Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane will keep readers intrigued until the last page. Mystery thriller upon mystery thriller. There's plot twists, suspense, and secrets to uncover. Who dunnit? Edgy, dark, & an entertaining read...

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Pretty Little Wife
By: Darby Kane
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Pub Date: 12/29/2020

When Lila discovers some disturbing videos involving her husband, Aaron and some of the girls in his high school class. She’s not sure what to do. Her husband is extremely popular in the school. She ends up killing him. She takes his body in his car to be discovered at the school. But when his principal shows up at the house looking for him Lila is confused. They should have found his body but when Lila goes back she finds he’s gone and so is his car.
When the police start their investigation of Aaron’s disappearance, Lila isn’t even sure he’s dead. The police are also investigating several missing women from the area. Are these crimes connected? The townspeople are upset. Their beloved teacher is missing, where is Aaron and is he even dead?
This was a dark and twisty thriller I really enjoyed!

This was an entertain thriller with all the right twists and turns, and a fast-paced page turner, but not quite a memorable one.

While Pretty Little Wife was Darby Kane's debut back in late 2020, it wasn't really. It was disclosed pretty early on that Darby Kane is HelenKay Dimon, author of numerous contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels. Kane's a new pseudonym for her foray into the world of domestic suspense.

I've enjoyed Dimon's work in the past, some of her early books with the Kensington Brava line and her Harlequin Intrigues. The single title romantic suspense novels she's published the last handful of years? Well, those haven't worked as well for me - which I was chalking up to my love of "short" (seriously, Dimon handled herself well within the very tricky Intrigue line...). So I was curious to see how she would work for me dropping romance and going all-out suspense and you know what? I got sucked into this book like whoa!

From the outside looking in, Lila Ridgefield has the perfect life. A former lawyer turned real estate agent, she lives in picturesque Ithaca, New York with her respected high school teacher and field hockey coach husband, Aaron. But nothing is as it appears to be, and it all comes crashing down when Aaron goes missing. Poof! Without a trace. Car, cell phone, wallet, Aaron - all gone. The town is in an uproar - everybody loved Aaron, but Lila? Cool, aloof, never ingratiating herself, always on the outside. Normally the cops would sit back and wait. Aaron and Lila had a fight a few weeks ago. He stayed with his brother for a time, and while he was back home now they were sleeping in separate rooms. He could have just taken off as part of another cooling off period. Except it doesn't play that way to the lead investigator on the case, Ginny Davis. She feels it in her bones that something is off with Lila. There's more to the story than what Lila is telling them and Ginny is tenacious enough (and smart enough) to have Lila very worried. And Lila should be worried. Especially since she has no idea how Aaron could possibly be missing when she left his body in a spot where he'd be easily discovered.

I'm coming to this book two years after the fact (oh Wendy, way to stay on brand) and a number of reviews I've since read take swipes at "predictability." Folks, I've read a lot of suspense in my day. I mean, a lot. And is it predictable? Yes, in hindsight. I probably should have known where it was going from the jump but...I didn't. Why? Because Kane employs a ton of subterfuge. We pretty much learn from the jump that Aaron is not the golden boy everybody in town thinks he is, but the rest of the characters get the onion treatment, with layers slowly getting peeled back as facts and clues are uncovered. When done right this technique never fails to suck me into a story, and I didn't want to come up for air once Ginny starts uncovering Lila's secrets.

It's hard to write a review for this story without spoiling too much, but a few things I think readers should know before going in. First, there's three missing college women, so yeah - there's violence against women. Also, there's grooming - as in Aaron and his female students. As mentioned, I've been reading suspense for a lot of years, but what adds another upsetting layer to these plot elements is that it's a book where there's a dearth of decent male characters. Seriously, there's like one guy who isn't a sack of garbage. And no I'm not telling you which guy it is because that would be a spoiler. Normally this kind of thing bothers me. Just as not all men are awful, not all women are down with the sisterhood. I will say though that this didn't bother me quite as much as it has in other books. Why? No clue. Maybe because I was sucked in unraveling Lila's secrets? Of the mystery of the missing girls? I mean, how does Aaron go missing when he's dead? And have I mentioned how awesome Ginny is? I haven't? Well, she's awesome.

