The Marriage Lie
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4.0 • 100 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Everyone has secrets…
Iris and Will have been married for seven years, and life is as close to perfect as it can be. But on the morning Will flies out for a business trip to Florida, Iris's happy world comes to an abrupt halt: another plane headed for Seattle has crashed into a field, killing everyone on board and, according to the airline, Will was one of the passengers.
Grief stricken and confused, Iris is convinced it all must be a huge misunderstanding. Why did Will lie about where he was going? And what else has he lied about? As Iris sets off on a desperate quest to uncover what her husband was keeping from her, the answers she finds shock her to her very core.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Will and Iris Griffith have the perfect marriage and a dream home, and they've just started talking about children on the morning that Will leaves for a business trip in Orlando. When a plane bound for Seattle that same day crashes and kills everyone on board, Iris is stunned to discover Will's name on the passenger manifest, and the conference in Orlando at which he was scheduled to speak turns out not to exist at all. With the help of her brother, Dave, Iris attempts to learn why Will was bound for Seattle, and in the process, she discovers that almost everything she knew about Will is a total fabrication, including his birthplace and his friendships and there's also a large sum of money suddenly missing from the company where he worked. Each piece of the puzzle seems to create more questions than answers, especially once Iris's phone begins receiving anonymous text messages ranging from concerned to outright threatening. This is not a unique premise, and Belle's (The Last Breath) main villain is a little bit cookie-cutter, but numerous skillfully executed twists will force readers to constantly shift their allegiances from character to character, never entirely sure who to trust or what's really going on. A surprising and fast-paced read.
Customer Reviews
Marriage of nconvenience
3.5 stars
Author
American. Started out self-publishing. This, her third novel, was a semi-finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards form Best Thriller or Mystery in 2017, and a number one seller as e book in the UK and Italy.
Plot
Iris (yes, her name really is Iris) is a psychologist who works as a student counsellor in an Atlanta private school. She's married to Will, a successful software engineer, whom she really luurrrvves. They live in an upmarket suburb they can barely afford, and are planning to start a family. Then Will goes on a business trip and ends up dead after his plane crashes. Trouble is, he told Iris he was off to a conference in Orlando but the plane he was on was headed for Seattle. Iris and her gay twin brother investigate and find Will's past was very different from what they believed.
Characters
Iris starts out grief stricken and wishy-washy, but grows some ovaries by the end. Her bro is too good to be true. Her parents are anxious. Will's supposed best mate, whom Iris met for the first time at the memorial service, is not all he seems. A very tall criminal defence attorney who lost his wife and young child on the doomed flight is supportive. The female copper on the case is sharp, the blokes not so much.
Narrative
Third person mostly from Iris's POV
Prose
Clear, crisp, and professional in the main. Mercifully brief interior monologues.
Bottom line
Competent, entertaining but not particularly memorable genre fiction.