My Darling Husband
Cam Lasky is a celebrity chef with several upscale restaurants in Atlanta. Jade, his wife, has a home decorating business. They have two children: six year old Baxter and nine-year old Beatrix. Beatrix is a violin prodigy. They all live in a beautiful house in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood.
Jade pulls into the garage with the two kids in the back seat; she’s just returned from collecting Baxter from school and Beatrix from violin class. She doesn’t immediately notice the man standing in the shadows. But, to her terror, he forces them into the house at gun point and ties them up. They are hostages in their own home.
The man demands that Cam pay a ransom, in cash, by 7 pm—or Jade and the kids will be killed. The ransom demand is for a strange amount: $734,296.
But Cam has no access to that amount of money, in cash or otherwise. Though he’s outwardly a big success, and even Jade believes he’s rich, he’s heavily in debt to his investors. And to complicate things, on the day of the hostage-taking his most successful restaurant has just gone up in flames, and arson is suspected.
The story alternates between Jade’s and Cam’s points of view. Jade is trying to figure out how to save her kids. Cam is scrambling to call in favors and raise the ransom by the deadline. And we also see some things through the eyes of the home invader, Sebastian.
The clock is ticking. Will Cam get the money in time? Will Sebastian come through on his threats? What can Jade and the kids do to save themselves?
And of course nothing is quite as it seems. There are secrets and hidden motivations.
The story is fast-paced and very suspenseful. This is an enjoyable read, and events turn in ways you might not expect.
Kimberly Bell was born in Kingsport, Tennessee in 1968. In her last semester at Agnes Scott College, she fell in love with a Dutch real estate entrepreneur, and after graduating with a BA she followed him to Amsterdam. Though she spoke no Dutch at the time and thought this was just a visit, she ended up staying for twelve years: she married her Dutchman, learned Dutch, and had two children. The family moved back to the US for her husband’s work, but she says she considers herself “in her heart and soul” to be half Dutch.
Kimberley worked for years in marketing and non-profit fundraising, but when the economy crashed in 2008, so did her job. By then she was nearly forty, and instead of looking for another job, she decided it was the right time to plunge into realizing her dream of writing a novel. That was not a short journey; it took six years. In that time she wrote her first novel, found an agent, and landed a publishing deal. Her debut novel, The Last Breath, was published in 2014.
Since then she has published a novel nearly every year. She writes domestic suspense, dealing with the complexities of family relationships. Each of her books is a standalone, and most have become international bestsellers. My Darling Husband, written during the pandemic and published in 2021, is her seventh. Her eighth novel, The Personal Assistant, is scheduled for November 2022.
She and her husband divide their time between Atlanta and Amsterdam. Their two children are now grown.
[Click here to sign up to my book club,, to get periodic updates on my writing journey, along with notices of new book reviews when I post them.]