The Book:
Just The Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica
Published January 10th 2023 by Park Row
Date read: January 12, 2023
The Characters:
Lily and Christian
Jake and Nina
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
Jake Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he is blowing off steam at a friend’s house after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found.
Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for her husband, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered.
Absolutely nothing happened for the first 75% of the book, not even Christian asking Lily exactly what happened. We find out that Lily was out for a walk in the woods and ran into Jake, and he asked to walk with her and then led her into the woods to track down some deer or something. Lily tells Christian that Jake made a pass at her, and she got scared and hit him with a rock.
A body is found in the woods at about 75%, and Christian and Lily freak out. Lily tells Christian that she hit Jake a couple times with the rock, in three different places on his head. The body on the news is not identified.
Nina realizes that Christian’s car matches the car of her intruder, per the Ring video that a neighbor sent her.
Nina isn’t called about the body, but Jake’s car is found. She finds Lily’s earring in the back seat of his car. She goes to watch Christian and Lily’s house, and sees Christian throw away Lily’s bloody clothes from the night Jake disappeared.
The next day, the body is positively identified as Jake. He died via a gunshot wound, though, not blunt force trauma.
The Reveal:
Lily had slept with Jake five times and was lying to Christian about it. They had fought about ending it, and Lily hit him with the rock. She swore she didn’t shoot him.
The shooter was Nina’s mom, because she knew Jake was cheating on Nina. She was faking the macular degeneration and had followed him to the woods from work. She figured Lily would take the fall for his death, and rightfully so because of the cheating.
The Ending:
Nina turned her mother in, but she was given compassionate leave from prison because she was dying of breast cancer. Instead, she was confined to house arrest.
Lily and Christian broke up, but Lily asked if they could repair their relationship. They had a little girl that was definitely Christian’s.
The Review:
This one was a huge miss for me. As far as 75% into the audiobook, nothing had happened besides Nina wondering where her husband is and Lily and Christian worrying about Lily being the last one to see him alive. The slow burn wasn’t suspenseful, it was mostly just boring. The writing is very repetitive.
In the end, the main reveal was interesting enough, but it didn’t make up for how bored I was during the rest of the book.
A disappointment for sure, because I have adored Kubica’s writing in the past. If you’re looking to pick up one of her titles, I’d suggest starting somewhere else.
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