COMING SOON FROM AMAZON AND NICOLE KIDMAN’S BLOSSOM FILMS
A New York Times Summer Reads Selection | A People Best Book of the Summer | A Library Reads Pick | A Book Riot Addictive New Thriller to Add to Your TBR Pile | A Book of the Month Selection | A Publishers Weekly Summer Reads Pick | A Bookish Most-Anticipated Novel | A Good Morning America “Binge This!” Pick
Big Little Lies meets … Morning America “Binge This!” Pick
Big Little Lies meets Presumed Innocent in this “irresistible domestic drama” (Washington Post) from the New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, in which a woman’s brutal murder reveals the perilous compromises some couples make—and the secrets they keep—in order to stay together.
Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call. Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.
No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.
The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect.
As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Brooklyn Country Day school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own. In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place.
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Loved this book. Great legal thriller with a twist. Look forward to more books by this author
I could not wait to read this book and it did not disappoint. I LOVE thrillers but, when you read a lot of them, things can seem obvious. I didn’t feel that at all with this book. I truly enjoyed the experience of not knowing where things were headed. There is a rich cast of characters and they all have their secrets. Kimberly McCreight really explores the concept of how people seem to the world vs. the truth – the perfect marriage that isn’t so perfect, the amazing family that is struggling, the ideal spouse who is something different behind closed doors. This book will hook you and have you flipping pages as secrets are revealed and the truth comes out. Grab this book when you have time to read it cover to cover!
Lizzie Kitsakis is working as a lawyer in a prestigious law firm. It’s not the dream she had for her life but she’s had to make this decision due to a huge mistake on her husband Sam’s part. Lizzie is struggling with anger, resentment and distrust toward Sam and wondering if they can make their marriage work. When an old law school friend calls from jail asking for Lizzie’s help, she knows she cannot be the one to help him.
Zach Grayson is a tech millionaire who is the prime suspect in his wife’s murder. Amanda was found dead at the bottom of their home’s staircase in beautiful and expensive Park Slope, Brooklyn. As Lizzie starts investigating, she realizes the perfect Park Slope families are not quite what they seem. These people seem so perfect from the outside with their brownstones worth millions and their prestigious private school but everyone is hiding secrets. Can Lizzie figure out what really happened that night and will her marriage survive the stress?
I am so impressed by this book! Because of all the hype it received, I went in with high expectations, and it exceeded them all! A GOOD MARRIAGE follows attorney Lizzie as she defends an old law school friend who’s been charged with murdering his wife. Her client swears he’s innocent, but the more Lizzie digs in to his marriage, the more she begins to wonder how well she actually knows him, all while her own marriage edges dangerously close to a disaster of its own. Part legal thriller, part domestic suspense, this book began with several seemingly separate threads that, by the end, were knotted together expertly. Throughout the novel, there were plot points that I figured might be red herrings, but the truth behind the red herring surprised me every time. The ending itself was something I would have never guessed, and that is all due to Kimberly McCreight’s masterful storytelling. Nothing in this book is misdirection for misdirection’s sake; every wrong turn leads the reader to a deeper understanding of these fascinating characters, allowing for a greater resonance for the story’s overall theme. And speaking of the characters, there are some in here that chilled me to the bone, which I absolutely loved, and (without giving anything away), I applaud McCreight for giving the novel’s murder victim a nuanced and compelling arc of her own, culminating in a triumphant show of strength and growth—even in the moment of her downfall. A GOOD MARRIAGE is clever, impactful, and riveting, and while there’s so much that’s tragic about the story, its ending is wholly satisfying, with final lines that offer us a poignant note of hope.
This is a book I received in 2020 via Goodreads via HarperCollins.
I am late to the party on this one. I kept seeing reviews on this book and I finally snagged it off the shelf and settled in to read. This is my kind of book!
Lizzie and Sam. Lizzie is an attorney, Sam is an alcoholic. Lizzie tries to hide that fact from general knowledge. Everyone knew, they just didn’t say anything.
Amanda and Zach. This couple met when Amanda was a teenager at the hotel she was working at. Zach jokingly told her to come with him. Boy, was he surprised when she was standing next to his car, packed and ready to go. Their son, Case, is away at camp in California.
Lizzie and Zach went to law school together way back in the day.
Maude and Sebastian (they call him Sebe). Sebastian is the good-looking French fellow in this tale. All the women pretty much swooned over him. Maude and Sebe throw a certain kind of party every year when everyone’s kids are at summer camp in one form or another. Their daughter, Sophia, was at camp and having some issues of her own. Maude worried.
Sarah and Kerry. Sarah went to work for the foundation that Zach and Amanda set up. Kerry is the deadbeat husband in this tale, having lost yet another job much to Sarah’s dismay.
None of these marriages are perfect as you can well imagine. When the unthinkable happens to Amanda, Zach reaches out to Lizzie, his long-lost attraction and law school co-ed, because he needed an attorney. Little did Lizzie know, until it was practically too late, how much Zach knew about her and the secrets she harbored. In the end, Lizzie came out the winner and got a bit of revenge.
