Pretty Little Wife: A Novel

Lots of twists to keep you guessing…right to the very end!

Wowzers!!! Wasn't expecting any of that. Job well done. I mean I saw a little, but not like that.

So many twists! While I had a major piece figured out about 1/4 through, there were several surprises that just kept me going. Great audio book performance too

I’m here for this book. I couldn’t stop listening and enjoyed it from beginning to end. I didn’t expect the ending. When I thought I knew the plot another twist came.

Loved the suspense, the twists, the strong female characters and the narrator!

Loved this book!!! I thought I figured the ending out then BOOM!! Great great great!!!

Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
This thriller had an unexpected ending that I really, really liked. While I caught on eventually about one part of the ending, I didn’t catch on to everything that was to follow, which made the end of this book so, so good. While I was reading it, I felt like it was dragging on a bit, but as soon as it finished I realized that it was all just an extension making this book, and all the bad-A females in it, much more memorable.

For you true crime junkies, you’ll love this one. There are portions of a podcast following the disappearance of local missing girls and Lila’s missing husband, Aaron.

I would definitely read another book by Darby Kane, and I hope there’s more to come from her!

Great twists some different always interesting. Easy quick read for the summer

A very well written and narrated novel - thanks to both the author and the narrator

It kept me guessing. I knew that by the end there was more to come.

I started as description is interesting but I couldn't stand the voice. Had feeling that she is trying to dye, seriously all the first chapter I was positive that she is dying and that's why she is finally speaking up. I will try to find a book to read and hopefully will share a good review!

Absolutely amazing. Couldn't stop listening. Highly recommend listening. You won't be able to stop

What a fabulous write. I loved all the characters! Fantastic wok!!!

So twisted. It took a bit to get going, which is almost always the case. But once the twists and turns started it got pretty wild.

The main character and was not very likeable. I was also disappointed in the strong misandry over-tones. It read like promoting a competition between genders was more important to the author than having readers invested in the storyline. Still, I suspect there are many who would like it for this reason. I was expecting more.

Love the narration! Kept me hooked from the beginning to the end.

This was good!! Really good, like had to keep listening and shut the world out good. Like the family doesn’t need dinner and I’m unable to work because I can’t stop listening good.

Highly recommend a listen! Great story with well developed characters and a twist that you don’t see coming! Narrator did a wonderful job ?

no tenía pruebas pero tampoco tenia dudas de quien era el asesino ?

This book was written so well. The story was suspenseful and intriguing.

This was thriller was full of twists and turns and it kept me on the edge of my seat.

The reviews on this book had me sooo excited . Alas , it was very disappointing. Annoying villain annoyingg cops annoying family members, annoying reading voice( i listened to the audio book)

The story had some suspense and i decided to keep listening considering how good the reviews were but i HAD to stop at three chapters to the end.

Ive given it two stars just because its not the worst book ever

Meet me guessing! Great book that would have been better if the scribd app didn't crash every 10 - 12 minutes.

It keeps you guessing until the end, highly recommended read

Wow! Best book I’ve read in a long time! The narrator was absolutely perfect for this twisty story. Loved every minute!

Such a page turning thriller with a plot twist like no other. I couldn’t stop listening to the audiobook. Loved it! Characters were well developed and it was a true thrill suspense combo. Highly recommend.

I liked the story as a whole. But i think there were 3 plot twists at one time. And also the ending left me confused.. did she knew before or did she discover the truth in the police station. That felt like a loose thread. Lila was likable as a character, but i had my doubts from the beginning on him.

GRIPPING!!!!! From the very first page you’re hooked and want to continue reading (listening). This is the first book I’ve read by Darby Kane and I already pre-ordered the next for late this year. Wow. Loved the performance by the narrator - would definitely recommend another list for anything read by Xe Sands and a BONUS if these two connect again!!!! I can’t wait!

