Overall, I enjoyed the latest book by Adam Mitzner. I find his books to be quick reads and while I liked this one, I found the last 25% and the ending of the book fell a liitle flat....a bit ho-hum for me. I'd figured out "whodunnit" when DNA was mentioned. I agree with some of the other reviews about the paragraph changes being very abrupt (one minute talking about Jessica, and the next sentence talking about Owen, etc). I'm going to chalk that up to being an advanced digital copy and hope the breaks are more pronounced in the print book. It was hard to make such hard changes from one character to the next, Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Author Adam Mitzner has written another good, twisty mystery with a heavy reliance on legal strategy. THE PERFECT MARRIAGE is the set-up for a cast of characters related to the marriage, who exhibit their happy, sad, envious, and angry feelings towards the couple. For this particular couple, their peripheral relationships are all heavily basted in emotional turmoil. The tale is a good one and the pages fly by as clues are dropped and evidence digested. This is a fast but exciting book. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

DNF at approximately 23%

I was confused by all the characters, who why, the introductions all at once. I tired more than once to get into it but I failed. It was messy.

The Perfect Marriage is the first book I have read from this author. It was a bit confusing and slow at the beginning. However, it picked up the pace and became quite enjoyable.

The main characters Jessica and James are celebrating their one year anniversary. But things turn dark soon and that brings suspicions, revenge and murder.

Would be interested in reading more from this author.

Thanks NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and Adam Mitzner for an ARC to review.
I loved the writing style though the characters were a bit confusing at first till I managed to identify who is who and their relations. The story rhythm was excellent and I was invested, honestly I loved it till the end. I felt like that's wasn't the satisfying ending after all the prior building up.
I would love to read more for the author.

DNF at 25%. Writing style is not for me. Found it very info-dumpy. Like, there would be a scene and I'd try to actually follow the scene and then there would be two random paragraphs of building character background, but in a way that didn't fit.

Loved this book so much! Kind of predictable but still a great read. A parents love is unparalleled.

Is there such a thing as a perfect marriage? It’s often said that you never know until you’re in it. The world of Adam Mizner’s new book Explores the world of New York City’s happy couple James and Jessica. At a party celebrating their one year anniversary, things quickly devolve into chaos, descending to reveal lies, deceit, and danger that leads to one crazy ending.

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

James and Jessica seem to have a great life as they celebrate their first wedding anniversary with a big party. But, it turns out there is a lot of backstory to their relationship and things aren't as perfect as they appear.

I have read a couple of other books from this author and I think I liked them better than this one. This wasn't bad and I definitely was turning the pages but more because I didn't know where the book was going than because I was so enthralled with where it was going. There is a lot of stage setting and the actual mystery doesn't come up until maybe 45%. There are a handful of people who could be guilty and really it could have been any of them but they each for eliminated and by the time we found out who did it, it was sort of anticlimactic. I just didn't find the ending to be wildly interesting. After listing all of these negatives, it wasn't a bad book at all, I think I just had really high expectations after reading The Best Friend last year, which I really enjoyed. I will read more from this author.

Nothing born of sin ever ends well.

If I have an Adam Mitzner book on my kindle, I will be quick to read it. Always a compelling read with interesting characters that drive the plot. This one asks the question what if you find your soul mate after your married. The emotional train wreck it leaves can be deadly ...literally.

James and Jessica Sommers left such a train wreck. They celebrate their one year anniversary with promise. Who shows up but James ex deranged angry bitter wife. She lets out the expletives'. Jessica's ex-husband is there to show support not for the happy couple but for their 16 year old son Owen.

When an art deal goes deadly wrong and accusations fly, the attention goes to the ex's. No one is cooperating with the police. It becomes where does the evidence lead. I enjoy this narration as it is engaging with the plot and the characters. There is a surprise twist at the end. It is meant with dilemma. We do live with our choices and the question is how do we survive.

A special thank you to Thomas Mercer and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

The novel opens with James and Jessica Sommers smugly celebrating their first wedding anniversary – and then it’s downhill all the way. So much so that I conceded defeat at 20% as nothing and no one in this dreadful book engaged me one bit. It has nothing to recommend it. It’s banal, bland, trite, jam-packed with clichés, with shallow characterisation, embarrassingly artificial dialogue and a predictable plot. Pointless.

I’m an avid fan of the author, but this book fell short compared to his previous work. Too many characters and they’re all thrown at you at once. The plot was well conceived, and the reader was kept guessing.

