One Perfect Couple
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected May 21, 2024
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- $14.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension and ingenious thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them—from Ruth Ware, the New York Times bestselling author who “is turning out to be as ingenious and indefatigable as the Queen of Crime” (The Washington Post).
Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.
But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.
A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of psychological suspense.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Ware (Zero Days) fumbles a promising premise in this clever but slack closed-circle mystery. Biologist Lyla Santiago's postdoc research on mosquito-borne illnesses hits a wall when inconsistencies in her colleague's work threaten their grant funding. Rudderless, Lyla agrees to join her boyfriend, out-of-work actor Nico Reese, to film a reality TV competition called Ever After Island. On the Survivor-esque show, five couples complete in challenges on a remote island in the Indian Ocean and then vote to send one contestant home each week. Lyla plans to get eliminated quickly so she can return to London and sort out her future, leaving Nico behind to improve his career prospects. Her plan gets complicated, however, when a powerful storm sweeps across the island, isolating the contestants from the show's production crew. When people start turning up dead, Lyla has to decide whom to trust, taking the traditional stakes of reality TV alliances to nerve-shredding new heights. Ware has plenty of fun with her Agatha Christie–esque setup, but she fails too whip up sufficient suspense—the plot's resolution is simply too easy to crack. Readers will hope Ware returns to form next time out.