All of these families are connected because of the neighborhood they live in as well as the case brought against Brooklyn Country Day (the school their children attended), because there has to be another underlying story and this one fits. The guilty party will surprise you.
This is the first book I have read by Ms. McCreight, and I am certain it won’t be my last. If you have not read this book yet, you are in for a treat, especially if you like legal thrillers. It is quite long at 388 pages but well worth the time.
It took me awhile to get to this book but I’m so glad I finally read it! It was way better than what I was expecting. Definitely has Big Little Lies vibes, but I liked it better There were so many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming!
Lawyer married to an acholic who ex boyfriend/friend from college gets arrested for brutally murdering his wife but claims he is innocent.
Will make up a great movie
Loved this thriller!! Two different points of view, interviews, and cyber security reports. Lots of twists and turns, characters you love and characters you love to hate! McCreight does a fantastic job of the points of view being completely different voices, she makes you cheer for a character one minute and want to scream at them the next.
I highly recommend this book!!
I finished this book yesterday. Needed 24 hours to collect my thoughts for this review. I loved this book and really got into listening to it. The narrator kept me listening. The one thing that I didn’t like was that ending. I kinda wanted more rom that ending . Like I wanted Amanda to know who was calling her and texting her. I really felt bad for her. She had fake friends and her husband I wanted to hit a couple of times. I would want to know what came of him. Did he end up going to jail for all that hacking stuff. Lizzie is a strong woman who had to put her husband. I enjoyed Lizzie but I did think she could step more. I highly recommend this audiobook to anyone. I really like Kimberly McCreight books.
I had heard so much about this book and had to wait awhile to get it and boy was it worth the wait!
I drew so many hypotheses and conclusions while I was reading and none of which was what I thought.
This book was a great tale of so many lies, secrets, emotions and dysfunction that all worked as a great and my kind of psychological thriller.
I will definitely be following and reading more from this Author.
A Good Marriage is a well-written page-turner of a legal thriller guaranteed to keep you reading into the night. It starts with a murder of a woman, Amanda, and the subsequent suspicion of her husband, Zach, for that murder. Lizzie Kitsakis, a federal prosecutor turned elite firm lawyer, gets the call from Zach, a friend from law school with whom she has lost touch and agrees to represent him. To clear her client’s name she delves into the lives of the super wealthy in Park Slope Brooklyn whose children attend a prestigious private school.
There are multiple layers of secrets and delusions. Dysfunctional marriages abound. Lizzie is a likeable but flawed character and must confront the problems within her own marriage to disentangle the many interconnected webs surrounding Amanda’s death. The suspense is built deftly and the reader is hooked. For fans of Big Little Lies.
Book Review: A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight (2020) (Fiction) 4 Stars ****
(Q.) What makes a good marriage? (A.) “The ability and willingness to overlook, forgive, and take on the problems of one’s spouse.” How many people are willing to do this? Apparently all of the characters in this book. Secret after secret is revealed. Young married couples living in the tony Park Slope section of Brooklyn, New York. Movers and shakers, artist types, obsessed with having the right look, the right schools for their kids, the right conversations. Self-esteems comes from the approval of those who matter. Kids are shipped off to sleep-away camp during the summer months so the parents can play, sometimes naughty little games. In the midst of this upwardly striving mania, the bloodied body of the beautiful, kind, mysterious Amanda is discovered by her husband Zach at the bottom of the staircase inside their home.
As investigations peel away the layers, word of spouse-swapping parties comes to light. ‘Who’s zoomin’ who?’ Who is lying to protect spouses, casual lovers, co-workers? Is everyone’s financial success merely the point- counterpoint of smoke and mirrors?
Lizzie has the dubious honor of being chosen by long-ago friend Zach to represent him in the charge of murder. Manipulating beyond belief, this scammer ties Lizzie in knots to make her do his bidding. Lizzie’s dogged determination and attention to detail lead her to a myriad of contradictory information. Does anyone tell the truth in this neighborhood? It seems that no one, yet everyone, is guilty.
The story is told from the point of view of different character situations in alternating chapters. Past and present ore often confusing. Unrelated details are often tedious as the reader struggles to separate the clues from the need to increase word count. At about 25% into the book, I was already looking to see how much was left to read. The story unfolds verrrry slowly . Certain plot points are left unresolved: What happens to the murdered woman’s young son and where is the story surrounding Caroline, Amanda’s childhood friend? These omissions are no small things.
Yes, a number of twists and turns throw us off the scent to add some spice to a ho-hum exposition. This book is reminiscent of Big Little Lies and The Wife Between Us. This same formula is being used for many of the supremely lauded books that appear on best seller lists, it would seem even before they’re finished. Follow the winning formula, drop in your characters’ names, change the setting to another New York City trendy neighborhood, change a few plot points, and voila! —we’ve got ourselves a best selling book!
OK, so the book has its merits if we can find the patience to plod through it. Surprising twists will do that. I have to ask myself: Is this formula book receiving critical acclaim because of its currently popular genre, its author with friends in very high places, or for its literary and plot excellence? Well … this is the type of book that will be made into a Cable TV mini-series, just like all the other ones that fit into this mold. If commercial success is your thing, you’ll enjoy this book.
