The Perfect Marriage
Author : Jeneva Rose
Publisher : Bloodhound Books
Language : English
Genre : Psychological suspense thriller
About the book
Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. As a named partner at her firm, life is going exactly how she planned. The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He’s a struggling writer who has had little success in his career and he tires of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working.
Out in the secluded woods, at the couple’s lake house, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers. But one morning everything changes. Kelly is found brutally stabbed to death and now, Sarah must take on her hardest case yet, defending her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress.
About the author
Jeneva Rose is a lover of reading, cooking, board games, and wine. She also writes under the pen name J. R. Adler. Originally from Wisconsin, she spent a couple of years in Ithaca, New York, and now calls Charlotte, North Carolina home.
My Take
The perfect marriage is the story of the the marriage between Sarah Morgan, a super successful criminal attorney and her husband Adam Morgan, a struggling author. Almost ten years into their marriage, Adam finds himself struggling to get the attention and time of his high strung career-oriented wife while he himself struggles to make it big in the literary world. They love each other, but like every marriage, there are problems. Sarah doesn't want kids, Adam wants them. Sarah is busy with her work, Adam isn't. Adam wants to spend quality time with Sarah, but Sarah can't. And the inevitable happens. Adam begins a clandestine affair with a married woman, Kelly Summers, at their lake house that doubles up as his writing space.
One fine day, when Adam juggles between spending the evening with his mistress at the lakehouse and the night next to his wife in their bed at his home two hours apart, Kelly is brutally murdered, and Adam becomes the prime suspect.
Despite being hurt by the betrayal and angry at her husband, Sarah, being the best criminal attorney her husband can ever afford, takes on his case.
Many characters add different angles to the story - Kelly's abusive husband Scott, whom Adam suspects to be the murderer, Adam's mother Eleanor, who holds Sarah responsible for everything that's happened, including Adam's affair, Sarah's boss Kent, her professional rival Bob, her assistant Anne, her friend Matthew. As the story unfolds, newer aspects of the story reveal, new characters are unveiled and the suspense grippens.
The story is narrated in alternating points of view between Sarah and Adam. The flow of story is good and catches pace, making it intriguing.
However, the biggest let down is the cliched ending. The ending is a total let down and takes away all the build up of suspense. It takes away the credibility of the narrator, and at the same time makes it unrealistic. There are many loose ends which are never explained, such as what really happened to Kelly's first husband, if Scott wasn't abusive, why was Kelly lying and how was the third person involved in all of this, etc. There is no explanation for the way things end and that leaves us without a satisfactory closure.
The cover page is catching and I was drawn towards the book because of the cover.
So even though I enjoyed reading the story, even though it held my interest and piqued my curiosity throughout, the ending didn't make justice to the plot and was a disappointment.
I rate it 3 / 5 stars.
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