The Perfect Marriage & The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose

Sometimes you finish a book and think, that was good. Sometimes you finish a book and immediately start the sequel. The Perfect Marriage and The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose fell firmly into the second category for me.

I read both in the same week, which probably tells you everything you need to know. These are fast, twisty domestic thrillers full of murder, affairs, secrets, questionable decisions and people you absolutely should not trust. I gave both four stars, although for slightly different reasons. And if you’re going to read them, definitely start with The Perfect Marriage. I am being extremely careful here because the sequel inevitably builds on what happens in the first book, and this is a series where you really don’t want somebody ruining it for you.

First comes The Perfect Marriage

Sarah Morgan is a hugely successful criminal defence attorney in Washington, DC. She’s ambitious, formidable and has made named partner before the age of 35. Her husband Adam’s career hasn’t gone quite so well. He’s a struggling writer who has become increasingly resentful of his wife’s success and, to make matters considerably worse, he’s also having an affair.

Then his mistress, Kelly Summers, is found murdered at Sarah and Adam’s lake house and Adam is arrested on suspicion of killing her. Sarah decides to defend him.

Yes, her husband has been sleeping with another woman and she’s going to represent him when he’s accused of murdering her. That was enough to get me interested before we’d even properly started.

I completely bought into Sarah as a character. She’s clever, controlled and almost always seems to be thinking several moves ahead of everybody else. I love a strong female lead and Sarah in a power suit navigating a murder case involving her cheating husband was always going to work for me.

Adam, meanwhile, is quite something. He loves two women, has made a spectacular mess of his marriage and still seems to think there might somehow be a happy ending waiting for him. Adam, darling. Come on.

The pacing was probably my favourite thing about the first book. It moves quickly, the investigation kept me interested and every time I thought I had a reasonable idea of what was happening, Jeneva Rose gave me another reason to reconsider it.

And the ending? Very good indeed.

Then straight into The Perfect Divorce

There was no sensible break between books for me. I finished The Perfect Marriage and went straight into The Perfect Divorce the following day.

In fact, I read a substantial chunk of the second book while standing in a 90-minute queue for Slinky Dog Dash at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. My son loves that ride, I’m apparently incapable of organising a Lightning Lane in advance, and it turns out a long Disney queue is considerably more enjoyable when Sarah Morgan is causing chaos on your Kindle.

The Perfect Divorce picks up Sarah’s story years later. She has rebuilt her life, remarried and started a family, but when her second marriage falls apart, events from the past begin finding their way back into her life. New evidence emerges connected with the old case and suddenly Sarah is once again under scrutiny while simultaneously navigating an increasingly unpleasant divorce.

I won’t tell you anything more than that because even apparently innocent details can give away too much if you haven’t read the first book.

For me, the sequel didn’t have quite the same pace as The Perfect Marriage, but I still flew through it. There are plenty of twists, despite what some reviews might tell you and several moments when I had to completely rethink where I thought the story was heading.

I also enjoyed seeing familiar characters return and watching the dynamics change years later. Sarah remains Sarah: formidable, complicated and very definitely not somebody I’d want as an enemy.

Why these work so well together

I think these books are much more fun if you treat them as a pair. The Perfect Marriage gives you the original mystery and introduces Sarah and Adam’s spectacularly dysfunctional relationship. The Perfect Divorce then allows Jeneva Rose to revisit that world years later and start pulling at threads you might have thought were finished.

They’re not particularly interested in giving you characters who always behave sensibly or morally. That’s half the entertainment. People lie, cheat, manipulate each other, make terrible decisions and then make another terrible decision to deal with the consequences of the first one.

If you like domestic thrillers where marriages are messy, everybody has secrets and you’re constantly reassessing who you believe, there is plenty here to enjoy.

About Jeneva Rose

Jeneva Rose is a #1 New York Times bestselling author whose books include Home Is Where the Bodies Are, One of Us Is Dead and You Shouldn’t Have Come Here, as well as the two books in this series. Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages and optioned for film and television.

She is also very funny on social media, particularly when her husband Drew gets involved. Having now read her books and watched some of their content, the rather dark sense of humour running through her thrillers makes complete sense.

The current editions of The Perfect Marriage and The Perfect Divorce are published in the US by Blackstone Publishing. The Perfect Divorce was released in 2025, 11 years after the events of the first novel.

My verdict

★★★★☆ 4 out of 5 stars for both.

I had great fun with these. The Perfect Marriage was probably my favourite of the two because the pacing was so good and I loved trying to work out what Sarah was doing, what Adam had done and who on earth was actually telling the truth.

The Perfect Divorce felt slightly slower in places, but there were still enough twists to keep me reading, including through 90 minutes of Disney queuing and I was very glad I’d gone straight from one into the other.

If you enjoy domestic thrillers involving complicated marriages, affairs, murder investigations, strong female characters and people behaving very badly indeed, I’d recommend reading these as a duo.

Just don’t read the synopsis of The Perfect Divorce first. Start with The Perfect Marriage, avoid spoilers and enjoy the chaos.

Jill Newey
Editor-in-Chief