Since the success of 2019’s Dear Wife readers have eagerly anticipated Kimberly Belle’s next domestic suspense thriller. My Darling Husband has a provocative opening—a man calls a journalist and says he’s finally ready to talk. Talk about what? Then the POV switches back in time to his wife Jade.

Jade and Cam live in Atlanta where Cam is a wildly successful restauranteur and his wife is a stay-at-home mom. Jade keeps busy chivvying her kids Beatrix (8) and Baxter (6) from one lesson to another. She has noticed a man showing up in her space—at Starbucks, passing her a stevia packet (unasked) and now slouched against the Westmore Music Academy sign where Jade takes Beatrix for violin lessons. She calls Cam.

Now I say to Cam, “He’s here.”



“Who’s where?”



“That guy. The skeevy one I told you about, with the glasses and the comb-over man bun. He’s here at Westmore.”



“Well, maybe he has a musically gifted kid.”



I roll my eyes, lift my hands from the steering wheel. “Right. And he just happens to go to the same gym as me and shops in the canned goods aisle at Whole Foods whenever I walk through their door.”

Jade has a stalker. Hold on, is he stalking her or is he trying to get to her kids? Cam scoffs at that notion because many families in Atlanta are much wealthier. Jade points out that he’s on the cover of Atlanta Magazine. She thinks to herself that “Going to a restaurant with Atlanta’s Steak King is like dining out with a rock star.” Cam pushes the problem back at Jade—perhaps she should speak to the security folks at the music academy.

Cam has other fish to fry, telling Jade “I’m at the shop on Bolling Way. There was a fire.” The tension flies off the page—stalkers, fires, what’s up with this family? Bolling Way is Cam’s signature restaurant—his house of cards will collapse if fire investigators suspect there’s something untoward in the fire’s origins.

Jade is very upset and her tension spills over to Beatrix and Baxter, tussling over packages of Goldfish in the backseat of the car. When they finally arrive home disaster awaits them. A masked man is hidden in the shadows of her garage. He points a gun at Jade and tells her and the children to get inside the house. The scene is gut-wrenching.

Kimberly Belle brings in another character—Sebastian, the masked gunman. He knows Jade, knows everything about her, her routine and her neighborhood. Sebastian tells Jade they shook hands once at a restaurant opening. Why is he there? What is his object? Jade offers him money, jewelry, the keys to her car but none of that interests him.

Suddenly we throttle forward in time. Journalist/interviewer Juanita is a tough questioner.

Juanita: Why don’t you start by walking us through your version of August 6.



Cam: ‘My’ version?

What a pointedly skeptical question. Juanita accuses Cam of leaving a door open so the invader could get into the garage, implying she doesn’t believe him when he says they never locked the door in question. Cam takes umbrage at her statement.

Cam: And why would you accuse me of such a thing? Are you insinuating I had something to do with the kidnapping of my own family?



Juanita: I wouldn’t be the first to suggest it. In the months since the home invasion, there’s been a great deal of misinformation floating around about you, both online and in print. Most of the stories accuse you of some kind of wrongdoing.

Predictably, Cam calls the rumors “fake news.” By meeting with a journalist, does he hope to clear his name? But what happened in the months before Cam is interviewed by Juanita; to Jade, Beatrix, and Baxter, trapped in their home and to Jake, confronted with the collapse of his restaurant empire. He admitted it to himself at the time: “So there it is, ladies and gentlemen, the truth. Cam Lasky is broke.” The interview technique fleshes out the horror of the home invasion and the restaurant fire. We learn that when Jade and Cam met, he was dead broke—his “first restaurant was deep underwater.” He tells Juanita he owes his success to Jade, that she’s the designer behind the Lasky signature look and brand, something she did on a “shoestring budget.” So why doesn’t he want to revive his empire?

Perhaps the Lasky marriage cannot survive the unspoken lies between Cam and Jade: “Lies and secrets, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind,” Cassandra Clare. Cam was losing his shirt, Jade mourned her former life—and the ever-widening gap between them leads inexorably to tragedy. Like Dear Wife, My Darling Husband reverberates with “riveting twists and a breakneck pace;” it’s impossible to put down.

