The perfect divorce

Rose revisits Sarah Morgan, the lawyer heroine in her indie hit, The Perfect Marriage (2020), eleven years after she defended her husband, Adam, for the murder of his mistress, Kelly. Now remarried to fellow lawyer Bob Miller, Sarah pours her energy into her charity, The Morgan Foundation, and raising her nine-year-old daughter. When Bob cheats on her just like Adam did, Sarah wastes no time in filing for divorce. Her world is further rocked when Sheriff Ryan Stevens, who spearheaded the investigation into Kelly's murder, is involved in a drunk-driving fatality, and DNA analysis reveals that Ryan also slept with Kelly, prompting Kelly's case to be reopened. The pressure mounts when the woman who Bob slept with disappears, and Sarah and Bob's divorce grows more contentious, threatening to dredge up secrets both would prefer to keep in the past. With several recent thriller hits, including Home Is Where the Bodies Are (2024), Rose's star is in ascent, and readers who enjoyed Sarah's first outing will love the twists, machinations, and surprises of this scintillating sequel.

In Rose's suspenseful if overstuffed sequel to The Perfect Marriage, attorney turned nonprofit executive Sarah Morgan is thrust back into the spotlight after police reopen her late husband's murder case. It's been over a decade since Sarah's first husband, Adam, was executed by the state of Virginia for killing his mistress after Sarah failed to successfully defend him in court. When Prince William County officials uncover new DNA evidence linking a former sheriff to the murder, the current sheriff reaches out to Sarah--who now runs a foundation dedicated to helping felons acclimate to life after prison--to rehash the details of the crime. Meanwhile, Sarah navigates a messy divorce from her current husband, Bob, who's under suspicion for the disappearance of his own mistress. Both spouses are fighting bitterly to retain custody of their daughter, Summer, and threatening to expose the other's closely guarded secrets. Rose has a lot of fun with her characters' attempts to implicate each other in the book's overlapping criminal investigations, and maintains wicked tension from the opening pages. It all gets a bit convoluted by the end, but most thriller fans won't mind. This is a ride worth taking. Agent: Celeste Fine, Park & Fine Literary. (Apr.)