The Marriage Lie

Will and Iris Griffith have the perfect marriage and a dream home, and they’ve just started talking about children on the morning that Will leaves for a business trip in Orlando. When a plane bound for Seattle that same day crashes and kills everyone on board, Iris is stunned to discover Will’s name on the passenger manifest, and the conference in Orlando at which he was scheduled to speak turns out not to exist at all. With the help of her brother, Dave, Iris attempts to learn why Will was bound for Seattle, and in the process, she discovers that almost everything she knew about Will is a total fabrication, including his birthplace and his friendships—and there’s also a large sum of money suddenly missing from the company where he worked. Each piece of the puzzle seems to create more questions than answers, especially once Iris’s phone begins receiving anonymous text messages ranging from concerned to outright threatening. This is not a unique premise, and Belle’s (The Last Breath) main villain is a little bit cookie-cutter, but numerous skillfully executed twists will force readers to constantly shift their allegiances from character to character, never entirely sure who to trust or what’s really going on. A surprising and fast-paced read. (Dec.)