The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkenan
Published: March 8, 2022
St. Martin’s Press
Pages: 336
Genre: Domestic Thriller
KKECReads Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily. This book was also my February 2022 BOTM selection.
Greer Hendricks is the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of The Wife Between Us, An Anonymous Girl, You Are Not Alone, and The Golden Couple. Before becoming a novelist, she obtained her master’s degree in journalism at Columbia and spent two decades as an editor at Simon & Schuster. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Allure, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
Sarah Pekkenan is the internationally and USA Today bestselling author of several novels, including The Wife Between Us, The Perfect Neighbors, and The Best of Us. A former investigative journalist and feature writer, her work has been published in The Washington Post, USA Today, and many others.
Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate.
When they glide through Avery’s door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.
“But appearances are often misleading.”
Avery is a consultant, a reasonably recent title she’s claimed and is enjoying the bit of notoriety that her version of therapy offers her clients. Marissa and Matthew are the last couple she expects to walk into her office. By all appearances, they are a well-to-do, happy couple until the session begins.
I read this book in a matter of hours, I couldn’t put it down. I requested this title a while ago from Netgalley, was approved (thank you!), and added it to my arc list.
I was pretty excited when I saw that Book of the Month was offering it as a selection for February. I had to get it!
The story is told from alternating narrators, but the story runs together seamlessly. I found the characters extremely well researched and well developed.
Avery was such an interesting character. She is intelligent, and extremely invested in her clients, but also intense. I enjoyed her story arc and the way she processed things. I also loved that she adopted the sweet pit bull, Romeo. He’s a lover, not a fighter. And as I write this, my own pittie is currently snoring on his couch.
Marissa was cleverly put together. There were several instances when I wasn’t sure what her storyline was. But she was a very realistic and vulnerable character, devoted to her son and husband. Her growth throughout the novel was dynamic and very powerful.
Matthew was a hardworking, successful lawyer. He had it all, beautiful wife, intelligent son, a large home. He didn’t have a care or worry in the world. Until Marissa asked him to go to therapy with her.
This was a very diabolically twisted tale! And the way things explode, scramble, settle, then combust was so deliciously executed. I thought I had figured out the twists- boy was I wrong.