Discovered in a Livejournal

Bringing together the slow-burn simmer of psychological suspense and the propulsive drive of crime thrillers, The Death of Us is the story of a marriage turned inside out by a violent encounter that sets fire to the hairline faults that were there from the start.

Late on a summer’s evening when they are thirty years old, husband and wife Edward and Isabel’s home is invaded by a serial killer. In the wake of this violation, the solid foundation of their love reveals cracks and instabilities that might have been there all along, and their marriage crumbles.

More than 25 years later, they are reunited for their tormentor’s trial and forced to confront their relationship: the secrets, the passions, and the encounter that binds them still. Isabel has waited years for the man who nearly ended her life to be caught. As she’s tracked news of his increasingly violent criminal life, she’s connected with other survivors and prepared for the moment that she’d get to read her victim impact statement aloud in court. She is sure she’ll speak her truth and finally let the past go. Edward has spent the years since the break-in—and the breakdown of his marriage—trying to figure out how a near-miss with death killed so much else in their shared life. Unlike Isabel, he’s not eager to relive these terrible memories. But even though he’s moved on—he’s found love again, his old life almost unrecognizable ​to him now—he can’t resist accompanying Isabel to their intruder’s sentencing. What would revenge or justice feel like? Can closure set Isabel free? And what might that freedom mean for Edward?

It’s not often that I’m drawn to characters so quickly, but that was surely the case with Isabel and Edward. Their pain, though mutely written, grabbed me from the beginning. You learn of the past through Isabel’s impact statement and the present through Edward’s struggles. Both have been irrevocably changed by their ordeal. Yet there still is hope that they can somehow get past the pain and move forward with their lives.


We often are shown the grief of those who lose someone in a shocking crime, but I think this is the first time I’ve read so graphically about the survivors’ trauma.

I don’t think of this book as a thriller since we already know that the crime has been committed. It’s more of a love story, how these two deal with their pain and what they must do in order for it to survive.