My Readers Guide to The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose is what you need before starting the sequel to The Perfect Marriage. I have a character list (there are a lot of returning characters!) plus a rundown of the MANY twists and turns. Finally, there are spoilers for The Perfect Divorce and the ending explained as best as I can. Let’s go!
Readers Guide for The Perfect Divorce
Table of Contents for my Readers Guide for the Perfect Divorce:
Jen’s Quick and Spoiler Free Take on The Perfect Divorce
Character List for The Perfect Divorce
What You Need to Remember About The Perfect Marriage
Spoilers for The Perfect Divorce
The Perfect Divorce: Ending Explained
The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose: Jen’s Quick Take
- The Perfect Divorce is a sequel and reading the first book is pretty much required
- Like The Perfect Marriage, The Perfect Divorce is a bit of a hybrid
- The Perfect Marriage was a Domestic Thriller + Legal Suspense
- The Perfect Divorce is more Domestic Thriller + Police Procedural
- Like The Perfect Marriage, which saves the twists until the end, the twists in The Perfect Divorce fast and furious. They were almost too much for me.
- Now that I’ve read both books, these books remind me a lot of the Peter Swanson books The Kind Worth Killing and The Kind Worth Saving.
- Publication Date: April 15, 2025 by Blackstone. Thanks to the publisher for the advance review copy.
- Nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in 2025
Character List for The Perfect Divorce
Asterisked characters are in (or mentioned in) both books
- Sarah Morgan*
- Adam Morgan*
- Bob Miller*
- Summer*: Sarah and Bob’s nine year old daughter*
- Kelly Summers* (aka Jenna Way)
- Scott Summers*: Kelly’s second husband and former police officer
- Marcus Hudson* Scott Summers’s former partner, now the police chief
- Ryan Stevens*: former sheriff turned alcoholic
- Alejandro Perez: former felon
- Anne Davis*: Morgan Foundation office manager
- Pam Olson: police deputy
- Eleanor Morgan*: Adam’s mother=
- Morrow: police deputy
- Stacy Howard
- Jesse Hook*: Kelly’s stalker.
- Kent Williamson*: managing partner at Bob’s firm
- Carissa Brooks: Bob’s hairstylist
- George Carrigan: Carissa’s abusive husband
What You Need to Remember About The Perfect Marriage
You can read my Readers Guide to The Perfect Marriage, but here are the main things you need to remember. These are SPOILERS for The Perfect Marriage, but whether you’ve read that or not, this will be helpful so you can understand what’s going on in The Perfect Divorce.
- Sarah’s husband Adam cheated on her with Kelly Summers, a local waitress
- Kelly’s body turned up in Adam and Sarah’s lake house.
- Adam was arrested and charged with Kelly’s murder.
- Sarah served as Adam’s defense attorney.
- But that was a bad idea on his part, as Bob was convicted of Kelly’s murder and sentenced to death.
- The Perfect Marriage has an epilogue that takes place 11 years after the trial.
- As Adam is about to be put to death, Sarah goes to visit him in prison and tells him that she knows he is innocent … because Sarah killed Kelly Summers.
- She planned the entire thing with Bob, her work colleague. Bob hated Kelly because he thought Kelly killed her first husband, who was Bob’s brother.
- Bob and Sarah became a couple shortly after Adam was convicted. Shortly after that, they had a daughter, Summer (named after Kelly and her unborn child. Do you think this is WEIRD? The name, I mean. Sarah’s really something!)
Other things from the The Perfect Marriage that come up in The Perfect Divorce:
- Adam was sleeping next to Kelly when she was murdered. Kelly was drugged (Sarah put something in a bottle of scotch) but Adam’s bloodwork didn’t show any drugs.
- There were three different DNA samples found on Kelly: DNA that belonged to Adam, to Kelly’s husband Scott, and to a mystery person. Sarah finds out that this person was Sheriff Stevens, the guy running the murder investigation, but she does not tell the police this.
- Some readers seem to think that the third set of DNA in Kelly’s murder is from Kelly’s unborn child but that makes NO sense to me. If you understand that, please explain in comments!
- Sarah had an assistant named Anne who knew Adam was cheating and tried to blackmail him.
- Sarah loathes her mother-in-law (Adam’s mom) Eleanor.
Spoilers for The Perfect Divorce and The Ending Explained
So my main question is: going in, we know that Sarah is at best an unreliable narrator and at worst a complete sociopath/psychopath. Can we believe anything she says?
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- Perhaps karma has come for Sarah because she has another cheating spouse.
- Yes, Bob has cheated. Since Bob knows what Sarah is capable of, this seems like a questionable idea.
- Sarah has given up law and is running The Morgan Foundation, which supports reformed felons. I’m guessing Sarah started the foundation with the money Adam earned from his bestselling book and Netflix show. I’m also guessing these felons could come in handy…
- Sheriff Ryan Stevens has fallen on hard times. While driving drunk he hits and kills a jogger. Stevens’s arrest means that his DNA is put into the system and … matched to the Kelly Summers case. Sarah seems shocked about this
- Sarah acts shocked about this even though she know. This also explains why that DNA wasn’t matched before and possibly why no drugs were found in Adam’s system: Stevens knew he could be a suspect in Kelly’s murder, so was happy to let Adam take the fall.
