The New Husband
A Novel
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The New Husband is a riveting thriller about the lies we tell ourselves from D. J. Palmer, the author of Saving Meghan.
What makes Simon Fitch so perfect?
-He knows all her favorite foods, music, and movies.
-Her son adores him. He was there when she needed him most.
-He anticipates her every need.
-He would never betray her like her first husband.
The perfect husband. He checks all the boxes.
The question is, why?
Nina Garrity learned the hard way that her missing husband, Glen, had been leading a double life with another woman. But with Glen gone—presumably drowned while fishing on his boat—she couldn't confront him about the affair or find closure to the life he blew apart.
Now, a year and a half later, Nina has found love again and hopes she can put her shattered world back together. Simon, a widower still grieving the death of his first wife, thinks he has found his dream girl in Nina, and his charm and affections help break through to a heart hardened by betrayal. Nina's teenage son, Connor, embraces Simon as the father he wishes his dad could have been, while her friends see a different side to him, and they aren't afraid to use the word obsession.
Nina works hard to bridge the divide that’s come between her daughter and Simon. She wants so badly to believe her life is finally getting back on track, but she’ll soon discover that the greatest danger to herself and her children are the lies people tell themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this cleverly plotted but creepy domestic noir from Palmer (Saving Meghan), 30-something Nina Garrity thinks she has found Mr. Right after her unfaithful husband vanished, presumed drowned during a solo fishing trip, more than a year earlier. Nina's 13-year-old daughter, Maggie, has reason, however, not to welcome Nina's now live-in relationship with widower Simon Fitch and resolves to do everything possible to sabotage it. Beyond the "ewwh" factor of Simon's being a teacher at her Seabury, N.H., school, Maggie gets flashes of an explosive, darker self beneath his solicitous fa ade. But when she tries to share her fears, Nina is quick to brush them aside until Simon's efforts to exert increasing control over many aspects of Nina's own life plant seeds of doubt. Tension mounts as mother and daughter independently snoop into Simon and his past. Twists proliferate as the plot becomes increasingly implausible and bloody and also, despite the appealingly spunky Maggie, less pleasurably suspenseful than just plain disturbing. That said, Palmer fans will be satisfied. 100,000-copy announced first printing.