When your husband is the King of Steaks and owns 5 supposedly successful restaurants the last thing that you think will happen to you is that you will be kidnapped in your own home and be held hostage for an odd amount of money. But that is exactly what happens to Jade and her two children. With their lives on the line can Cam her husband who has been hiding the fact that they are broke, pull together a miracle and find the money requested to save his family before they find out the truth?

This is a fast pace book that bounces back and forth between three different perspectives and main narrators. The story perfectly builds upon itself to revel more and more of the truth as you read. There are twists and turns that you will never see coming, and you will not want to put this book down.

Thank you so much to HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing and Netgalley for letting me read an early copy of this title.

Title: My Darling Husband
Author: Kimberly Belle
Genre: Mystery/thriller
Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Everyone is about to know what her husband isn’t telling her…

Jade and Cam Lasky are by all accounts a happily married couple with two adorable kids, a spacious home and a rapidly growing restaurant business. But their world is tipped upside down when Jade is confronted by a masked home invader. As Cam scrambles to gather the ransom money, Jade starts to wonder if they’re as financially secure as their lifestyle suggests, and what other secrets her husband is keeping from her.

Cam may be a good father, a celebrity chef and a darling husband, but there’s another side he’s kept hidden from Jade that has put their family in danger. Unbeknownst to Cam and Jade, the home invader has been watching them and is about to turn their family secrets into a public scandal.

This was a solid thriller read. Cam’s secret life and everything he’d been hiding from Jade made me not care for him, but he tried to move mountains to save his family. The interview with him spaced throughout the story didn’t do much to make me like him, either. I did like Jade and the kids, though, so I was interested to see how that played out. The ending didn’t surprise me, but who ended up really standing up to the kidnapper did.

Kimberly Belle splits her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam. My Darling Husband is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 3/16.)

Loved spunky Beatrix! Darling husband Cam was a complete jerk. I liked the idea of the home invasion but reading four different viewpoints line storyline was a turn off. Lots of tension with a few twists. Just an okay book.

Cam, Jade, and Sebastian, the man who blows out all the secrets, tell this story of a home invasion and hostage taking. Cam is a celebrity chef but he's also in debt- a lot of debt. Jade, his wife, is shocked when she arrives home with their children to find Sebastian, who is demanding a ransom of $734,296. Why that amount? You won't know for a while but much of Cam's part of this novel is the effort to get the cash. This starts off strong, sags a bit in the middle, and then twists up at the end. No spoilers from me. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. An entertaining read that would make a good movie.

My Darling Husband is bestselling author Kimberly Belle's newest domestic suspense novel.
Jade and Cam have it all - five successful restaurants, two adorable children, a beautiful house and numerous luxuries. They're living large.

Someone else knows that as well. What could be more frightening than a home invasion? A home invasion when your children are home. That's what happens when Jade. What the invader is demanding is is a very specific amount of money - and Cam has a limited time to come up with it.

Great setup! My Darling Husband is actually told from three points of view - Jade, Cam and the invader. As readers, we're privy to the details that Jade doesn't have. Suffice it to say that Cam has been keeping secrets from Jade. Not unexpected in this genre.

Jade is feisty and resists the captor both physically and verbally, even as she tries to figure out why he has chosen their family and home to invade. As she gathers info from her interactions with him, she begins to have her own suspicions - about Cam.

The timeline has now and then movement. We're in the present with Cam as he scrambles to put together the cash. But we're also in the future as he gives an interview to a reporter about the events. The captor's point of view lets the listener know a bit more than Jade does. However, Belle caught my off guard with unexpected developments in the last bit of the plot that surprised me. (Surprises are good!) Without providing spoilers, there's definitely some social commentary woven into the invader's impetus and the book's epilogue.

My Darling Husband was a fast paced, action based listen. There were a few situations where I had to suspend disbelief, but overall an entertaining entry in the domestic suspense genre.

