Wow!  This book owned me from start to finish.  When real life was calling, I was ignoring it to read one more chapter…and then one more.  This is my third book by Eliza Freed, and each one has been a page-turner that has stayed on my mind long after the final page was read.

Josh & Anna and Gabe & Claire is about friendship, marriage, and secrets.  To the outside world, these two couples would appear to have it all – successful careers, a great social life, good friends.  But after last call at the bar, after the get-togethers are over, after the smiles and the laughter fades, life for these two couples isn’t as perfect as it may seem.  Each couple is going through their own set of marital issues which are weighing down their relationships.  This is where Eliza Freed’s strength shines through.  She taps into married life and all of the trials and tribulations that couples face.  She doesn’t sugar-coat married life.  She writes the messy, complicated, frustrating aspects of it and makes you feel the pain and anguish right along with the characters.

The book is written from the perspectives of two characters in alternating chapters.  What makes this interesting is that it’s a character from each couple.  This enables the reader to get a bird’s-eye view into each marriage.  I loved this aspect and found that it added a great dimension to an already intriguing and fast-paced story.

I enjoyed witnessing the friendships between these couples.  Anna and Claire initially met because their husbands worked together.  Gabe and Josh were best friends, and soon their wives grew to be close friends.  The two couples were quite different, but their differences in personality often opened doors to new adventures for them.  Claire was a believer in living each day to the fullest.  Gabe went along with his wife’s whims.  Anna just loved being around Claire.  And while Josh was the complete opposite of Claire, being more of an organized, well planned out kind of guy, he still usually caved to what his friends were game to do.  They were an inseparable little group, until everything changed in the blink of an eye.

When a tragic accident claimed the lives of two of these friends, the other two were left to try to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives.  In their grief, they turned to each other for comfort.  But while they were attempting to move on from the loss of their loved ones, questions about the accident kept surfacing.  What happened in the car that night? 

Josh & Anna and Gabe & Claire is an intriguing story that had me feeling the emotions right along with the characters.  I couldn’t flip the pages fast enough to find out what was going to become of the characters.  It is a very well-written, fast-paced story that I felt in the pit of my stomach and right down to my toes.  It is a captivating and unnerving story of marriage, friendship, fate, grief, and love.  It shows that sometimes the people that we are supposed to know the best are the ones with the biggest secrets.

*5 Stars

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