Bestselling author Jeneva Rose didn’t expect she’d ever be able to publish a sequel to “The Perfect Marriage.” But like any good thriller writer, she left a few clues unanswered.
“The Perfect Marriage” follows a seemingly copacetic couple, Sarah and Adam Morgan, whose lives turn upside down when Adam is accused of murdering his mistress and top-dog attorney Sarah decides to represent him. “The Perfect Divorce” (Blackstone Publishing, out now) adds even more twists to the murder mystery that’s sold over one million copies and has been acquired for a film adaptation.
Rose wrote “The Perfect Marriage,” published in 2020, on weekends and evenings as a passion project outside of her full-time job. Now that she’s got a fanbase of hungry readers, several other thrillers under her belt and three (that’s right – three) books coming out in 2025, Rose says the pressure is on. Stepping back into the world of Sarah for the first time in years, she didn’t want to let her readers down. But as early reviews for the book poured in, her anxieties eased.
“People are saying it’s better than ‘The Perfect Marriage,’ I’m a little offended by that,” Rose says, laughing.
‘The Perfect Divorce’ picks up after ‘The Perfect Marriage’ twist ending
The investigation into Kelly Summers’ murder in “The Perfect Marriage” hinged on three sets of DNA evidence. Two are explained away, but that third set of DNA is revealed without much additional explanation.
Until now.
“The Perfect Divorce” is set 11 years after the events of the first book. Sarah has moved on, opening a nonprofit organization and starting a family with her new husband, Bob. But history has a way of repeating itself, and Sarah is determined to learn from her past relationship. So when she discovers Bob had a one-night stand, she swiftly files for divorce. But then the woman Bob slept with goes missing and new revelations in the decade-old Summers case send Sarah and Bob back into the interrogation room.
That third DNA component is what drove Rose to pick up Sarah Morgan’s story again. She didn’t want to write a sequel just to write a sequel – she needed a catalyst to reopen the case, so to speak.
“What more do readers need to learn about her? It needs to be as twisty and jaw-dropping as ‘The Perfect Marriage’ because it’s a thriller and that’s what readers expect these days – you need to make their jaws drop,” Rose says.
Once she had that, she spent a day with the Appleton Police Department in Wisconsin on a ride-along and taking tours of the forensics department. She spent so much time with them that she named two characters – Lieutenant Nagel and Chief Deputy Olson – after the police officers she met. And then she got into the nitty gritty – asking them what they would need, hypothetically, to reopen a case like the one in “The Perfect Marriage.”
The result is several interwoven cat-and-mouse games as the cases and bodies pile up in “The Perfect Divorce.” The book is also a departure from Rose’s style in “The Perfect Marriage,” told from Sarah and Adam’s alternating perspectives. Now, readers get inside the heads of Bob, former deputy Marcus Hudson and other new characters. Rose said writing Bob’s perspective was a favorite because he played such a major role from the sidelines in “The Perfect Marriage.”
More to come for ‘The Perfect Marriage’ series
Readers will also find a few extra easter eggs in the novel’s endpages and author acknowledgements, where Rose has become notorious for dropping hints about future work.
“I’m not done with (Sarah),” she says. “There’s so much for her as a character and her growth.”
A future book, she hints, could focus on Sarah’s relationship with her daughter as she ages. In the first book, readers find out the truth about Sarah’s murky (and deadly) relationship with her mom. How could that play out in this generation?
“What happens when she has a daughter that’s a teenager and can no longer be a child that everything is hidden from?” Rose says. “What happens when that daughter finds out everything that their mother has done in order to protect them?”
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at [email protected].
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