Jill Is Not Happy
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Instant USA Today Bestseller
Bonfire of the Vanities meets War of the Roses in this latest thriller from the USA Today bestselling author of Best Day Ever and The Next Wife, in which an ill-fated road trip resurrects a married couple's darkest secrets.
Some secrets keep a couple together.
If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you she and her husband Jack are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Wealthy, popular and genetically blessed, theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. Newly empty nesting with their daughter Maggie away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect.
Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what.
But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding.
So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife—think Ripley in yoga pants—and a reluctant husband match wits and drive each other to the edge. But everything will be fine. Jill still loves Jack and believes he’s the only one for her. She’ll do anything to keep him. Anything. She always has.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rouda (What the Nanny Saw) spins a dark, deliberately paced tale of matrimonial hell. Jill Tingley maintains that she and her husband, Jack, have a perfect relationship. College sweethearts, the couple have been married for more than two decades, during which Jack served for a few years as mayor of their affluent town in Southern California. The truth, however, is much more sinister: Jack fears his wife, their marriage is held together by dangerous shared secrets, and neither is fully able to trust the other. When Jill starts to suspect Jack is slipping away from her, she insists they take a road trip to Utah to rekindle their romance. Rouda toggles between the perspectives of Jack and Jill, gradually filling in their pitch-black backstory as their excursion, in the present, grows increasingly tense. For a while, the plot's unanswered questions and Gone Girl–style marital insights hold the reader's interest, but eventually, all the unmitigated cruelty grows exhausting. There are some sick thrills to be had, but this adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
