Description
What happens when you’re really, truly done making your marriage work? You can’t be married to someone without sometimes wanting to bash them over the head…As Long As We Both Shall Live is JoAnn Chaney’s wicked, masterful examination of a marriage gone very wrong, a marriage with lots of secrets…“My wife! I think she’s dead!” Matt frantically tells park rangers that he and his wife, Marie, were hiking when she fell off a cliff into the raging river below. They start a search, but they aren’t hopeful: no one could have survived that fall. It was a tragic accident. But Matt’s first wife also died in suspicious circumstances. And when the police pull a body out of the river, they have a lot more questions for Matt. Detectives Loren and Spengler want to know if Matt is a grieving, twice-unlucky husband or a cold-blooded murderer. They dig into the couple’s lives to see what they can unearth. And they find that love’s got teeth, it’s got claws, and once it hitches you to a person, it’s tough to rip yourself free.
So what happens when you’re done making it work?
Review: 5 Stars
I started this book and found it a little slow and verbose to begin with. But it was interesting enough so I kept at it and what a brilliant little gem this one turned out to be! It starts off simply with a story of 2 wives over a decade apart married to the same man. You think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on so you drag yourself wondering what to expect since it seems so obvious. And then WHAM, out of nowhere there is a twist that blows you away and shakes you awake! The best part is that the surprise is not a small one, it’s a complex layered twisted tale that makes you gasp!
Initially you wonder how a man can commit the same crime twice and most likely get away with it twice!! But as you read it’s evident that this story is not that simple. The author has written a wickedly brilliant plot. She has given the readers a great perspective on marriage, partnership and on human psychology to a certain extent. I enjoyed the narration completely and found myself pausing many times to re-assess how I get about each character. I especially liked the change of narrators in the book and thy helped it be a real page turner. I enjoyed reading the insights on the 2 detectives that are handling this case and I also found their relationship with each other very insightful. The only thing that I fee did not add much to the plot overall was the subplot about Detective Loren and his past. I don’t think it added anything to the story and could be completely done away with.
This book makes you relook at marriage on the whole and makes you realize that the lines between love and hate can be very blurred in this relationship. The author has thrown light of how intense the emotions can be in a marriage and had dropped in many life lessons along the way. My absolute favorite quote from this books is this: “You can never know what a person might do, and if you try to guess, you’ll almost always get it wrong. A person’s actions can’t be choreographed; life isn’t a ballet recital, after all, it’s a rave, and you have to keep your feet moving to the beat, keep your eyes open so you don’t get knocked to the floor.”
This books toys with the reader, it teases you and taunts you and then reels you in hook, line, and sinker!
As soon as I finished this book I quickly checked what else this author has published and will definitely be reading more of her work. This is a book that you must have on your pre order list. It has the potential to become one of the best books of 2019. Enjoyed every minute of it, time most well spent.
Thank you Flatiron Books and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. #NetGalley, #AsLongAsWeBothShallLive
