The whole thing has spiralled out of control, turning into someone I'm not.

Just the Nicest Couple is the story of two couples: Christian and Lily Scott, and Nina and Jake Hayes. The connection between the two is that Lily and Nina teach in the same school: Nina teaches English and Lily covers high school algebra. The couples have mixed as a foursome but it's not a regular thing. Christian is a market research analyst and Jake is a neurosurgeon: they don't have much in common except their wives. Lily hasn't said anything yet, but she's pregnant. She has a lengthy history of miscarriages so she doesn't want to tempt fate by making the knowledge public.

One afternoon, Lily ran into Jake in Langley woods and he made a pass at her. He and Nina had been having problems, caused by all the time she felt that she had to spend with her mother - and Lily was particularly gorgeous. Jake didn't appreciate being rejected and Lily ended up hitting him with a piece of rock. When she eventually told Christian about what happened she admitted that she might have hit Jake more than a couple of times and her clothes were badly blood-stained. Christian's frightened - Jake hasn't been seen since that day. If he died of his injuries, Lily could still be charged with manslaughter. He couldn't bear to lose her - and what about the baby?

For a while, I was worried that this was going to turn into another of those stories where something goes wrong and rather than be upfront and sort it out, there's a cover-up which turns out to be far worse than the original problem. But - I needn't have worried - this is Mary Kubica and she is a safe pair of hands when it comes to this type of story. Her characters are excellent with just enough doubt about each of them to make you wonder, blanched against various factors which evoke your sympathy. You're going to swing back and forth until the final page because all is definitely not as it seems.

It's a cracker of a story and I got through it far too quickly. I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

Last night Nina had a heated argument with her husband and before he went to work it was the silent treatment. When she hears nothing all day and then returns to an empty house she is not surprised but when he still doesn't come home maybe he is more stubborn than she realized.

Christian is on tenterhooks with his wife but because they are pregnant yet again and that never ends well. Maybe this time they will have a healthy baby but then Lily has something to tell him.

Just the Nicest Couple is a slow burn domestic thriller which focuses on the nuances of marriage and what goes on behind closed doors. When the worst happens the cracks quickly show and it can make or break the closest of relationships. In Kubica's book very few characters are likeable but they make for the most compelling. For most of the book we know what has happened but there are gaps and any curious reader will be more than happy to fill them rightly or wrongly but then that is what is so fun! A story that at first seems simple is strangely addicting and becomes a lot more entangled the further you progress. Husbands and wives are rarely criminal masterminds so mistakes are made which equals a tense read.

Just The Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica is a marvellous psychological suspense that totally consumed me.
The action is set in suburbia and seen through two different points of view, one on either side of the situation.
The reader is completely immersed in the action. We believe what we are being told but as time goes on, we start to question as events seem more and more unbelievable.
There is a search for the truth by both the reader and characters. The deeper into the novel we go, the deeper the truth seems to be buried. This is mirrored by the location of Langley Woods – the deeper you walk in, the darker the atmosphere.
How well do we really know someone? Characters hide their true selves even from their nearest and dearest. We think we really know a person, only to be blown out of the water, with jaw-dropping revelations.
Suburbia – safe, secure, uneventful. Let go of all your pre-conceived ideas as you enter the world of Mary Kubica’s Just The Nicest Couple.
Mary Kubica is skillful at manipulating the reader’s emotional responses to her characters, as we witness the weak become strong, and the strong become weak.
Lives intertwined soon morph into lives manipulated in this marvellous book.
I really enjoyed Just The Nicest Couple as I tried to separate the truth from the lies and work out what really happened in Langley Woods. This was a superb read.
I received a free copy from the publishers for a blog tour. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley and HQ for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lily and Christian are friends with Jake and Nina. When Jake goes missing, Lily confesses to Christian that she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing and they set out to cover her tracks so that she doesn’t wind up under suspicion.

This book was boring, I have really liked some of this author’s books and wanted to throw my kindle at the wall after reading some. After this one, I am just lamenting the time wasted. I read the marginal reviews and put this one off for awhile. It is as dull as the reviews indicate. None of the characters are interesting. Christian’s infatuation with Lily’s greatness is over the top and ridiculous. Lily is a whiner. The writing is bland and even though the sentences are short, I felt like we were told the same mundane detail three different ways before we could move on to the next mundane detail. Basically it was slow and almost nothing happened until the big reveal at the end and that wasn’t that interesting. I would say that’s despite this, I look forward to this author’s next work but I am not so sure anymore. With the books I previously didn’t care for, it was because the ending was bad. This whole book was bad.

