *Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR In this “wise and wickedly funny novel about love, creativity, and the limitations of the tech-verse” (Vogue) newlyweds Asha and Cyrus find themselves running one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Meet Asha Ray. Brilliant coder and possessor of a Pi tattoo, Asha is poised to make a scientific breakthrough when she is reunited with her high school crush, Cyrus Jones. Before she knows it, Asha has abandoned her lab, exchanged vows with Cyrus, and gone to work at an exclusive tech incubator called Utopia to develop an app called WAI—“We are Infinite.” WAI creates a sensation, with millions of users logging on every day. Will Cyrus and Asha’s marriage survive the pressures of sudden fame, or will she become overshadowed by the man everyone is calling the new messiah? This “scathing—and hilarious—take on startup culture, marriage and workaholism” (Politico) explores whether or not technology—with all its limits and possibilities—can disrupt modern love.

From the author of The Good Sister, the breakout New York Times bestseller and “stunningly clever thriller” (People), comes Sally Hepworth’s next novel of domestic suspense about the tangled vines of family secrets. "Smart, suspenseful, brimming with secrets. This is Sally Hepworth at her unputdownable best."––Kate Morton, New York Times Bestselling Author THE HUSBAND A heart surgeon at the top of his field, Stephen Aston is getting married again. But first he must divorce his current wife, even though she can no longer speak for herself. THE DAUGHTERS Tully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their father’s money. THE FORMER WIFE With their mother in a precarious position, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the truth about their family’s secrets, the new wife closing in, and who their father really is. THE YOUNGER WIFE Heather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses in all of them? More Praise for The Younger Wife: "[An] appealing domestic suspense novel from bestseller Hepworth [with a] fast-moving plot. This often funny and affecting outing should win Hepworth new fans."––Publishers Weekly "Completely compulsive. Sally Hepworth delivers with this stay-up-late one-more-chapter gem."––Jane Harper, New York Times Bestselling Author "A warped tale [that] boasts Jane Harper’s multilayered characters and Liane Moriarty’s wealthy suburban world saturated with lies and deceit. With each domestic thriller, best-selling Hepworth shines brighter and draws in more readers."––Booklist