Guilty Wives [Hardcover]

I've finished "Guilty Wives" by James Patterson and David Ellis.

Product Description

No husbands allowed

Only minutes after Abbie Elliot and her three best friends step off of a private helicopter, they enter the most luxurious, sumptuous, sensually pampering hotel they have ever been to. Their lavish presidential suite overlooks Monte Carlo, and they surrender: to the sun and pool, to the sashimi and sake, to the Bruno Paillard champagne. For four days they're free to live someone else's life. As the weekend moves into pulsating discos, high-stakes casinos, and beyond, Abbie is transported to the greatest pleasure and release she has ever known.

What happened last night?

In the morning's harsh light, Abbie awakens on a yacht, surrounded by police. Something awful has happened -- something impossible, unthinkable. Abbie, Winnie, Serena, and Bryah are arrested and accused of the foulest crime imaginable. And now the vacation of a lifetime becomes the fight of a lifetime -- for survival. GUILTY WIVES is the ultimate indulgence, the kind of nonstop joy-ride of excess, friendship, betrayal, and danger that only James Patterson can create.

About the Author

James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson's books have sold more than 230 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women's Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

David Ellis is the award-winning author of seven novels, including Line of Vision, for which he won the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and The Hidden Man, which earned him a 2009 L.A. Times Book Prize nomination. Ellis is the Chief Counsel to the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and he recently served as the House Prosecutor who tried and convicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Product Details
Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (March 26, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 031609756X
ISBN-13: 978-0316097567

My Review:

Four wives go on a trip to Monte Carlo on a Girl's Weekend to have fun by gambling and partying and to escape their abusive and unfaithful distant husbands.  Serena Schofield, a former U.S. Champion skier and  she is the one paying the bill for this weekend. Her husband provides for her but it really is a loveless marriage. Bryah Gordon, born in Johannesburg but her husband is very controlling and sometimes is physically abusive so this is her first ever weekend away with just the girls. Winnie Brookes, an exotic Brit, beautiful inside as well as out. Her husband was in British Intelligence for years and now works at the British Embassy in Bern. Finally there is Abbie Elliot, her husband is a diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Bern.

They all have fun gambling at the casinos, dancing at the clubs, eating exotic food, drinking expensive liquor, hanging around pools and attracting attention from gorgeous men.

The next morning they wake up on a yacht surrounded by police and arrested for an unspeakable crime they didn't commit.

I really did enjoy the premise of the storyline but some parts were really hard to stomach (ex: jail torture and rape) because they were quite graphic and horrible.

The heroine of this story is about Abbie who endures tons of abuse and torture which helps in her character development.

3/5