- Marcus Hudson, the new sheriff, is pissed about all of it. Then they find Stevens hanging in his cell.
- As the media confront Sarah outside her office, she (rightfully) throws Stevens under the bus, suggesting his investigation of the Kelly Summers case was tainted if he was sleeping with Kelly. Sarah decides to file a motion to reopen Adam’s case.
Who is the mysterious kidnapped woman?
- We learn the identity of a kidnapped woman whose POV we get early in the book: Stacy Howard, the woman Bob was cheating with. Sarah, what have you done now? (In fact, Bob even accuses Sarah of engineering Stacy’s disappearance.)
- Bob’s lawyer, Brad, looks into Stacy and finds out that she has a history of blackmailing men she sleeps with. Bob also learns that Stacy worked as a server at a Morgan Foundation event, which makes him suspicious of Sarah.
- Someone murders Rick Stevens in the hospital.
- Hudson wants the Kelly Summers case reopened. He also learns that Stacy was texting a burner phone number she’d labeled “Bob Miller” shortly before she vanished.
Bob says the obvious but no one believes him
- Bob insists to Brad that Sarah is an evil mastermind, but Brad just laughs it off (mistake!)
- In a bizarre event, Bob goes to his hairdresser, Carissa who cuts him during a shave, causing him to bleed profusely. Right after Bob’s appointment, Carissa goes missing. Bob continues to insist that Sarah must be involved in all this weirdness, but no one believes him.
- Bob then tells Brad that he has the knife that killed Kelly Summers. Brad tells him to get rid of it, but instead Bob sends it anonymously to the police.
- Hudson realizes the man who killed Ryan Stevens is Scott Summers, who has popped up out of nowhere to commit this crime.
The Perfect Divorce: Ending Explained
- Bob asks Alejandro to kill Sarah. He receives a photo of Sarah’s body from Alejandro, but of course we know there’s no way that Bob got the better of Sarah.
- Bob, who has been tracking Sarah’s location, suddenly decides to check out a place in the middle of nowhere that she recently visited. It’s the farmhouse where Stacy and Carissa are being held. Stacy shoots Bob.
- In a flashback, we learn that Sarah is indeed alive. she was already suspicious of Alejandro and pulled a gun on him. Alejandro tells Sarah that Bob hired him to kill Jenna Way (Kelly). But Jenna’s husband Greg showed up instead and Alejandro stabbed him. When Jenna got blamed, that worked out fine for Alejandro.
- Sarah is the one who kidnapped Stacy and faked the texts between Stacy and Bob. She had been working with Carissa for weeks to help Carissa fake her disappearance to escape from her abusive husband, George Carrigan. (Carissa was never in the basement. Sarah fakes all that. And Sarah got Bob to go to Carissa for haircuts.)
- Sarah claims she had nothing to do with Bob sleeping with Stacy. “He fell into her web of deceit and blackmail all on his own. But that mistake landed them both in my web, and there can only be one queen.”
- Sarah also hid the real Kelly murder weapon knife (with Kelly’s blood and Bob’s fingerprints) in Bob’s safe.
- In a funny scene, Hudson and Olson recap the entire plot of the first book and decide it’s too outlandish to be true. They decide Bob was an evil mastermind who was manipulating poor Sarah.
Epilogue to The Perfect Divorce : one year later:
Sarah appears as a guest on 60 Minutes. She says Adam was innocent and Bob tricked her when she was vulnerable. Eleanor died and Sarah got $32 million in her wrongful death suit.
My Questions About The Perfect Divorce:
Why would Sarah marry a man who helped her frame her husband for murder, stick with him for ten years and then suddenly turn on him for cheating?
Why would Bob cheat on Sarah if he knew what she did to Adam?
What was Alejandro actually arrested for? Was he a hitman for other people too? We know Bob hired him prior to The Perfect Marriage.
What is Jeneva Rose talking about in the acknowledgments? Is Sarah going to marry another guy and kill him??? Sarah Part Three?
Your Questions about the Perfect Divorce
In the comments, NC Lady had an excellent question that I glossed over above: Why did Bob want Jenna/Kelly dead BEFORE his brother Greg died? Remember in book one that is why we are told Bob helped Sarah kill Kelly: because she cheated on Greg.
- The book says Bob hired Alejandro to kill Jenna because she knew her brother-in-law Bob was up to “shady shit” and she had threatened to tell the police.
- So Bob hired Alejandro to kill Jenna, but Greg ended up dead.
- What doesn’t make sense is why when Jenna was accused of killing Greg, she didn’t tell police about the “shady shit” Bob was up to.
It makes sense that Bob still wanted Jenna (now Kelly) dead and he obviously didn’t tell Sarah that as she seems surprised when Alejandro tells her the story.
So this is new information: Bob lied to Sarah and said he wanted Jenna dead because he thought she killed Greg when he knew very well that she didn’t.
Talk to me in comments. I answer them all 🙂
How did Alejandro make the photos seem like Sarah was dead? I didn’t catch it.