In the end I really enjoyed this story. Was it predictable in hindsight? Sure, I guess? But man oh man, what a hell of a ride getting there. Much like Nalini Singh's foray into suspense a couple years ago, I'm ready to follow Darby Kane off a cliff.

Final Grade = B+

Lila Ridgefield discovers her husband, Aaron, is hiding a secret, and after planning her perfect revenge for his ultimate betrayal, everything goes perfectly wrong. As the police begin their investigation, they discover that Aaron Ridgefield isn't the only person who has disappeared over the last few years. As the police close in, Lila races against the clock to find her husband—because he isn't where she left him.

A brilliant debut novel with shocking twists, PRETTY LITTLE WIFE is perfect for fans of domestic suspense.

I had hoped to like this book. I have been enjoying suspense books a lot as of late. Sadly, Pretty Little Wife didn't keep my attention. It was all a little too slow for me. I had to add this book to my DNF list. I do hope that others will enjoy and love this book. It just was not for me.

This one, as much as I enjoyed it, was predictable in some places, but also still exciting and an "on edge of seat" read. I'm a huge fan of domestic thrillers, and this one had all the little secrets you desire.

This book was ok. I didn't really like the writing style and it moved slow for me. I was interested in how it would end which is what kept me going.

I am really starting to get into books with the premise of true crime podcasts and this one proved to be no different. This one I highly recommend. The book has many twists and turns and I found it hard to figure out. Cheers to Darby Kane for a hit thriller!

Twisty thriller. Not everything is as it seems. Flawed characters. Good pace. If you like crime podcasts. This is for you.

This book was a thriller about Lila. From the very start of the book we know she has done something to her husband, Aaron but we don't know any details. The details slowly unspool throughout the book from Lila's POV and also, occasionally, the lead detective. This one had a couple of good twists but I wasn't exactly dying to get to the end. It was a pretty middle of the road thriller.

Pretty Little Wife is a winner of a domestic suspense novel.. This is seriously unputdownable. The character of Lila Ridgefield had me riveted to the pages. I found her fascinating and I continually swayed back and forth in my feelings for her. In the end, I should let it be known, I loved her. I also very much enjoyed the character of Ginny the police detective in charge. I appreciated that the author made these two unique woman intelligent.

I found the ending satisfying. A most worthwhile read with enough twist and turns to keep a reader satisfied.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review

Had a difficult time getting into this book. The characters felt disjointed to me and I was not able to finish the book. My apologies!

This was an excellent book. Loved it. Great thriller. First time author for me.

Thank you net galley for giving me this great opportunity to read this great book

I've had this book for some time now, and knew it was going to blow me away! I definitely should’ve read it sooner, because just, damn, what a story. There were twists (some I guessed, some I didn’t), compelling characters, and an ending that still has me guessing about a few things. Simply superb, and I’m not waiting this long to read the author’s next book!

This book kept me interested the whole way through. There was a lot of suspense that had me questioning which character had the most motives to pull off this elaborate crime. However, I did figure the whole thing out about 50% through the story.

I enjoyed this twisty book since it kept me wondering how it all was connected. I liked how all the characters were flawed (no one is perfect) and how all of these imperfections caused more twists and turns to follow.

Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane is a thriller novel. The story in this one is told with a few time jumps here and there and also with changing the point of view between characters. There is also a podcast involved in the story that is focusing on the disappearances.

Lila Ridgefield is the wife of a popular teacher, Aaron, in their idyllic little college town but Lila knows her husband has secrets. Lila finds sextape featuring her husband and knows that this is all that she can take. Lila plans what she thinks will be the perfect murder leaving his body near the school with his explicit sex tapes to be discovered. Except Aaron is not found. Now everyone is focused on yet another disappearance in the small town, that is except his wife who was sure she had killed him.

Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane was the type of read I was immediately intrigued with and quickly settled in to devour the story. Lila is an unreliable narrator and not particularly likable but still engaging to follow. This one was easy to follow despite jumping around a bit in time and had plenty of twists and turns along the way to keep my attention. I would also never had guessed it to be a debut novel and would definitely pick up something by this author again in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

This one was twisted but somewhat predictable, and it sounded similar to a couple other books I've read in the same genre. I'd still read more by this author though.

This is a pretty good thriller, but in my opinion a better mystery and that's what made this one for me. It was definitely a great ride, trying to figure things out.