Just the Nicest Couple

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Jake and Nina are married with no children allowing them plenty of time for each other. Jake needs quality time with his wife. Except lately Nina’s been distracted and preoccupied with the health care of her mother and Jake’s feeling neglected. Fighting about the time she spends with her mother has become something common between Jake and her. Nina realizes that Christian’s car matches the car of her intruder, per the Ring video that a neighbor sent her. This is my third read by Mary Kubica and none have really been a rave, so I guess this author just does not mesh with me. I can't remember if this bothered me in the other novels, but here she does this thing that drives me crazy: she'll drag out a scene by describing completely mundane activities as if they are important, e.g: Rich with detail and a mounting, almost suffocating sense of dread, Just the Nicest Couple is a dark and twisted exploration of loyalty, family, and how far we’ll go to protect the ones we love. - Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Here It's possible for authors to hit multiple "grand slams" and, therefore, I have not given up on Mary Kubica.

A husband's disappearance links two couples in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing, Mary Kubica It’s been a while since I’ve read a thriller! I tend to start off the year with a thriller or two. It’s a good switch from the more serious literary stories.

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Mary Kubica is an author that I feel a lot of readers find a bit hit or miss, including myself. Just the Nicest Couple seems to be right down that alley with some loving it and some not so much but I found this one highly compelling with the set up of knowing something happened but waiting for the twist that I knew would come. The tension of what and when drew me in and had this one falling in at four and a half stars for me. She's been extremely tired lately. The pregnancy is getting the best of her. She's on her feet teaching all day. These two things in combination exhaust her. Being pregnant and teaching high school kids." HEY GUYS JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW... SHE'S TIRED BECAUSE SHE'S PREGNANT AND TEACHES HIGH SCHOOL KIDS. WHICH MAKES HER TIRED. BECAUSE IT'S TIRING.

Jake Hayes is missing. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he’s taking a break after their huge fight from the night before. But days go by and Jake is no where to be found, Nina starts to worry. Where is Jake? Meanwhile, Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and fellow teacher, has been acting oddly around her husband, Christian. Nervous and distant, he finds her staring off into space when he gets home from work one evening. But she refuses to say anything about what has pushed her to the edge. Afraid to prod, he lets her be until the following day when Lily asks him to leave work early. Something is clearly wrong. Lily and Christian Scott are a happily married couple expecting their first child. She’s a high school algebra teacher and he’s a market research analyst, living comfortably but nervous about her high risk pregnancy. Their world gets turned upside down, though, when Lily shares a disturbing encounter with Jake Hayes, the husband of her friend and fellow teacher Nina. Lily was determined to put the incident behind her until she learned that day that Jake never returned home the night before. Nina thinks he’s still miffed about their own argument; Lily’s not so sure. When Jake fails to return after several days, she and Christian go down a perilous path in an effort to protect themselves.

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Nina, meanwhile, believes Jake has just left her in his anger until she receives a call from the hospital where he works telling her that he has not come to work since Monday. Nina reports Jake missing at the police department, but the police do not seem to be too concerned about him. Nina even rescinds the missing person report on Jake when her mother, who has been staying with Nina since Jake’s disappearance, claims that Jake came home. Then, he left again when he realized she was there. Nina’s mother has macular degeneration, making it difficult for her to identify people. The man in the house was really Christian, looking for the key to Jake’s car so he could move it. Two couples, two close friends, one missing husband… Jake Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he is blowing off steam at a friend’s house after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found. Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for her husband, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered. Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica – eBook Details Overall, I enjoyed the story as it kept me engaged and I vacillated between Jake being dead or alive, Lily being culpable or not, or someone else being involved. I developed quite a few theories before I settled into one. I came close but still missed the mark. This was a very entertaining story, even though I found some of the things Christian did a bit of a stretch. Everything else, including the audio performance, worked for me. 3.5 stars

The last chapter of Nina's, she says that she can't call the cops on her mother and have her spend what's left of her life in jail. Then the next chapter is Christian, and he's commenting that Nina's mother just got out of jail on compassionate leave. Did I miss a chapter? Why did Nina change her mind?I know that lots of people have really liked this one, but if you like logic and characters that behave rationally, then this is not the book for you. The book shared the same exact ending as two other thrillers that I recently read and, therefore, I was easily able to guess who killed the dead husband.

Also, one of the couples in the book was pathetic and irritating. (Who talks to each other like that?) We met in college over our shared love of math. When we tell people that, it makes them laugh. We're math nerds." ...?? I-...???Finally, the end seemed rushed and confusing to me, almost like they forgot to record the last chapter of the audiobook. If anyone has read this, and you know the answer to the following questions, please message me (so as not to add spoilers in the comments)!! Book Genre: Adult, Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Thriller