Below, the water swirled and foamed. She could hear the roar from up here, over the pounding of her heart.
“No,” she said, backing away from the edge.
“Go ahead.”
“Go…ahead?”
“Go ahead and jump. You know you want to.”
It’s Always The Husband is a suspenseful, absorbing novel that cleverly examines the complexities of female friendships. Full of deftly handled twists and turns, this novel will keep readers enthralled right up to its shocking conclusion.
Old-money New Yorker Kate, scholarship student Aubrey, and local girl Jenny first meet as college roommates at Carlisle College in New Hampshire, and – despite being from such varied backgrounds and circumstances – quickly become inseparable. They all have their own struggles and emotional fragilities; grades, substance abuse, families and betrayal – only ambitious Jenny seems to stand outside the constant dramas that plague the other two.
When a tragedy occurs during their final year, the truth around the event forever binds the three women while creating a rift that cannot be healed. A friend is dead, two of them know what happened but none of them are talking. Although long-buried secrets often find a way to reach the surface.
The novel opens with the murder of one of these women 22 years following their final year. Information about her identity is drip-fed to the reader, slowly raising the tension, all the while leading to a stunning and nail-biting conclusion that will leave thriller-fans deeply satisfied.
Alternating between the women’s college days and 22-years on, It’s Always The Husband is a compelling study on the hold the formative friendships of youth can have over adults, and the insidious way they can pull you back to a past that you’ve tried to forget. Campbell is very successful at fleshing these three characters out, we understand them and at times empathise with their pain. We learn much about what motivates them and what holds them back, and so when the full truth is revealed the shock is that much greater.
Having worked as a federal prosecutor for over a decade, Campbell brings her extensive experience in the darker side of human nature to the novel – creating three characters who, despite being at times unsympathetic, are deeply compelling and complex. She steadily weaves threads of familiarity and distrust between Kate, Aubrey and Jenny throughout the novel until they are so tightly bound to one another that the reader knows something will give. And it does – spectacularly.
About the Author
Michele Campbell is a graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School. She worked at a prestigious Manhattan law firm before spending eight years fighting crime in NYC as a federal prosecutor. This is her first novel.
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