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Book Reviewed by:The mesmerizing debut about a coolly manipulative woman and a wealthy "golden couple," from a stunning new voice in psychological suspense.
Some women get everything. Some women get everything they deserve.
Amber Patterson is fed up. She's tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more - a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted.
To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne - a socialite and philanthropist - and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale.
Amber's envy could eat her alive ... if she didn't have a plan. Amber uses Daphne's compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family's life - the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne's closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.
With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy, and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent.
ONE
Amber Patterson was tired of being invisible. She'd been coming to this gym every day for three months—three long months of watching these women of leisure working at the only thing they cared about. They were so self-absorbed; she would have bet her last dollar that not one of them would recognize her on the street even though she was five feet away from them every single day. She was a fixture to them—unimportant, not worthy of being noticed. But she didn't care—not about any of them. There was one reason and one reason alone that she dragged herself here every day, to this machine, at the precise stroke of eight.
She was sick to death of the routine—day after day, working her ass off, waiting for the moment to make her move. From the corner of her eye, she saw the signature gold Nikes step onto the machine next to her. Amber straightened her shoulders and pretended to be immersed in the magazine strategically placed on the rack of her own machine. ...
Combine this structure [introducing the antagonist first] with a very straightforward, slightly edgy feel to Amber's voice and a more lyrical sound to Daphne's – perhaps the two sisters divvied up these characters between them – and you have everything you need in both literary style and character development. Add to all of that Amber's devious plot to steal away Daphne's husband (with some twists that I cannot mention, since that would be giving away major plot spoilers), and, here too, the authors grab the reader with just the right amount of suspense to turn this into a real psychological thriller, but it is also not overly heavy or dark, making it all the more readable...continued
Full Review
(553 words)
(Reviewed by Davida Chazan).
Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Sunshine Sisters
A wonderfully clever story, filled with suspense and a shocking twist, that kept me turning the pages. Jenny Milchman, USA Today bestselling author of Cover of Snow, Ruin Falls, and As Night Falls
Gillian Flynn meets Joy Fielding in Liv Constantine's The Last Mrs. Parrish. In an age of great anti-heroines, comes the most unlikeable one yet, the coldly devilish Amber Patterson. This thriller delivers the most satisfying ending since B.A. Paris' smash hit Behind Closed Doors - and a victorious romp of revenge. Karen Dionne, author of The Marsh King's Daughter
Liv Constantine's The Last Mrs. Parrish is a beautifully constructed set piece, an intricate narrative that doubles back and folds in on itself like a Mobius strip, revealing secret upon secret, and layer upon layer, with a seductive 'just one more chapter' urgency that will keep readers up all night. Addictive! Sara Blaedel, Denmark's award-winning internationally bestselling "Queen of Crime"
The Last Mrs. Parrish is an extraordinary debut and gripping psychological thriller that is full of unexpected twists. Readers will become obsessed with these chilling characters who pull you in and refuse to let go.According to their website, "Liv Constantine is the pen name of sisters Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine." Hearing this piqued my curiosity regarding, not simply literary collaborations (there are tons of those), but writers who collaborate and then publish their fictional works under a single pseudonym--and in particular writers who are related to each other. Here are some famous related co-authors who write under a single pen name:
The first on the list is the duo Nicci French. This is the pseudonym of the married British team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who have written many very popular psychological thrillers. The historical crime writer Michael Gregorio is actually the husband and wife team of English teacher Michael G....
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A truly good book teaches me better than to read it...
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