The Marriage Lie(97)

My editor, Liz Stein, for loving this story and taking it on as your own. Your brilliance and tenacity helped shape The Marriage Lie into what it is today. And to all the hardworking and dedicated people behind the scenes at MIRA Books, I’m blessed to be on your team.

Laura Drake, critique partner extraordinaire, and early readers Koreen Myers, Colleen Oakley and Alexandra Ratcliff. Andrea Peskind Katz, you were right. You are an excellent beta reader, and you volunteered yourself right to the top of my list.

Scott Masterson, whose voice I heard in my head whenever Evan spoke. Thanks for answering my silly questions and for feeding me one of Evan’s best lines.

The fabulous ladies of Altitude, my early readers and cheerleaders: Nancy Davis, Marquette Dreesch, Angelique Kilkelly, Jen Robinson, Amanda Sapra and Tracy Willoughby. Seeing you girls is the best day of the month.

My parents, Diane and Bob Maleski, for their never-ending encouragement and thoughtful feedback. I hope this one makes you proud.

And lastly, my very favorite people on the planet. Isabella, you are a master at coming up with plot twists. Are you sure you don’t want to be a writer? Ewoud and Evan, thank you for your patience and encouragement, and sorry about all the takeout. You three have my heart.





About the Author

Kimberly Belle is the author of The Last Breath, The Ones We Trust and The Marriage Lie. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Agnes Scott College and has worked in fund-raising for nonprofits at home and abroad. She divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.





           THE

MARRIAGE

LIE

    Kimberly Belle

    Reader’s Guide





Questions for Discussion

          After the crash, Iris discovers pretty quickly that her husband had been keeping deep secrets from her. Consider his reasoning for not telling Iris the truth. Is it ever necessary or justifiable to lie to someone you love? How much is too much to hide from a partner?

     Does Iris bear any of the blame for accepting her husband’s secrecy about his past? Should she have spotted the holes in his stories sooner in their relationship? In what ways could Iris have been lying to herself?

     When Iris discovers that Will had a disadvantaged youth in Seattle, she begins to have a better understanding of his need to own a home that would essentially make them house poor. In what other ways do you think his past difficulties affected the life he built with Iris?

     Do you think Will is a sympathetic character? Do you believe he became a good man, one who had truly left his past sins behind? Is it possible to completely leave the past behind and become a “changed person,” so to speak? To what extent does a person’s past influence or define one’s future?

     Iris’s job as a psychologist plays a pivotal role in her life and in her beliefs, yet she doesn’t see her husband’s true nature. Why do you think this is? Is love really that blind, or does Iris only see what she wants to see? Have you ever turned the other way and chosen to ignore something? Explain why.

     Iris has a special bond with one of her students, Ava, a beautiful teenager who, despite all her wealth and advantages, still can’t find happiness. What do you think the author’s purpose was in creating this character? How does Ava’s message relate back to the story of Iris and Will?

     After the crash, Iris finds a friend in Evan Sheffield. Do you think, had they met in other circumstances, that they would have become friends? Or was their friendship a result of their shared trauma and grief? How do you imagine their relationship playing out a year down the road? Five years?

     Did the truth about Corban surprise you? If not, at what point did you begin to suspect his character?

     Iris says to Will, “I should hate you. I want to hate you. I want to be physically ill because I’m sitting in the same room as you, but I’m not. I don’t. I still love you and I despise myself for it.” Can you understand how she feels? Have you ever loved and hated someone at the same time?

     In the last scene, even though Iris’s reasons for pushing the panic button aren’t clear in her mind, she is positive it’s the right thing to do. Do you agree? Would you have done the same in her position? In what ways does pushing that button give Iris closure?





A Conversation with the Author

You have been married to your husband for twenty years. It must be incredibly difficult to imagine your spouse dying in a plane crash. Did this make the novel difficult to write, or did having a husband make it easier to bring the character of Iris and her agony to life?

Yes, I definitely pulled from my own relationship for this story, especially that intense, giddy love that comes early on in a relationship. That’s when you’re willing to overlook any signs things may not be as they seem, signs that might stand out to you later in the course of the relationship, and having experienced this firsthand definitely helped me put Iris in that vulnerable place. What was much more difficult for me was the story line around the crash itself. My family flies a lot, and imagining losing one of them in that way—so sudden and unexpected—was not pleasant. To say I didn’t enjoy flying while writing this story is a huge understatement.