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It is thrilling. It is twisted. It is juicy.
It is straight-up mindblowing.
And for the first time, the villain turned out to be the exact person I wanted it to be.
Let’s begin.
Sara Morgan is a high-powered defense attorney in Washington DC. She has hustled to become who she is now. I admired her confidence and self-awareness throughout the book.
Then there is her husband Adam Morgan. His life’s trajectory didn’t pan out the way he wanted it to. He wanted to be a bestselling author. And while his first book got him there, the next few pushed him off the top of the mountain. While he is very much in love with Sarah, he resents her for her success. This is understandable considering how there is still so much pressure on men to be the primary breadwinners.
But my empathy for Adam ended as I turned the pages.
Sarah and Adam have been married for 10 years, and on the event of this anniversary, they plan to spend the night at the lake house they bought for themselves an hour out of town.
It is clarified by Sarah in the book that she bought it mostly because she wanted her husband to have a secluded space to work on his next book.
Due to work, Sarah is unable to join Adam at their lake house. Adam however, drives up there and hooks up with a woman named Kelly with whom he has been having an affair with for a while. Toward the end of the night, he decides to leave Sarah for her.
After having drinks and sex, the two fall asleep. Adam wakes up around midnight, thinking he heard a car door get slammed. He writes a note to Kelly, declaring that he will leave Sarah, and drives back home.
When he reaches home, he finds Sarah in bed, who tells him that she wants to start a family with him.
And now, this man, who just moments ago was cheating on her wife and planning to leave her, gets so elated that he decides to stay.
The following morning, Kelly’s body is found in the lake house with 37 stab wounds. Adam is arrested and taken for questioning. He is the primary suspect. His affair soon comes to light and we also find out that Kelly’s husband was none other than one of the police officers who had arrested him - Officer Scott.
Sarah, betrayed and shocked, decides to take up Adam’s case. And throughout the book, she appears to follow up on leads, hunt for clues and stick up for her husband, despite his infidelity and his abhorrent mother, Eleanor.
Eleanor is the kind of mother who thinks of their children as God’s gift on earth. She believes that no woman in this world is right enough for her lovely, cheating, asshole of a son and thus her resentment of Sarah is very clear.
She blames Sarah for this whole ordeal because had she shown Adam a little more affection, he wouldn’t have gone looking for it elsewhere.
Cry me a river and then drown in it, Eleanor. Cheating was her son’s choice. If he was so unhappy, he should have left Sarah. Period.
Sarah is also generously supported by Sheriff Stevens, who keeps her in the loop, takes her to the crime scene, and states on more than one occasion how he believes that Adam might be innocent. I couldn’t really figure him out.
Moving on, Sarah digs into Kelly and her past.
Apparently, her real name was Jenna and before changing her identity, she had been accused of murdering her first husband in Wisconsin. But, she had gotten away on a technicality as the evidence in her case had gone missing.
Turns out, the officer on duty was none other than Kelly’s current husband Scott. After changing her identity, they moved cities.
Postmortem reveals that Kelly had 3 different DNAs inside of her - one of Adam, one of Scott and the last one is unknown. It is also revealed that she was pregnant. So, if Adam were to be found guilty, he would be charged with not one, but two murders.
The remainder of the story throws in lots of plots. For instance, Sarah’s assistant Anne, who is pictured as someone desperately trying to be like her boss, knew about Adam’s affair and threatened to tell on him unless he broke it off with Kelly. But she isn’t the killer.
Despite Sarah’s efforts and independent investigations, Adam is convicted of a double homicide and gets the death penalty.
The book then flash-forwards 10 years.
Adam is on death row, about to be executed when Sarah visits him to say final goodbyes.
Hereon, the final chapters reveal the truth behind Kelly’s murder.
A member of Sarah’s law firm - Bob - had approached her about her husband’s affair in hopes of blackmailing her with embarrassing information. It is also revealed that he was the brother of Kelly’s first husband, who Kelly had murdered and gotten away with it.
And this is where Sarah’s true colours emerge.
Instead of taking the bait, she had suggested to Bob that they can kill Kelly and frame Adam for it. This way, Bob will get revenge for his brother’s murder and Sarah for Adam’s infidelity.
It is also revealed that the third set of DNA on Kelly’s body was that of Sheriff Stevens. This is why he was so intent on keeping Sarah and her investigation close to himself.
At the prison, Sarah hints that she is the real culprit to Adam, who begins freaking out. She then stands beside his mother and watches her husband get executed.
Afterward, Sarah drives away in a car with her (and Adam’s) daughter Summer (Sarah got pregnant somewhere during the period of her husband’s conviction) and her now fiance Bob, with whom she is getting married the next day.
In the concluding monologue, Sara regales us with one last revelation, that this wasn’t her first cold-blooded, calculated, and murderous move against someone who had harmed her. Her mother, who had been a drug-addict, was also killed by Sarah herself.
The best thing about this book is that it never really showed Sarah’s real personality until absolutely needed. Throughout the book, she is portrayed as a woman who despite being betrayed by her husband, is standing up for him and defending him at every turn.
She is a hero.
But when her true colours come out when Adam is groveling and apologizing on the day of the execution, that reveal was spot on.
Which is why I desperately tried to ignore the few places the dialogue just did not do it for me - If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.
If you’re interested in reading The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose, you can buy it on Amazon or borrow it from Kindle Unlimited. The author also announced in October 2022 that ‘The Perfect Marriage’ is being made into a movie.
Hope you enjoyed reading.
I will see you next time.
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