Sounds come, but I’m so disoriented that I don’t know where they come from. Is it only my pulse, the rush of blood in my ears? All that being said, I am a fan of Kubica and love to read thrillers written by fellow Chicagoans. I am looking forward to reading her next thriller and hope it will deliver a hit! The second big hang-up was how little happened within the plot for a large chunk of the book. I kept waiting for what I hear is Mary Kubica’s trademark mind-blowing twist and, while there certainly was one (and it was positively earth-shattering), it came at the last minute, leaving very little time to explore the ramifications of what happened. Equally, I wasn’t thrilled with the ending despite how it satisfactorily resolved all of the remaining hanging threads of the story. I guess I was simply hoping for a little, well, more. Jake and Nina are married with no children allowing them plenty of time for each other. Jake needs quality time with his wife. Except lately Nina’s been distracted and preoccupied with the health care of her mother and Jake’s feeling neglected. Fighting about the time she spends with her mother has become something common between Jake and her. Lily says, “Yes, fine.” She says that we have an alarm. We pay for it. We might as well use it. She isn’t wrong—it’s just that she’s never wanted to before.

Jake Hayes is missing. Jake’s wife Nina thinks it’s due to a fight the couple had and confesses as much to her coworker Lily. Lily however may have been the last person to see Jake and confesses to her husband Christian. Christian only wants to protect Lily and their unborn child Lily is carrying so he knows Nina cannot find out the truth. My favorite kind of thrillers are these type of domestic stories. I think they are quite fascinating and really makes you think. This one is a look at two very different marriages: Lily and Christian seem quite happy while Nina and Jake fight constantly. But even with Lily and Christian, there are still untold secrets between the two of them. When we meet the couples, Lily is pregnant…again. She has suffered multiple miscarriages and is now both terrified of losing her most recent pregnancy and almost convinced that it will happen again. As a result, she is overly cautious, putting an end to her usual running routine and trying to avoid stress as much as possible. Across town, Nina and Jake have had a blowout fight: Nina, Jake claims, has been spending too much time with her ailing mother and has put him second, which annoys the smug, self-centered surgeon. At 38, Nina is conscious that she definitely does not want to start over, especially if she would like to have children one day. But even so, she cannot help the ugly, vicious words that come out of her mouth: If you hate it here so much, why don’t you leave? Similar to the above five baseball players, Mary Kubica also hit a "grand slam" in her first time "at bat" with her debut novel "The Good Girl". Nina, meanwhile, believes Jake has just left her in his anger until she receives a call from the hospital where he works telling her that he has not come to work since Monday. Nina reports Jake missing at the police department, but the police do not seem to be too concerned about him. Nina even rescinds the missing person report on Jake when her mother, who has been staying with Nina since Jake’s disappearance, claims that Jake came home. Then, he left again when he realized she was there. Nina’s mother has macular degeneration, making it difficult for her to identify people. The man in the house was really Christian, looking for the key to Jake’s car so he could move it.Rich with detail and a mounting, almost suffocating sense of dread, Just the Nicest Couple is a dark and twisted exploration of loyalty, family, and how far we’ll go to protect the ones we love." —Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Here

Walking into their living room, he sees in an instant that his gut was right. Lily finally divulges the whole truth: that she believes she was the last person to see Jake before he disappeared. Together, they agree that this should be kept between the two of them. No one, especially Nina, should learn what she knows. Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for her husband, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered.A husband’s disappearance links two couples in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing, Mary Kubica Fascinating, right?! That's paraphrased because I don't feel like trying to find the passage in my audiobook, but I'm only slightly exaggerating. She does this over and over again. The pace of the book was good, but these descriptions would bog things down and I'd be muttering to myself, "Okay, Nina is opening a letter - we all know how that is done, so can we get ON with it?!" Don't miss Mary Kubica's chilling upcoming novel, She's Not Sorry, where an ICU nurse accidentally uncovers a patient's frightening past...

Kubica says she always loved to write but did not set out to draft thrillers. Rather, she found her way to the genre by accident after writing in a variety of other styles, primarily general women’s fiction. But she knew something was missing because she repeatedly found herself bored with her own manuscripts before she finished them. She began penning thrillers “totally by accident.” The Good Girl was meant to be a love story, but she decided to add some mystery elements, having no idea that the story would end up being “so dark and twisty.” She loved where the writing took her and knew immediately that she had found her niche. That said, JUST THE NICEST COUPLE tends to be overly descriptive about minute details while just grazing the surface of the relationships between the couples and one another. The novel is terrifically introspective about each person’s motivations, yet I often had a hard time relating to these characters. I also thought the ending was a bit of a letdown and wish it had been more realistic.

When a man disappears under suspicious circumstances, a young couple tries to cover their involvement while his wife begins to wonder what they know. A husband’s disappearance links two couples in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing, Mary Kubica Nina’s friend Lily thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for Jake, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered. Or would you prefer playing a fun game? Take a shot every time Lily’s teenie tiny petite body type is mentioned . . .

I enjoyed the two narrators and at first I thought I leaned more towards the performance for Nina. But, the storytelling for Christian’s narrative was what had me mesmerized as the story progressed. No matter, as both delivered fine performances. And to me, that’s what makes these kind of stories entertaining! I thought the reveals were surprising but not too over the top (let’s face it, most thrillers do go in a bizarre direction with the reveals). Meanwhile, Nina has discovered that Jake’s gun is missing from their safe. She also has found a traffic violation issued to her mother the day Jake disappeared, a violation that is suspicious since her mother claims she cannot see well enough to drive. Nina searches her mother’s house and finds Jake’s gun in the trunk of her mother’s car. Her mother finds Nina with the gun and tries to explain that she saw how unhappy Jake was making Nina. Nina’s mother believes she did Nina a favor by killing Jake. She believes Nina should be grateful to her. Nina acts as if she is not going to turn her mother in to the police.Just the Nicest Couple is a bland thriller about two couples, a missing husband, and the plot to cover up his disappearance.