This was a crazy, exciting read! I loved the storyline and especially the way it was written through different points of view. Perfect book for me and I think it would make a great movie or tv miniseries!

Thank you to Harlequin Trade for letting me read this one. This book publishes March 8.

This one was just non stop in the best way. If you’re in a reading rut, this book will peel you out of it. I had a hard time putting this one down, literally. Don’t think that you can multi task while reading this one, it will suck you all the way in. It’s not going to change your life by any means, nope I take that back it is. I just don’t want to tell you how because I’m not here to spoil this book for you, I’m here to tell you to read it! Go get your library holds and preorders ready my friends.

Jade and Cam Lasky are happily married, they have two kids and a huge home. They have a nice life funded by Cam’s rapidly growing restaurant business. One day their world is rocked by a home invader. Cam is trying his hardest to gather ransom money and Jade it trying to hold it all together for her and their kids. This book has huge twists and a super fast pace. I can’t wait to read more by Kimberly Belle.

Kimberly Belle really knows how to create suspense! This is an almost non-stop, edge of your seat thriller. A home invasion, a family hostage situation, and a ransom demand already hints of suspense. But add in a husband/father running around town trying to get the money - some of those scenes really had my heart going. Who would have thought standing in line in a bank could provoke such anxiety? Great page turner.

Fast passed - easy read. This book had me on edge all the way through. Like the interview/live swapping - gave more depth to the characters and story.

Had to work to keep from flipping ahead - so worried about Jade and the Bee's! Good ending - wraps things up nicely.

This book was so well written, and kept me on the edge of my seat. Loved how well the characters were developed, which can be hard to find. Highly recommend.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Cam is a famous chef, known state-wide for his multiple steak houses. Married to Jade, with two beautiful children, the Lansky’s seem to have it all. But their worst nightmare comes true when Jade and her children are confronted by a home invader, who insists Cam pay ransom or his entire family will be killed. As the day continues, Jade begins to realize that the intruder is not some random criminal, and that he has personally selected her family and although she doesn’t know why, it seems that Cam is keeping serious secrets from her- secrets that have put her and their children’s lives at risk.
“My Darling Husband” is Kimberly Belle’s seventh novel, and her best yet. Gritty, suspenseful and utterly addictive, I could not put this book down!
Right from page one, I was pulled into the storyline, and I wanted to see how the novel ended just as much as I didn’t want the novel to end. Jade’s fierce protective nature as she risks it all to save her kids had me rooting for her from the onset. “Husband” is told in alternating viewpoints, Jade, Cam and the intruder himself, and the reader is able to experience the entire thrilling drama from all three perspectives.
Belle takes everyone’s worst nightmare (a home invasion), adds some family secrets, and completes the recipe by adding the utter desperation of a parents’ love. Each character had their flaws, but Belle writes them in a completely human way, and there was not an unlikable one in the bunch. I even felt sympathy for the home invader himself, when his story and hardships were revealed. Not to mention the unexpectedly brave prodigy Beatrix and cute-as-a-button Baxter and Belle has hit it out of the park!
“Husband” is one of those novels where I was convinced I knew how it would play out, but there were unexpected twists and turns on almost every page. Belle’s creativity and writing style has been honed to perfection in this one, and I cannot say enough good things about “My Darling Husband”.

Loved it and would give the book 4.5 stars. All was not what it seemed for for Atlanta's Steak King. It wasn't as perfect as everyone believed. Especially for Jade, who had no idea what was really happening with Cam and all his secrets The extreme measures people take to get back at someone. All I know is I would want Beatrix with me if I was ever held hostage in my house. Although, Beatrix will probably need therapy for the rest of her life after what she went through with her mom and brother. Cam was definitely a scumbag and definitely not darling. He was extremely overextended financially and kept borrowing from Paul to pay Peter. (Where Paul was a scary, stripclub owning mobster.) When the truth came out about the restaurant fire, I wasn't expecting it. Although, maybe I should have after learning about what type of man Jade's husband really was. Sebastian took it to the extreme to get back at Cam. He planned everything so there would be money for all the medical treatments. He knew what he was doing. I was shocked about his accomplice. I can understand Sebastian's hatred for Cam, he's a terrible person, but why take it out on innocent children.

