A love triangle enhances this who-dunnit about events and a murder that shatters a couple's perfect new life in Connecticut.

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Product Description

Secrets lurk under the smooth surface of a wealthy Connecticut neighborhood, until a murder reveals all

Sofie and her husband have left Manhattan in search of a more tranquil life in the suburbs. But when a member of Sofie’s new neighborhood book club turns up dead, things get messy. She discovers that everybody has something to hide, including her own husband. Her neighbor Priscilla has been married to Gordon for fifteen years, but the love left their marriage a long time ago. Susan is Priscilla’s biggest supporter until she has to choose between loyalty to her friend and telling the truth. Ashley is eager to fit in, but her youth and status as a second wife keep her on the outside. She may know more than they think she does, though. Julia seems to have it all—the perfect house, job and husband. But her untimely death has people questioning how perfect her life really was. Through this swamp of suburban secrets, Sofie must wade to find the truth behind Julia’s murder and the state of her own marriage. They Did It with Love is a delightful, twisty, and twisted exploration of the things we’ll do for love.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27339 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
"Agatha Christie meets The Stepford Wives in this rolling read about a couple who relocates to a posh Connecticut suburb, where one day the wife discovers a member of her book club hanging from a tree. She decides to investigate and uncovers--dum, da-dum, dum!--well, we won't spoil it for you. But if you like a sexy mystery, Morgenroth keeps the finger of suspicion rotating faster than a game of Spin the Bottle."
—Marie Claire

“Morgenroth tricks suspicious readers by withholding key information until the end.”
—Kirkus

“…Morgenroth’s greatest accomplishment is the ease with which she describes a certain kind of ennui and aimlessness—and the kind of fatal betrayals that can lurk beneath all that suburban gloss.”
—The Washington Post

“Agatha Christie meets Desperate Housewives in Morgenroth’s smashing, Stepfordesque mystery. At the heart of the novel is Manhattan bookshop clerk Sofie, whose father’s death has left her wealthy and in need of a change of pace. Her husband suggests moving to posh Greenwich, Conn., where she falls in with a group of bored, bitchy and smart housewives who gossip, drink too much and occasionally cat around with each other’s husbands. When young trophy wife Julia is found swinging from a tree in her front yard, the obvious conclusion is suicide—but both cops and neighbors suspect murder, and mystery addict Sofie sets out to do a little sleuthing. Morgenroth (Saved) places Sofie precisely in her contrasting urban and suburban settings with elegant prose, from “a tangle of dark grey branches” in Central Park to maple leaves that “drifted down—a bright autumn red—leaving a carpet on the ground like a huge pool of blood.” The character development and local color are so strong that this would be a hit even without the dazzling surprise ending.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author
Kate Morgenroth is the author of Kill Me First and Saved, and two YA novels, Jude and Echo.

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Customer Reviews

twisted couples with a murder thrown in
After Sophie's father died and left her a huge estate, Sophie and her husband decided to move from Manhattan to Greenish, Conn. In order to fit in, Sophie joins a neighborhood mystery bookclub. The book twists and turns around the 5 women and their husbands who are in the bookclub.

After a couple bookclub meetings, one of the women is found dead. Initially thought to be suicide, it soon becomes clear they were dealing with a Homocide.

Alex, the husband of the dead women was the only suspect, but claimed adamantly claimed he was innocent. Sofie, who was known as an amateur sleuth, was contacted by Alex to help him prove his innocense.

Sophie plays detective, and works with the "real" detectives who are trying to prove Alex's guilt.

The author did an excellent job of keeping the readers attention while intertwining the lives of the 10 people involved. Readers see inside the lives of the "rich and non-famous," and are given a surprised ending.

I belive this book would be enjoyable for both men and women, and would especially create a lively bookclub discussion.

Grab a Martini, It's Going to be a Bumpy Ride
Everyone seems to have a secret. When Sofie's father dies and leave his seemingly aimless daughter a load of money, her husband thinks it sure seems like a good time to leave Manhattan and Sofie's job as a clerk in a mystery bookshop - so off to Greenwich, Connecticut they go. Sofie is a bit lonely and depressed so why not join the hot neighborhood book club. That is until one member turns up dead and each members secrets start to surface. Since Sofie once worked in a mystery bookshop she feels that she is qualified to solve this apparent suicide, but things aren't exactly as they seem culminating in a twisty surprising end.

Think Desperate Houswives, Valley of the Dolls and Stepfordwives and you pretty much have a feel for this group of ladies.

Enticing modern-day whodunnit
Channeling Christie and not being shy about it, Morgenroth's
latest may seem the sleepy sort, but it will keep readers on
the edges of their chairs. This particular reader is
generally disgusted by books that don't leap right into some
sort of action; however, the delay before the murder in this
one actually adds so much to the story, especially the
background story.

After her overbearing father's death, Sofie Wright's pretty
boy husband Dean convinces her they should move to the
"country" (i.e., the suburbs in Connecticut). They settle
into your typical suburban neighborhood with the typical
suburban housewives: the shrew, the shrinking violet, the
slut, and the princess. Sofie has nothing in common with
these women, but courtesy of location (as well as lack of
progeny) is invited to join their mystery book club. Sofie
is a mystery lover and
gladly joins, though she soon realizes membership is based
primarily on social status and the members' usefulness to
the group's founder, Priscilla (the shrew).

The point of view of this book rotates constantly between
the five women, their husbands, and the two detectives that
come in later to investigate the suicide (or is it a
murder?). That there will be a murder is apparent from the
opening scene; the question for the first half of the book
is: which member of the bookclub will it be? And after one
of the members is finally discovered hanging from the tree
in her front yard, the question becomes: which of the nine
remaining characters did it, since most of them have means,
motive, and opportunity?

The ever-changing viewpoint is made completely manageable by
utterly simple means: each time the author changed scenes,
the new scene was labeled with the name (or names) of the
individuals involved. The play between the ten characters
is almost like a play (say, Arsenic and Old Lace), with
witty dialogue, open emotion, and plenty of backstabbing.

By the time the murder actually occurs, the reader is so
involved with the relationships between the book club
members that he or she will likely have forgotten to be
looking for clues. They are there, however, for the
dilligent reader (or for those, like myself, who flip back
through when the lightbulb finally flashes on). If the
characters don't hook a reader, the constant twisting and
turning in the plot will, and a Hitchcock-esque ending fits
the
novel perfectly. If I hadn't figured most of it out
beforehand (although, to give Morgenroth her due credit, not
until the last thirty pages), this would have been a
five-star review.

This book is not violent; it follows a more classic line of
mystery writing. The characters are complete and evoke
strong feelings (some good, some bad, some very mixed), but
because of the shifting points of view, the reader does not
become so involved with them that the plot is an easy one to
figure. Full of surprises, even with this forewarning, some
of the twists will catch you off-guard. Wholeheartedly
recommended to any mystery fans, especially to those who
prefer a good intrigue of guts-and-gore suspense.