The Marriage Lie

I can usually pick plot twists a mile away so I loved how this one kept throwing me off track!
I was right about a few secrets but overall, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to discover how this would pan out.
Iris's husband Will dies in a plane crash. But he was on the wrong plane, heading for Seattle rather than Orlando. As Iris unravels the mystery surrounding her adored husband's past, we're sucked into this story.
And the ending on the last page...did NOT see that coming!

I liked this book in the sense that I really wanted to know what was going to happen next- so I kept picking it up. That's always a good sign. There was a solid push and pull of not knowing what was going on. Our MC did not know where the truth was and all of that felt realistic and urgent. However, her internal monologue got old. She cried quite a bit which I know is normal but it got boring, as did all the descriptions of her grief reactions. Enough already we get it! At some point though I realized we had not met very many characters and the pages were dwindling. I figured out who the bad guy was and I wished it was someone else because the choice was quite the stereotype- thus the 3 stars-good plotting, mostly good character development, until the end. That's all I'll say so as not to spoil. I enjoyed this story for its originality and fast pace.

This is the first book by this author that I've read and I gave it 4 stars. I bought the Kindle and Audible versions of this book and utilized Whispersync for Voice. I never got bored and read it straight through in less than a day, only stopping to make meals and catch up on some household chores. The narrator, Johanna Parker did an excellent job and I rate the performance with 5 out of 5 stars.
The moral of the story is that you can always find the cracks in the façade if you know exactly what to look for, regardless of the genius behind the design. Sometimes I wanted to yell at the characters for being so stupid and not keeping their mouths shut. There were moments when they didn't realize what was going on and I was thinking ‘How can a person be so stupid?', but I'm sure I probably would've fallen for the same lies if I was in that situation.
Some people didn't like the ending, but I loved it. I'm about to start another book by this author since I enjoyed this one so much.

I really liked the premise of this book - husband and wife have a seemingly perfect life, husband goes away for a conference and plane departing from the same airport to a different city goes down. Wife thinks nothing is amiss until her husband's name is in the list of crash victims. Why was he on the wrong flight? Why did he lie?

This was layer upon layer of mystery and that really is the strong point of this book - each time you think you're getting to the bottom of the mystery, something else comes out of the woodwork. Also, the characters are incredibly likeable - Iris and her twin brother, David, Will (despite the lies), and especially Evan who is has his own grief to deal with but is such a good soul in looking after Iris.

I will admit that the conclusion was slightly predictable BUT that said I didn't fully guess it, and I did enjoy the journey of getting all the way there.

This was just a thoroughly enjoyable mystery and definitely worth a read/listen!