When Perfect Falls Apart

The Bexley Hills Series (A Contemporary Women Fiction on Marriage, Manipulation, and Moving On)

Lauren Holmes has the ideal life, or so everyone thinks.

At fifty-two, she lives in an elegant Connecticut home, organizes charity galas, and appears to have it all with her successful pharmaceutical executive husband. But behind the polished facade, Lauren feels invisible in her own marriage, suffocating under twenty-three years of emotional neglect disguised as domestic bliss.

When a single text message shatters her world, Lauren discovers her husband's eighteen-month affair and something far worse. Hidden offshore accounts. Millions in concealed assets. A man who's been systematically stealing from their marriage while she planned dinner parties and wondered why she felt so alone.

Suddenly, the ideal wife everyone envied becomes the woman no one wants to know. Friends disappear. Committee memberships evaporate. Her husband launches a psychological warfare campaign designed to make her question her own sanity. But Lauren refuses to go quietly.

Armed with a forensic accountant, a fierce divorce attorney, and a strength she never knew she possessed, Lauren begins documenting the truth about financial abuse and discovers her story could save thousands of other women trapped in marriages that look ideal from the outside.

Sometimes the life that falls apart was never really yours to begin with.

A powerful debut about midlife awakening, the courage to start over, and the radical act of choosing yourself when everyone expects you to disappear.

I heard it the first time.

Many parts of the book were repetitive, so much so it was frustrating and resulted in me skipping over chapters just to finish the book.

Okay story, but AI narration rough

The story was good, but the heroine got extremely self-righteous to the point that you went from admiring her to being annoyed. AI narration was rough. The voice was beautiful but the tone for many situations was off and many words were pronounced wrong. I would say the thing that bothered me the most about the book was hearing the same phrases used over and over again to describe situations. Otherwise, I still listened to the whole thing, but I won’t listen to it again.

Worst listen ever

It was a good story with a lot of good content, but it had to be the most poorly written thing I have ever listened to or read. And when coupled with the AI narrator, it was almost unbearable. I was interested in the characters and the storyline, so I stuck it out; but it was excruciating.