The Golden Couple

I didn’t love The Golden Couple quite as much as I loved Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen’s previous novels, You Are Not Alone and An Anonymous Girl, but it’s still a tense, twisty thriller. I think I preferred the others because I’m more drawn to thrillers about twisted friendship than about a romantic couple.

Avery, a famous and successful therapist, takes on a new client, Marissa. Marissa seems to have a perfect marriage, but almost immediately confesses to cheating on her husband, Matthew. Avery promises that if the two follow all of her instructions, she can fix their marriage in 10 sessions, using her unique therapy style. But Avery’s actually been struck off from some of her direct, unauthorized methods of changing her clients’ lives.

Outside of sessions, she’s almost a stalker, nosing into the Bishop’s lives and pulling out all kinds of secrets. For their own good, I guess? I always love thrillers with hidden dysfunction and explosive secrets, so I loved reading this one, where basically everyone is lying.  Marissa and Matthew Bishop definitely look like a golden couple, but nothing’s really how it seems. Avery’s whole therapy system is built around prying into her clients’ lives and pulling out their secrets, with no boundaries, but at the same time, Avery’s own life isn’t exactly smooth and aboveboard, either.

There’s also a creepy secondary plot. One of Avery’s previous clients was overcome with guilt about working at a giant pharmaceutical company, Acelia. Avery pries, and discovers her client is being forced to hide certain dangerous side effects of certain drugs, and Avery can’t let that stand. Now Acelia is sending heavies to harass Avery to find out who the leak was.

The Golden Couple is not gory at all. One of the things I really like about Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen’s books is their ability to create suspense without anything bloody or gross. I spent most of this book, like I did with their other titles, unsure who to trust and what each reveal could mean.

Without saying too much, since the whole fun of a suspense novel like this is uncovering the secrets yourself, I can still say that I thought the book’s ending was a surprising and satisfying conclusion.