I always say we never know what goes on behind closed doors. This book signifies that statement! Several marriages are featured with lots of secrets. Lizzie, a lawyer, with her own twisted marriage, gets drawn into helping a former college friend with his own eerie secrets. Her friend is accused of murdering his wife, who has skeletons in her closet, not to mention the troubled marriage they had. This book is that good with a bit of legal thriller and domestic thriller all in one!
Kimberly McCreight’s latest thriller is filled to the brim with domestic suspense! What is a good marriage? It means something different to everyone, I’m sure. Yet, in Park Slope, where the secrets run deep, the definition of ‘good’ takes on a life of its own as the author skillfully draws her readers into the lives of four different marriages, and then some!
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McCreight takes us on a ride-along through the legal proceedings of a husband accused of his wife’s murder, the days leading up to said death, and the drama surrounding the email hack at the prestigious high school that their children all attend. Talk about a whirlwind unfolding before our very eyes! I don’t want to give too much away as the blurb sums it up pretty well, and, let’s face it – some things are better left experienced first-hand.
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I believe this is the first ‘legal thriller’ I’ve ever read unless you include ‘Big Little Lies ‘by Liane Moriarty. While there are striking similarities, ‘A Good Marriage’ is a lot heavier on the legal aspects of the case. I particularly enjoyed the writing style McCreight brings to the table, the intertwined court proceedings mixed with the data breach briefings help break up the individual storylines. At times the sheer amount of characters was a bit overwhelming, about halfway through though I thought I had the who’s who pretty much down. This was precisely when the slow-burn kicked it up a notch, with several bread crumbs and reveals left and right. While I didn’t guess the conclusion in its entirety, which was a surprise on its own, I wasn’t all that shocked either.
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Overall ‘A Good Marriage’ was quite the page-turner. The intrigue alone had me reading the last half in less than a day. I’d recommend this to legal thriller fans who enjoy the trivialities of marriage, as things aren’t always greener on the other side, and we never quite know what happens behind closed doors! Similarly, fans of ‘Big Little Lies’ will surely enjoy the ride.
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I’ve rated my May 2020 Book of the Month a solid four stars! This also happened to be my group’s buddy read pick for June 2020. We have our discussion soon, and I’m quite looking forward to it! #mistyscornerreviews
The characters have many layers and details that keep the pages burning. This legal thriller will keep you on edge with the questions of who done it and why. Brilliantly crafted. I am looking forward to the TV series! Best book this year hands down.
What a cast of characters in A Good Marriage.!
I eyed quite a few of them suspiciously, some I hissed at and some I believed in!
Lizzie receives a phone call from an old friend hiring her to defend him on murdering his wife.
I am innocent Zach says !
Four sets of couples, many secrets and many lies.
The suspense will keep those pages turning.
Will you guess right?
Another great story by Kimberly McCreight!!
If you like a good thriller, this is the one. There are so many twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages!
This book tells the story of Lizzie and Zach (who are law school friends) and Zach’s wife, Amanda. Lizzie is working late one night and receives a phone call from Zach, who has been arraigned and is at Rikers. He asks Lizzie to represent him on an assault charge. She is not the right type of lawyer to represent him and tells him so repeatedly but she ends up representing him. During the course of the conversation, Zach divulges that the “assault” took place when the police were trying to pull him away from Amanda’s body. He is adamant that he did not murder her and wants Lizzie to find out who did. Lizzie starts investigating and finds out that Zach is not what he says he is and Amanda has her own secrets as well – she was being stalked and never told Zach about her dad. They have a small group of friends in the Brooklyn neighborhood where they live – all have kids in the same prestigious school – and all become involved as recipients in an email hacking scam through the school.
I did not anticipate the ending and usually try not to figure out “who did it” but my thoughts went in one direction only to be pulled in a completely different direction. It was a very well-written book and alternated between Lizzie’s story (her husband is an alcoholic) and her investigation along with Amanda’s story, including the last few days leading up to the night she was killed.
This legal/psychological thriller definitely does not hold back when it comes to laying bare the trials and sacrifices that make up a marriage. All of the characters are multi-layered and some are downright delusional. When Amanda and Zach move to the posh community of Park Slope, they seem to be the perfect couple, but nothing could be farther from the truth. However, their seemingly rich and privileged new neighbors are certainly no better. As the plot leads us down a twisty path of lies, deceptions, and addictions, it becomes clear that nothing is as it seems and nobody has a perfect marriage. I found this one entertaining and suspenseful all the way to the last page.
Oh boy there is so much going here, it is very twisty and it definitely keeps you guessing! Lizzie Kitsakis, a lawyer at You g & Crane, receives a phone call from an old friend, Zach Grayson. Zach is calling from Rikers Island.
Zach said charged with the murder of his wife, Amanda, who was found lying at the bottom of their brownstone’s steps. Zach and Amanda appear to be the perfect couple to their neighbors, but they both harbor secrets.
Come to find they were not the only couples with secrets. Everyone becomes a target & suspect. This centers around a private school, Grace Hall, where parents get too greedy in wanting to give the best tot heir kids. This is a good courtroom drama, whodunnit suspense mystery.