PRETTY LITTLE WIFE

SYNOPSIS

Lila Ridgefield lives in an idyllic college town, but not everything is what it seems. Lila isn't what she seems.
A student vanished months ago. Now, Lila's husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences until it's discovered the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. Little do they know they might be stumbling over only part of the truth....

With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of their beloved high school teacher. Everyone except Lila, his wife. She's definitely confused about her missing husband but only because she was the last person to see his body, and now it's gone.

Title: Pretty little wife

Author: Darby Kane

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Publication date: December 29, 2020

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is how I like my domestic suspense stories, twisted and with a morally corrupted main character you can't help to root for!

Lila Ridgefield is your typical pretty little wife, married to Aaron, a respected high school teacher and coach. She's always there to fulfill her husband's wishes until the day she discovers one of his secrets. How should a pretty little wife act in this case? Murdering him, of course! Cause she killed him and planted his body near his school, didn't she? Then, why is his husband's colleague at her doorstep telling her Aaron is missing?

What follows is a really compelling tale packed with questionable characters and their questionable morals that makes you wonder what would you do in that situation.

Lila is your quintessential unreliable narrator. Her cold, detached and aloof behavior made me not warm up to her at first, but the terrific writing soon revealed her as a fascinating complex character that, although with some pretty dubious ethics, you can't help but support.

In the other corner we have Ginny, the lead detective on Aaron's case, and on Lila's trail since minute one. She knows there's something off with her even though she can't prove it. She was smart and focused and her back and forths with Lila were some of my favorite moments. Both were strong and fierce in their own way, but Ginny was my favorite character.

I did a buddy read with my friend Susan and at the halfway point we both called our #1 suspect. And I guessed it right! Don't you feel smart when that happens? I just wanna go to the police station and shout "OK, where's my badge and my gun? I'm coming for your jobs!". Well, maybe not the best idea to do that...

Although I guessed the culprit I could not imagine that the ending would be so dark and twisted, so it was nice to still be surprised. The only reason this was not a 5 stars was because the ending left me with several questions about Lila and how everything went down, but still it was a fantastic read.

I just learned that that Darby Kane is a pseudonym used by a romantic suspense author and that Pretty Little Wife is her first domestic suspense novel. After reading it I just hope she follows this new path cause it's looking very promising.