I sort of enjoyed this book, but sort of didn’t! The short chapters were good but I couldn’t warm to any of the characters because they did such unbelievably stupid things. For example, if you thought there was an intruder in your home would you venture downstairs in the pitch black? The police search Jake’s car and find absolutely nothing, yet his wife finds an earring on the floor! There were too many things that would never have happened, and it all got a bit silly somehow. The story seemed to drag on too much and there was a lot of repetition with unnecessary information and detail. Saying all that I read it to its conclusion and was pleased that I had spotted the culprit earlier. Just an OK read for me, but thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity. I’m sure lots of readers will love it.

Let me start by saying that I didn’t/couldn’t finish this book.

What sounded like and started as a really engaging thriller very quickly dried up and became very bland.

I’m so incredibly disappointed that I can’t bear to make it to the end but i find myself skimming the chapters seeking out plot and narrative. There’s seemingly endless pages of ‘fluff’ in this book and im getting annoyed with the story and thinking ‘just get on with it!!’ For example, Nina believes there’s an intruder in her home so she ventures downstairs in the dark to investigate. Just as the plot gets tense Mary decides this is the perfect time to describe Nina’s two favourite rooms in the house (that are incidentally at the top of the stairs) and how they are furnished…. Wtf! There is so much of this deliberate plot misdirection that im actually wondering if there’s any plot to be had?

The ‘twists’ are predictable and I honestly don’t know how the characters don’t see them before the words appear. The narrative is slant at best and the backstory repetitive.

All in all… not what I expected from this author and such a let down from the excitement of receiving an advance copy. Sorry Mary, this is just not your finest work so im skipping this one in wait for your next.

Thanks to NetGalley for my advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

What an amazing book. I raced through this book to the end it was fantastic.There was so many red herrings that I just couldn’t work it out. I was really invested in all the characters. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone who likes a fantastic thriller with lots of twists and turns.

I have read and enjoyed a couple of Mary Kubrica''s previous novels and was looking forward to this one.. Just the Nicest Couple tells the story of two couples, the wives are friends and colleagues and then one of the husbands goes missing and the other couple know more about the circumstances of his disappearance than they are willing to say.

This was only an ok read for me. I am not sure if it lack of any type of connection to the characters or the lack of any real suspense but this one fell a bit short of the mark for me and I thought it was a weaker read compared to the authors previous novels that I have read. It was well written and it held my interest enough to keep turning the pages and I am glad I did, I enjoyed the conclusion even if it wasn't hugely surprising..

It could have been my mood when reading but the uneven pace and lack of caring about the characters left me feeling lukewarm about this one.

Just The Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica
I give this book 4 stars

Two couples, two close friends, one missing husband…
Jake Hayes is missing. A day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found.
Nina’s friend Lily thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. She 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 won’t stop until the truth is discovered.

This is my first book by this author.
An entertaining page turner of a read that will keep you guessing until the end. (my guess was wrong) This well written domestic thriller loaded with suspense,mystery,deception and betrayals is told from Nina and Christians points of view so you get to hear a perspective from each couple.
Theres unpredictability and unreliable narratives and this is what I enjoy the most,trying to guess what is really going on and what the motives are.
With thanks to Netgalley,Mary Kubica and HQ for my chance to read and review this book

Kubica manages to build suspense from the outset, before you even really know who is who and what is going on!
Told from the viewpoints of Christian, Lily and Nina the story gets dark very quickly as a simple failure to come home post-fight takes a sinister turn for them all.
Overall a great read, although a little slow in places and I did feel the ending was a little rushed.
Having had so much detail earlier in the book the finale was wrapped up in one chapter and one quick jump forwards without any real resolution about how the major twist played out. I wanted to know more about how the truth was discovered!

I have read each of Mary Kubica’s previous books, so lapped up the ARC on offer from NetGalley, as I was keen to read Kubica’s latest thriller about the aftermath of a betrayal. The main characters this time are teaching colleagues Lily and Nina. Nina waits in vain for her husband Jake to return home after they have had an almighty argument. As his absence stretches from one night into several days, Nina becomes desperate to investigate what happened to her husband. Meanwhile, in another home across Chicago, Lily and Christian concoct a determined plan to subvert Nina’s efforts at all cost, as they have things to hide that might relate to Jake ….

I enjoyed the coming-together of several untrustworthy characters in this novel, and the enigmatic setting of Chicago never loses its sparkle for me. What did grate with me, however, was the staccato prose of this novel. (I note other reviewers have made similar points.) Elliptical, disjointed sentences might work for short stories, or when used sparingly in a novel, but when sprinkled over the entire book, they hold up the storyline and spoil the atmospheric build-up. So I hope this new writing feature will not prevail in Kubica’s future book releases, which I am already looking forward to. All in all, ’Just the Nicest Couple’ was an engrossing read. Thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley for the free ARC that I enjoyed in exchange for producing an honest, unbiased book review.