Definitely recommend the book. It was a great mystery/thriller. I couldn't put the book down because I needed to know what happened to Jade and her children. Look forward to reading more books by the author.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing (U.S. & Canada) through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book had my heart pumping, pulse racing and gave me a knot in my stomach. I would put it down, then seconds later pick it up again because I had to know what happened next. Scary, twisted and so eerily realistic. I usually can’t read in the car, but this one kept my nose in the book during a long car ride! Perfect suspense novel with lots of twists and turns.

Jade and Cam Lasky are a perfect couple .. beautiful, rich, owning a chain of high end steak houses. Happily married with 2 precocious children. But, you can’t get to these heights without making enemies, whether intentional or not, real or imagined. Their perfect life takes a chilling turn when Jade and her children are taken hostage in their home by a masked intruder. With an odd monetary demand and a race against the clock, Cam, already having a bad day, is faced with trying to solve a puzzle while his families life is ticking away. Jade is full blown Mama Bear, trying to keep her kids calm and safe while trying to get to the bottom of the intruder’s demands and identity. Story is told thru Cam, Jade, Intruder and thru an interview, which really keeps the reader engaged and the story moving fast!

Thanks to Ms. Belle, Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.

Jade and Cam Laksy are a happily married couple with two children and a thriving restaurant business.
The story starts with Can’s interview; a discussion whereby he shares what led to his downfall as a famous restaurateur and chef.
As the narration progresses through the telling of multiple perspectives, we learn what led to an intruder holding Cam’s wife and two children hostage for a large sum of money.
$734,296 in cash to be exact.
What secrets had Cam been hiding from his family?
My first read by this author, this was a fast and enjoyable domestic thriller. The character development was well done, especially of the young musical prodigy Beatrix.
Both Can and the home invader were flawed characters. The partially surprising climax revealed itself well.
This was a fast and enjoyable read.

Cam and Jade seem to have the perfect marriage. Two wonderful kids. He is the Steak King of Atlanta. But behind the facade, things are rocky. Cam is in debt and this has now put his marriage and his family's life in jeopardy.

An interesting read. Good character development.

My Darling Husband by Kimberly Belle was a book that kept me on the edge of my seat until the end. If you love suspense you will love this book. Highly recommended.

An extremely fast-paced and anxiety filled read! I read this one extremely quickly, and although satisfied- still think it was missing a little something. This is definitely a domestic thriller with a few sprinkles of suspense to add a layer to the growing panic.

Thank you NetGalley and HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing (U.S. & Canada) for this ARC!

Another knockout success from Kimberly Belle! I loved Jade and Cam's story, with all its twisty turns and the ticking clock of a plot that kept me on my toes the entire time. Who's telling the truth? Who's lying? Who's the victim, and who's the perpetrator? No one pens these morally gray lines better than Belle, lining her stories with stark truths we all face in our daily reality and making us ask the important questions.

The overwhelming theme of motherhood and the lionesses we become to protect our children was a resounding highlight for me. What would any of us do for our children—or, rather, what wouldn't we do?

Thank you to NetGalley and to Park Row for allowing me to read this novel in exchange for my honest review.

My Darling Husband
Kimberly Belle

Taut at times, hesitant at others. Tense, quick, and rushed at times, leisurely and tepid at others.

There are multiple timelines and povs and DAMN it’s hard to do.

This one suffers from inequality of pacing between the timelines. I’m in the current timeline and the pacing, intensity, and tone are different from the past timeline. Which is high tension, anxiety-inducing, and whispers of Karin Slaughters Pretty Girls.

In the current, there is jest and humor. In the past, you want to piss your pants. It’s jarring and isn’t effective.

The tension does not carry.

It doesn’t carry because I don’t care. Which is a completely different problem.

So the negatives are character-building, empathy, and pacing. A positive is at least half of the book was enjoyable...at times.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this advanced copy!

Out now!