I don’t think you missed anything. I looked and all I could find is that Alejandro texts Bob a photo of Sarah looking lifeless with blood on her face.
But when she’s sleeping with Alejandro (polite term because she’s a bit feral!) she scratches his back until he bleeds, so my guess is that she uses that blood to stage the photo. Because we know that she convinces Alejandro to switch from Team Bob to Team Sarah.
That’s only a guess. She’s a piece of work! If anyone else found more evidence, let us know!
Thanks for the comment and let me know what you thought of the book if you have time 🙂
Thanks so much for the recap of Perfect Marriage. Was about one third into Perfect Divorce when I realized I had no idea what was going on. Found your synopsis and started again from the beginning.
Why did Scott Summers kill the former sheriff? As revenge for Stevens sleeping with Kelly?
It seemed a reasonable assumption that Sarah & Bob’s daughter was named Summer in honor of Kelly (& Scott????) but at one point Sarah says that Bob never caught on to the name, she just told him Summer was her favorite season. Was Bob that dumb or did I miss something?
Lots of sinister vibes surrounding Anne, Sarah’s office manager, but nothing ever really developed there.
Too much info crammed in toward the end. I felt like it was a game of Whack-a-Mole. I did the audio version and it wasn’t my favorite narration.
omg I can’t even imagine listening on audio – I could barely keep it all straight.
1) Yes, I think so. There was bad blood between Ryan and Scott way back from Kelly’s murder.
2) Yes, Sarah is pretty twisted and I think the “tribute” to Kelly was her idea of a tribute but she’s a psychopath!
3) YES I was side-eyeing Anne so hard for two books and nothing ever came of it. I think there might be book three, so hopefully Anne will stop being such a doormat to Sarah.
4) Yes, there were so many twists I felt disoriented at times!!
Super helpful review!! Thank you!! As always I love your recaps.
my question is you say
“Carissa was never in the basement. Sarah fakes all that”
can you remind me what happened then? Why do we have her narration. In the basement.
Sorry I am sure I just missed this explanation! I did audio and a lot was happening when it was all explained
also, how did Sarah learn about Kellie?
Thank you!!!
Hi May,
I can believe that the audio was confusing because there were SO many twists!!
Stacy (the girl Bob cheated with) was in the basement, but Carissa (hairdresser) was not. So the basement narration had to be Stacy, who thought at one point that someone named Carissa was down there with her, but that was Sarah pretending to be Carissa.
Do you mean how did Sarah learn that Adam was cheating with Kelly in book one?
I may be a little confused but my understanding is that Bob Miller hired Alejandro Perez to kill Jenna Way, who was married to Bob’s brother. But as Alejandro’s gun jammed in his attempt to kill Jenna, Jenna’s husband Greg arrived home. Alejandro stabbed Greg repeatedly and Jenna was suspected of but not convicted of the murder.
The question is “why had Miller hired Alejandro to kill Jenna”?
Jenna then changed her name to Kelly Summers and I understand why Bob Miller would want her dead. But why did he want Jenna dead (before his brother had died)?
(And, I realize that I may be confused on the characters and the timeline of who died when.)
Thanks.
You’re right; that is a VERY good question and I should add it to the post.
All the book says is that Bob hired Alejandro to kill Jenna because she knew her brother-in-law Bob was up to “shady shit” and she had threatened to tell the police. So Bob hired Alejandro to kill Jenna, but Greg ended up dead. What doesn’t make sense is why when Jenna was accused of killing Greg, she didn’t tell police about the “shady shit” Bob was up to.
It makes sense that Bob still wanted Jenna (now Kelly) dead and he obviously didn’t tell Sarah that as she seems surprised when Alejandro tells her the story. I guess Bob lied to Sarah and said he wanted Jenna dead because he thought she killed Greg when he knew very well that she didn’t.
Thank you. I now remember the mention of Jenna knowing something about her brother-in-law’s dealings. And, a very apt question about why Jenna didn’t tell what she knew when accused of killing her husband.
I also wondered why the police didn’t seem more curious about how Stacy got the gun and whose gun it was.
Also, let’s go back to Sarah and Alejandro holding guns on one another. Sarah must have realized that if Alejandro really wanted to kill her, then no agreement for both of them to “drop” their guns would save her. Once the guns were down, he could easily overpower her.
I have a continuity question. In The Perfect Divorce it is revealed that Adam took Sarah’s last name “Morgan”. But in The Perfect Marriage, wasn’t his mother Eleanor introduced as Eleanor Morgan? Or am I mistaken.
Edited: Thanks, Jennifer!! Sarah is Sarah Morgan. Adam used “Morgan” as a pseudonym and then changed his name legally.
But then I think Bob Miller also took the name Morgan (because of the foundation, I think.)
Sarah’s maiden name is Morgan. Adam took her name as a pseudonym then later changed in legally. Eleanor’s last name is Rumple.
Thanks so much!! I will fix the post! So it was Adam and not Bob who changed his name? This second book almost broke my brain. I thought I remembered correctly but haven’t had time to go back and look.