Wow! Psychological thriller with lots of suspense. This book will keep you reading until the early hours of the morning.
Two couples, Jake and Nina, then Christian and Lily. Lily and Nina are both teachers, they work at the same school and are friends, the two couples have had dinner together on occasion.
Then Jake who is a surgeon goes missing, he doesn’t come home from the hospital.
Lily confesses to her husband that she had met Jake in Langley woods for a walk, she tells Christian that Jake tried to attack her, to protect herself she hits him on the head with a rock, there is a lot of blood. Christian wants to protect Lily and the child she is carrying so they go back to the woods and tamper with evidence, get rid of Lily’s blood stained clothes and Christian even breaks into Nina and Jakes home to retrieve Jake’s spare car fob and move his car.
Nina is just about holding it together, her mother moves in with her, she has severe glaucoma and other health issues, she demands a lot of attention and felt she wasn’t getting much since Nina married Jake
When Jake’s body is finally found and the autopsy reveals he was shot, this poses a lot more questions, Christian knows Lily did not have a gun and therefore could not have shot Jake, Nina however begins to ask herself, where is Jake’s gun which he kept in the safe?
This is a clever game of cat and nouse, suspicion and betrayals
I am a fan of Mary Kubica and this newest book is a fabulous read.

Thanks to Net Galley and General Fiction for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.

I’d like to thank HQ and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Just The Nicest Couple’ by Mary Kubica in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Jake, husband of Lily’s best friend Nina, is missing. Nina thinks he’s gone off for some time alone after a vicious fight the night before, and Lily thinks she may have been the last person to see him following their meeting in Langley Woods when she hit him with a rock after he attacked her. Lily’s husband Christian doesn’t want the finger of suspicion to point at Lily when all she was doing was protecting herself, but his one small deception to keep Lily safe increases until it become impossible to find a way out.

‘Just The Nicest Couple’ is a perfectly written thriller with the three threads told in the words of Nina, Lily and Christian. I was engaged from page one but the deeper I got into the story the more involved I became with the three main characters and what they said happened on that fateful day. With the addition of suspense, intrigue, twists and turns and a conclusion that took me completely by surprise, this has been an excellent story that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading.

What an amazing book. From the minute I picked this up to read I was hooked.There are so many red herrings that lead the reader to search in differing directions. Was Jake missing, was he dead, had he just left his wife, so many questions all the way through. The characters are all so real and plausible that it was easy to relate to them and their actions. highly recommend this author and in particular his author for anyone who likes mystery or thriller reading

2,5 stars rounded up

Jack Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he's blowing off steam at a friend's house after a 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 might 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.

From the beginning of this book, I felt the story dragged out, the characters were virtually doing the same things. But I kept reading, thinking this story would get better. I didn't like any of the characters, The story is told from several points of view. The short chapters helped me get through this book quickly. There are a few twists and the story felt as if it was written in a weird way. kind of abrupt, but that could be just me.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #HQ and the author #MaryKubica for my ARC of #JustTheNicestCouple in exchange for an honest review.

Sadly this book didn't work for me. I found it all a bit too slow and a little bit boring in places. I didn't really feel engaged in the book. Hopefully it's just me and others will love it.

I have found Mary Kubica's work in the past enjoyable but nothing special and this is definitely more of the same for me.
When this started I was immediately drawn into the plot and the characters. I found the writing flowed well and the whole thing was easy to read. Maybe a bit too easy?
Unfortunately as this went on, the writing felt to me to be very basic and simple and it could have been a lot better written.
I never found the plot to be very thrilling or tense and the twists/reveals were quite obvious from the beginning so they weren't shocking or surprising.
Also, I found the ending to be weak and very much a let down. The whole thing just felt a bit flat by the end and seemed to go out on a whimper, which is a shame because at the beginning I was enjoying it.

I have enjoyed previous books by this author however this one just missed the mark.It was slow and lacked suspense for over half the novel which was disappointing.. It did pick up and the ending was a surprise so hence the 3 stars. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review it.

Over the last years, I have read quite a few of the author’s books and they also surprised me in the best possible way.
That’s the case with Just the nicest couple as well. A well written book, an interesting story overall and so many suspenseful moments that builds up to the unexpected twists at the end.
The two couples have secretes to hide, one of them more than the other and when Jake is gone missing for more than a few days, his wife wants to find out what happened to him.
I honestly thought that the killer was Lily but contrary to wheat the author is pointing out throughout the story, the end left me a bit speechless.

It’s twisted and suspenseful, a must read story for adrenaline rush readers.

📖Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy through NetGalley

#JustTheNicestCouple #NetGalley
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 somewhere after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found. Nina’s friend Lily 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 Jake, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered.
Devoured it.
Thanks to NetGalley and HQ for giving me an advance copy.