Review: The Golden Couple (by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen)

My Rating:  4 stars

This is the fourth suspense / thriller novel by writing duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen that I've read.  Up to this point, I have read all the books they've written and while all were good, none have lived up to their debut novel The Wife Between Us (which was one of those rare thrillers that actually blew me away to the point that I still remember most of the story several years after having read it).  For me, what had set their debut novel apart was the fact that the "shocking twist" in the story was written in a way that truly and unexpectedly floored me — something that doesn't happen often given the number of suspense / thriller novels I read.  However, unfortunately, their subsequent novels weren't able to capture that same level of "excitement" for me (don't get me wrong though — I still enjoyed reading each one, just not to the extent that I enjoyed the first one). Given that context, I went into their newest release, The Golden Couple, already anticipating that it wasn't going to live up to the "thrill" of their first book (and I was right).  While the story definitely did have a lot of compelling moments that were unexpected (and I actually did not figure out the ending), I felt like the writing was a little less smooth this time around, which at times broke the flow of the story for me. 

On the surface, the premise of the story sounds like one that we've heard countless times before: wealthy, suburban couple Matthew and Marissa Bishop live the perfect life, with a marriage that's the envy of the town. However, their idyllic bliss is shattered when Marissa has an affair.  Desperate to repair her marriage, Marissa seeks the help of Avery Chambers, a therapist whose unorthodox methods have proven so successful that she is still highly sought after despite having lost her professional license.   As Avery embarks on her "ten sessions" therapy with the Bishops and enters deeper into their orbit, she begins to realize that there is more than meets the eye with this "golden" couple.  

Not wanting to give away the story of course, I don't want to say too much more about the plot other than what I mentioned above. I will say though, that Avery's story arc was much more interesting than Marissa's — partly because I felt there was too much repetition with Marissa's sections that ended up dragging out the plot a bit more than necessary.  

With all that said, I did enjoy this one overall and I think that those who are already familiar with Hendricks' and Pekkanen's previous works won't be disappointed.  If this is your first time reading this writing duo's books though, I would definitely recommend going with The Wife Between Us, and then moving on to their other works after that.

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley