My true wife and the best friend I ever had wrote Ted Hughes after Assia Wevill s 1969 suicide. Long seen as the woman who lured Hughes away from Sylvia Plath Wevill has remained a mysterious figure. Now for the first time Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev tell the story of Wevill s remarkable life and the seven years she spent with Hughes before killing herself and their daughter in a manner that inevitably recalled Plath s suicide six years earlier. Drawing on previously unavailable papers including Wevill s diaries and intimate correspondence with Hughes Koren and Negev offer a gripping portrayal of the uneasy life the couple shared under Plath s long shadow.