JoAnn Chaney | AS LONG AS WE BOTH SHALL LIVE

Plot (via Goodreads):

"My wife! I think she's dead!" Matt frantically tells park rangers that he and his wife, Marie, were hiking when she fell off a cliff into the raging river below. They start a search, but they aren't hopeful: no one could have survived that fall. It was a tragic accident.

But Matt's first wife also died in suspicious circumstances. And when the police pull a body out of the river, they have a lot more questions for Matt.

Detectives Loren and Spengler want to know if Matt is a grieving, twice-unlucky husband or a cold-blooded murderer. They dig into the couple's lives to see what they can unearth. And they find that love's got teeth, it's got claws, and once it hitches you to a person, it's tough to rip yourself free.

So what happens when you're done making it work?

Review:

About a year and a half ago, when I read JoAnn Chaney's debut novel What You Don't Know, I was floored. The plot was disturbing and petrifying with characters that were top notch and an ending that left me floored and pleading for more. When As Long as We Both Shall Live was announced, I immediately put it on my wishlist and sent out a very premature email to see if I could get an ARC of this new title from an author I would already consider one of my favorites after only reading one novel...and that is how you become a fan of JoAnn Chaney - and I never looked back.

I knew I was in for something exceptional when I opened the very first page to find a few quotes and one was from my absolute favorite movie The War of the Roses. Hmm, so if you are quoting that movie, this must be a real kick-in-the-shins type of book about marriage - oh yes, it is and it is so much more. Let me tell you, with the opening to this novel I was giddy, anxious, and spellbound immediately. I actually read the first chapter three times because I was so high on Chaney's prose. I found myself laughing and kind of taking a trip down memory lane noticing the similarities in her writing from What You Don't Know and this novel. JoAnn Chaney is masterful storyteller with razor-sharp writing and does not hold back showing her reader the beauty and the ugly in her characters and the world they have created. I just love the grittiness and the brutality in her writing, especially when she is writing something you wouldn't think could be described with so much sensory detail. Chaney is in my opinion, the queen of fearless prose.

I swear, this novel was everything I wanted and more. Each time I thought I had something to grasp onto, Chaney threw me in another direction and I was starting from scratch again. I loved the contrast between the past and the present and seeing how one character grew from a boy to a man, but still kept a tight grip on some of his character flaws. Seeing the return of one character from her previous novel made me smile endlessly as if this is a world where both novels are connected, get me a ticket because I'm moving into town. I absolutely loved reading every single character in this novel (even the ones who you would throat punch in real life) and yes, I do have an absolute favorite and no, I won't tell you who it is. I found likable and non-likable traits in every single one which just brings the personalization of these characters to a state of euphoria for a reader.

Dare I say that I actually loved this one more than What You Don't Know. I think this one was a bit more on the psychological side and Chaney found her niche when it comes to pacing a novel in the most brilliant way possible. Like a coiling snake preparing for attack, the pacing in this novel strikes in all of the right places and will have a grip on you before you realize what is happening. The twists, turns, and revelations are done flawlessly and in a much believable manner. I loved how this almost felt like a miniseries of a novel in which each part (featuring some great choices in song lyrics) had a different feel than any of the others and every single question you could possibly ask when you get to the bottom of this sinister tale was wondrously executed. Every single sentence adds beauty to the sinister mural that JoAnn Chaney is creating for her reader - and that's not paint, it's blood.

Special thanks to Flatiron Books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 5/5