I’ve read a bit about this author and was happy to get this book through my library quite quickly on reserve- love my library! Also, I can now return it and don’t have to have it on my shelves. I almost didn’t finish it as the main character was so simply unpleasant that her voice annoyed. Initially I was siding with her husband.
The book starts out in a confusing manner, with many changes of time setting and points of view but it settles into its pace about 80 pages in. It’s a domestic thriller, with an assembly of nasty and/or venal men, an unlikeable main character, and a decent female sleuth. Everyone is able to be bought, the women are all traumatized by men- well, you get the drift. Not the kind of world I like to imagine.
Still, the story roars right along and ties up to a true-crime podcast that reports in throughout the book. The main character is a lawyer and this knows about all sorts of techniques that stand her in good stead as suspicion flows around her.
It’s all quite highly improbable and unusually sordid and I suspect will be made into a movie one day very soon.
So bravo to the author, well-done, but I’m off to wash my eyeballs and read something a little less icky. A perfect fast read if you think all men deserve a quick kick.

Pretty Little Wife (2020) by Darby Kane. Things just do not add up to make this a satisfying read. Lila was a lawyer in North Carolina when she met high school teacher Aaron. For reasons not clearly defined, they quit their jobs and move close to Ithaca, New York where Aaron grew up and also where his brother, Jared, still lives. Aaron has a new teaching position at the local high school and Lila gets her license (I assume) to sell real estate and she settles in at a local realtor’s office. Lila is the pretty little wife of the title, and while she is attractive, dresses well and treats her clients in a professional manner (usually) she is also distant from any semblance of emotions outside her marriage (usually), and is, though not specified as such, cool and aloof and not prone to engaging with neighbors.
The book opens with Lila discovering her husband’s “secret” cell phone with sex videos containing some of his students and him in at least one of them. Read that any way you like.
The phone is so secret that he uses the same passcode on both his phones, a passcode he gave to Lila, letting Lila “discover” his guilty pleasure. As Arron is stupid but not prone to violence, rather being a domestic terrorist of the verbal type, what can Lila do?
She is a smart ex-lawyer who worked at a large firm before Aaron came along. Using that background and her healthy respect for the law, there is only one thing she can do. As we find out about 85 pages into the story, she can kill him. Having done so, and having planned things out over several weeks, she decides to leave his car, him inside along with the evidence of his activities, at the school where he worked.
But the car and body go missing. The police get several calls about the missing teacher and when they confront Lila, she appears not to care about Arron being gone. Not at all.
A podcast reporting on three local missing women soon adds Aaron to the list. You would think that a podcast, wanting to add listeners, would come up with many theories as to what is happening but this podcast fails in that regard.
Things seem to spiral out of Lila’s control. Someone is leaving her notes taunting her and what she has done. We assume they are from the person who moved the car and body. Toss in Lila’s boyfriend who is a professor in the study of crime, reading and writing about murders, the high school princapal who is also Aaron’s best friend and perhaps very shady when it comes to the girls in his charge, and the suspect list grows.
What is off-putting about the entire story comes very near the end, with Lila’s confession that she knew who the real killer was all along yet allowed herself to be trapped by this person. Toss in Lila’s using and then discarding a hammer that the killer is about to use on her, and we wonder just how good a lawyer she was.
And the podcast lets us all down. With a dead and missing husband and a wife who totally appears to care less about him, and who is having an affair while all this is going on, why wouldn’t the podcasters raise the theory that it was a husband and wife team doing the sex videos, abducting young women and killing the latter. When hubby decides to drop the wife, she decides to drop him permanently. Nice theory.
And the actual killer should have been someone else in the book. I can think of at least one person who checks all the boxes offered as to the killer’s identity, and yet is never under suspicion at any point.
All the men, except Lila’s lawyer friend Tobias who is getting married to a swell guy back in N.C., range from being unfaithful to lying cheaters to glory hogs with only political ambitions on their minds. It almost feels as if the author has a distorted view of the world that manages to come out in her writing.
This book could have been so much better with a far different ending, but it lamed out on us and so I can only give it a weak 2 stars, if not less.