The Marriage Lie
Kimberly Belle, 2016
MIRA Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778319764
Summary
Everyone has secrets…
Iris and Will have been married for seven years, and life is as close to perfect as it can be.
But on the morning Will flies out for a business trip to Florida, Iris's happy world comes to an abrupt halt: another plane headed for Seattle has crashed into a field, killing everyone on board and, according to the airline, Will was one of the passengers.
Grief stricken and confused, Iris is convinced it all must be a huge misunderstanding. Why did Will lie about where he was going? And what else has he lied about?
As Iris sets off on a desperate quest to uncover what her husband was keeping from her, the answers she finds shock her to her very core. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 20, 1968
• Where—Kingsport, Tennessee, USA
• Education—B.A., Agnes Scott College
• Currently—lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Kimberly Belle is an American novelist. The daughter of a chemist and a speech pathologist, Belle grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians. She attended college in Atlanta, Georgia, where she earned a BA from Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts school for women.
Before turning to writing fiction, Belle worked in marketing and fundraising for various nonprofits in the US and abroad, including Habitat for Humanity, the YWCA, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and United Way.
Belle is best known for her novel, The Marriage Lie (2016), which was a USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Toronto Globe & Mail bestseller, as well as #1 iTunes UK bestseller and a semifinalist in the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Mystery & Thriller. The book has been translated into a dozen languages.
Novels
2014 - The Last Breath
2015 - The Ones We Trust
2016 - The Marriage Lie
2018 - Three Days Missing
Belle and her husband, a Dutch real-estate entrepreneur, have two children. She currently divides her time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/7/2018.)
Book Reviews
This delicious, serpentine thriller starts from a simple premise: what if your husband was not who you thought he was.… A good, old-fashioned page-turner, with a poisonous sting in the tail.
Daily Mail (UK)
You need to check out The Marriage Lie. This domestic thriller will keep you reading into the wee hours of the night to find out how it all ends.
Redbook
This is not a unique premise, and Belle’s … but numerous skillfully executed twists … [make readers] never entirely sure who to trust or what’s really going on. A surprising and fast-paced read.
Publishers Weekly
The pace is relentless, and the plot never runs in a straight line.… Beware, The Marriage Lie might very well undermine your confidence, your convictions, and your trust in loved ones. This one is a true brain twister!
Book Reporter
Belle's taut pacing drives the story forward, and the relatability of the Griffiths will hit readers close to home. With plot twists around every corner, Belle isn't afraid to keep her readers guessing until the very last page of this heart-pounding story.
Booklist
The suspense builds rapidly from there as Iris pulls back Will's layers of deception and solves the mystery of what the circumstances of his death meant for their marriage. A compelling adventure.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club talking points to help start a discussion for THE MARRIAGE LIE ... and then take off on your own:
1. Take some time to describe Iris. What do you think of her? Some readers found her rude, or gullible and easily manipulated. Others appreciated her perseverance. What do you think of her?
2. Talk about Iris and Will's marriage as portrayed at the beginning of the book. In what way does it seem perfect, even enviable?
3. Secrets underlie the supposedly perfect union between Iris and Will. How destructive are secrets to a relationship? Can secrets ever be countenanced in a marriage … are some secrets permissible? Do you have secrets in your closest relationships—with your spouse, significant other, or dear friends? What if you found someone were keeping secrets? Would it depend on the secret?
4. Iris's investigation takes her to Will's hometown where she discovers a very different version of her husband. Talk about the revelations into Will's past.
5. Follow-up to Question 4: One of the big questions The Marriage Lie poses is the way in which a person's past shapes and/or defines the future self. How does Will's past shape the person he becomes?
6. Follow-up to Question 5: Supposedly, Will has changed by the time he marries Iris. Is it possible for people to change?
7. Do the lies and secrets Iris discovers about Will erase all that was good in their seven years together as husband and wife?
8. The issue of accountability is essential to the couple's marriage and is one of Iris's core values, especially in her work with students. How does what she uncovers about Will undermine Iris's relationship with the notion of accountability?
9. Talk about Eva and her role in the novel. In fact, what do you think, overall, of the student body and their parents?
10. Did you find yourself switching allegiances to characters as the novel progressed? Whom did you trust and then later begin to doubt? How does the author accomplish those shifting loyalties?
11. Were you surprised by the ending? Is it satisfying, worth the read?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)