Wifehouse: A captivating, sharply resonant novel about a mother who chooses to leave

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Sonya Walger

Wifehouse

Name: Wifehouse
Price: 39.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781786586384

A captivating, sharply resonant novel about a mother who chooses to leave

Sonya Walger

$39.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

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English

Manilla Press
28 July 2026

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Fiction: special features

'Wifehouse reads like a storm in a soundproof room. I absolutely loved it' Miranda Cowley Heller, International Bestselling author of THE PAPER PALACE

'A magnificent, richly-textured novel. It thrums with energy' Kate Kemp, author of THE GRAPEVINE

""Je suis femme maison."" ""You are a wifehouse? Oh, a housewife. Je suis une femme au foyer."" ""Wow, that actually sounds worse in French. Let's go with je suis mère."" He is drenched in youth, this young man, she thinks. He is soaked in all its possibilities.

Following years of a life lived as a wife and mother, Annie is gifted French lessons with twenty-six-year-old local French tutor, Thierry. As time passes and the lessons progress, she finds herself unexpectedly vulnerable to the charms of a man closer in age to her teenage daughter than to her own. A new life for Annie emerges, one she could never have foreseen . . .

Told over the course of one year through the shifting perspectives of wife, husband, lover, best friend and children, Walger paints a contradictory, nuanced portrait of a woman who walks away from every role that tradition and society have expected of her.

By: Sonya Walger
Imprint: Manilla Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 242mm, Width: 161mm, Spine: 29mm
Weight: 520g
ISBN: 9781786586384
ISBN 10: 178658638X
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 28 July 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

SONYA WALGER is an award-winning actress, best known for her role as Penny Widmore on Lost and Molly Cobb in the first three seasons of Apple TV+'s For All Mankind. Other career highlights include the original Broadway production of Frost/Nixon, Parenthood, Tell Me You Love Me, Scandal, Flashforward, and In Treatment. She studied English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford and was the host of the literary podcast, Bookish. Her first book, Lion, a semiautobiographical novel was published by New York Review Books in February 2025. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Reviews for Wifehouse: A captivating, sharply resonant novel about a mother who chooses to leave

Sonya Walger brings together the quiet outer worlds of her characters and the explosive passions of their inner lives with indelible beauty, richness, and precision. Wifehouse reads like a storm in a soundproof room. I absolutely loved it. * Miranda Cowley Heller, international bestselling author of The Paper Palace * A magnificent, richly-textured novel. I was enthralled throughout, unable to put it down. It somehow manages to be nuanced while also packing a hefty emotional punch. * Kate Kemp, author of The Grapevine *