October 2017

In THE LAST MRS. PARRISH by Liv Constantine (a pseudonym for the sister writing team of Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine), Daphne Parrish lives a fairy-tale life with a gorgeous home in Connecticut, a lake house, and a luxury lifestyle with her real estate mogul husband, Jackson, and two darling daughters. It’s the life that Amber Patterson wants.

Amber deeply envies Daphne and sets out to oust her from her marriage so that she can become THE Mrs. Parrish. Amber initiates her plot by insinuating herself in Daphne’s life and taking up a cause that is dear to Daphne: cystic fibrosis, the disease that killed her sister, Julie. Amber invents a sister with the disease for herself, and from that dark moment, all bets of how she will twist her life to oust Daphne are off. There is fawning, trickery and lots of games being played. But who is playing who here?

The pacing is brisk once you are drawn in with the setup, and it becomes one compulsive read as you are whipped around from one plot twist to the next. Everyone has secrets. And who will draw the card to one-up the next player is something that is constantly on the table. It’s a terrific debut, and I look forward to seeing what the Constantine sisters do next!