This book was amazing! Just when you think you have the plot figured out, something new happens and you have no idea what’s to come. First time reading this author and won’t be my last. I couldn’t put this book down!

DNF @ 25%.

I do not like the writing style here at all. In the first chapter you're introduced to so many characters without any rhyme or reason. I was reading along about James and Jessica and then the next paragraph we're in Owens head and I'm like who is Owen. Then a couple more paragraphs later and it's Reed talking. Who is Reed? Then it's Haley? Then it's Wayne? etc. etc. It continues like this. I wish there had been chapter breaks distinguishing whose perspective your hearing from rather than jumbling them all up together on the same page. What a confusing and annoying way to write a story.

The real killer here though is the dialogue. Just terrible. Hayley (the ex-wife) and Reed (the business partner) were laughable characters that kept making me cringe every time they spoke.

This one definitely wasn't for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for my copy.

I enjoyed this book - though not as much as previous books by Mitzner. The suspense was doled out gradually building up to several unexpected events. I didn't much care for any of the characters and some events seemed superfluous to the story. The courtroom scenes were among the most interesting of the book.

I found the ending to be more sad than satisfying.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.0

Thank to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this book.
4 Stars!! Was hard to put down.
I really enjoyed this book.
I liked how the stories were told from each character's point of view.
I really got into the story and it was kind of a “page turner”. Without giving anything away I was left cold by the ending.
Highly recommended for readers who want to be kept guessing to end.

I‘m not so sure how I feel about this book. The were a ton of characters which made the story hard to follow and they were all unlikeable and rather flat. The culprit was easy to guess and the death itself was ordinary. However the writing was good, but the narrative could have been more exciting.

Thank you NetGalley / Thomas & Mercer for providing me with this arc in exchange for a honest review.

The Perfect Marriage by Adam Mitzner. Didn't think to much of the characters. The best of the lot was Haley, James' over the top crazy ex wife. James and Jessica didn't have much depth and were unlikable. The story started out slowly. The courtroom scenes was what made the story interesting.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

James Sommers has been married to his wife Jessica for a year and they are celebrating their one year wedding anniversary.

Jessica’s ex-husband Wayne Fiske will also attend even though people think he’s naive.

A man named Reid Warwick is looking forward to meeting with James. He hopes to use James’s connections as an art dealer to sell some art paintings.

Following James’s meeting with Reid, James is found murdered. Who murdered him and why? Overall an interesting story. Would recommend

Thank you to Adam Mitzner, NetGalley, and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC of this book

Adam Mitzner is a great legal thriller writer. He’s one of those authors whose books I eagerly anticipate and pre-order without even reading the blurb. As an attorney and former prosecutor myself, I am a little picky about my legal thrillers. I want them to be more interesting and exciting than my real-life lawyer job, but also still in the realm of believability and legal accuracy. Mitzner ALWAYS delivers on this, with great writing, interesting and twisty plots, and fantastic and legally accurate courtroom scenes.

This book was good, especially the last 30 percent or so, but not one of my favorites of Mitzner’s. I felt it spent a bit too much time on the setup, with a lot of details and plot points about the underground art world that weren’t too dramatic or strictly necessary to the story. Or maybe this is just not an area that interests me. Regardless, it took until about 40 percent in for anything super interesting to happen. But from that point, we were off to the races.

At the end of the book is where the special Mitzner magic comes in. An ingenious and unexpected plot twist combines with Mitzner’s usual fantastic courtroom scenes to make this a really neat story. Here too, as always in Mitzner’s books, the reader gets great courtroom scenes peppered with accurate caselaw so that you might learn something new about the law. If the rest of the book had been like the last 30 percent, this would’ve easily been a 5* star book. (I also imagine Mitzner must be a fantastic trial attorney, because all his books are filled with these wonderful direct and cross-examination scenes.) I truly did not see this ending coming and think few people would. Really awesome.

All in all this was a very enjoyable second half of a book - just wish we had a little more magic in the first half too. I still definitely recommend this book, I think I just have high standards for one of my favorite legal writers. I highly, highly recommend Mitzner’s previous works, A Conflict of Interest and A Matter of Will (my fave!) for some more traditional and lengthy courtroom thriller action. And as ever, I eagerly await Mitzner’s next book!

3.75 stars rounded up for that ending that only Mitzner can perfectly deliver.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer, Adam Mitzner and NetGalley for a very anticipated book to read in advance!