Publisher: Mark Boutros (December 29, 2025)
Mia and Rami's marriage is dead. They're in their thirties and reeling from a miscarriage, but love left long ago. Rami, a fantasist, believes they can revive it, but Mia has reached her limit.
On a rainy drive, she finally asks for a divorce, but in the ensuing argument they cause a tragic accident. Terrified of the consequences, they make the best bad choice, to work together and cover it up.
Will this be the worst decision they’ve ever made, or the one that resurrects their marriage?
My Rating: 1 star out of 5
When I pick up a novel from an author who is new to me and, before I’ve even reached the prologue, I’m hit with “If you don’t enjoy the book, let’s just pretend you didn’t read it and all move on”… yeah, no, I am instantly turned off. You cannot be an author if you only want reviews that are going to praise your book. I hate to break it to you, but that isn’t how reviewing works, and I am not going to “forget” that I read your book if I don’t enjoy it. In fact, full disclosure, I had to put this book down and go read something else first, just so I could forget about that (although I made a note so when it came time to review, I would remember to mention it).
That being said, this book is just absolute garbage. Which I hate to say as I know someone put a lot of time and thought into creating it, but wow, this has to be the worst book I’ve read of 2026 so far.
Let’s start off by talking about the characters. First up we have Mia, who displays all the signs of being a psychopath. She uses people for her own gains, discarding them without a backwards glance (or thought to their feelings) once she has decided they no longer serve her. She is also an alcoholic who has no qualms whatsoever about driving while intoxicated. Although, considering Rami (her husband) has no backbone whatsoever and whines like a petulant child all of the time, I can understand not only the drinking but the affair and also why she wanted a divorce in the first place. The man was utterly exhausting. Not to mention it was his stupid choices that led to the accident that irrevocably changed their lives in the first place.
Unfortunately, the background characters were just as bad. Mia is thirty-five years old, so it would make sense for her friends to be as well, yet her closest friend Lyn has no trouble constantly saying “Lyn for the win!” or calling her Instagram followers “Lynstas” and saying “Lynsta Instas Assemble” What grown woman talks like this? Although considering she also is friends with someone who goes by “Gyal Pal” I suppose maturity isn’t high on her list of priorities (and I’ll touch on more of her annoying qualities when I get to the plot).
And last, but certainly not least we have Wilfred aka the other man. His last name is something like Throckmorton, but that name is lost within all of the utterly juvenile and stupid puns he makes about it. Throcky? Throck till you drop? Ready to Throck your world? Honestly, for the life of me I couldn’t see what Mia found so appealing in a man who talked like that. That isn’t to say there aren’t other background characters (the neighbors Jenny and Iris, or the Detectives whose names are escaping me at the moment), but they weren’t nearly as annoying (although Jenny does come close a couple of times) as the ones I mentioned.
Plot-wise, things don’t fare much better.
From the start it was obvious that this author was not an American, which I don’t have an issue with as I read a lot of novels set in the UK and written by UK authors. What I did have an issue with was this line in particular; “Growing up, his uncle had told him the most humane way would be shooting an injured deer in the brain, but this wasn’t America, so he couldn’t exactly pop to the nearest service station and buy a bazooka.” That tells me immediately that this author has done absolutely NO research on gun laws in the United States, because trust me when I said if getting a bazooka of all things was as easy as popping into a gas station, my family would be a lot more worried when I texted them asking them to guess what I just did.
Now, I could overlook that because I know a lot of non-American authors don’t understand or appreciate the second amendment (which still doesn’t grant you the ability to buy any type of firearm at a gas station, but I digress), if the rest of the novel had stood up. But it didn’t.
In fact, from there, the book just goes off the rails. Because even with this shared secret, Rami is still the same pathetic idiot he’s always been thinking this is somehow going to change things in his life and fuse his marriage back together, while Mia is still openly hostile towards him. But of course, they have to work together, which only fuels this back and forth between the main characters.
And then there is Lyn (again). She is told Mia and Rami are going on a romantic holiday to try and fix their marriage, yet she insists on coming along. Then she insists on accompanying them on their late-night romantic picnic because “they need her”. Girl take a freaking hint, if they were actually trying to reconcile their marriage your intrusion would be even more unwelcome than it already was.
But then this is the same woman who immediately jumped to the conclusion that her “boyfriend” had met with some kind of horrific end even though she only thought that because he said he was coming to her birthday party and didn’t show up. She seriously berates the police for not working harder to find said boyfriend, going out of her way to undermine their investigation, when anyone who actually lived in reality would have seen that there was NOTHING for the police to actually investigate. Both parties involved are grown adults who are not “at risk”. Lyn even tells the police that they have only been together for three months, and she doesn’t even know where he lives because he always came to hers, yet she never once pauses to consider that maybe boyfriend of hers just …. got tired of her and decided to ghost her? And the police never bring this up as a possibility? No wonder she called them useless.
Anyway, things happen as they happen and the story just goes
from bad to worse. Seriously. The spare guy is suddenly bad, the psychopath tries to poison
the neighbors dog (and if I could give negative stars for a book, this is where this one would be at for me by this point), the good guy is still as useless as ever
and where was I going with this? Much like the story I don’t know.
By the time the story limped its way to the end, I was well past caring. Yes, things technically “wrap up,” but it felt like the bare minimum effort was put into getting there. Honestly, I was just relieved to be done with it.
This one was a miss in every possible way for me. And that miss was before the author doubled down after the story ended by once again saying "If you didn’t enjoy it, then just pretend you didn’t read it and move on."
And for this author? No, I will NOT pretend that I didn't read this slop, but rest assured, I will add your name to my do-not-read list from here on out.
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