The Last Mrs. Parrish - Liv Constantine

There are very few book that get put on my DNF pile. But if it hadn't been for a work road trip and hours of windshield time, The Last Mrs. Parrish would have found itself discarded on the pile. 

Let's begin at the beginning and then we'll get into spoiler territory. 

TLMP starts in the mind of Amber Patterson, a woman with a clear agenda to get close to Daphne Parrish, a wealthy socialite in the town of Bishops Harbor, CT. Amber ingratiates herself to Daphne by pretending to have a sister who died of the same terrible disease as Daphne's character. And so the first 60% of the book is Amber moving closer and closer into Daphne's circle, somehow fooling everyone as to who she is and what her motives are. But as the reader, we know that Amber is a con artist intent on only one thing - getting Mr. Parrish in bed and becoming his wife. 

So now just hold up here because this is part of the most irritating part of the book. Amber is deceptive and wiley, but she's not entirely all that smart or brilliant. Her plan does seem to be working because Daphne seems especially vulnerable to taking this dull homely girl under her wing. And that's all fine, but the premise that all that would be enough to turn the head of her supposedly faithful and adoring husband was just all a little too much to swallow. It was all a little too perfect a narrative. And the steps that were taken to get to those points were just a little too far outside of plausible. 

And so after listening for about 8 hours of story, I was ready to bag Amber and TLMP. And so of course this is where the story turned. And Daphne becomes the narrator. Telling us all about the terrible marriage she has to Mr. Jackson Parrish. You see, he's a sadistic sociopath who is horrible to his wife and children. Through mental and physical abuse, he controls Daphne - who she talks to, where she goes. He threatens her through her children. He even had her committed to a mental institution after the birth of their first daughter so she would know just what the consequences would be if she ever tried to expose him or leave him. Apparently the only thing Daphne couldn't give him was a son. So when the Daphne section started with their meeting and dating I thought, oh no I don't have the stomach for ten years of marriage about this. 

And thankfully the authors seemed to be aware. But then it became apparent that Daphne started orchestrating Amber's affair with Jackson and oh, the revenge, I was so here for it because I hated Amber so much. But in the end, I'm a little deflated that the "revenge" I was so hyped for ended up being the domestic abuse and serial rape of Amber by the husband she was so keen for. Not to mention their poor child who has two morally depraved parents. I was kind of thinking it would end in a murder/suicide in which Daphne, as the closest relative would get custody of Amber's son and then everyone innocent will be saved, but no. Or that Amber and Daphne would team up against Jackson, but also no. And the revenge kept coming. In spiral after spiral of take-down by Daphne. It ended up being a little too wrapped up, a little too perfect
So this was a big miss for me. The revenge portion left me feeling icky and the entirely too long front portion of the book wasn't worth the pay off.

2/5 Stars.