A.R. Torre's Blog
July 19, 2025
My latest book is live!
If you're looking for a twisted page-turner about a couple with deadly secrets between them... I'd love to introduce you to A Happy Marriage.
Length: 251 pages
Subgenres/tropes:
- Domestic Suspense
- Psychological Thrillers
- Rich people behaving badly
- Unreliable Narrators
- Dual first person POVs
- Plot twists
Description:
What holds a strong and loving marriage together? Lies and secrets in a novel of twisting psychological suspense by a New York Times bestselling author.
Los Angeles homicide detective Dinah Marino may have a complicated relationship with her family, but her psychiatrist husband, Joe, makes her feel safe, secure, and happy. She couldn’t want for a more loving or trusting man. But throughout their ten-year marriage, she’s been keeping a secret from him—a secret she’d take to the grave.
Dr. Joe Marino loves his wife more than anything in this world, but there are things he’s learned to keep close to the chest—including a few dead bodies. When a missing woman tied to his wife’s latest case is admitted to his hospital, doctor-patient confidentiality lands their marriage on some new and uneven ground.
As Dinah digs deeper into her case, tension works its way inside their picture-perfect home. Now the carefully constructed lies between them don’t just simply threaten the delicate balance of their marriage—they could kill.
First Chapter:
Chapter 1
JOE
I watch my wife eat her cereal and think about the first girl I killed. She ate cereal in a very different manner, setting down her fork in between bites and waiting as she chewed, her jaw moving in a lazy and circular fashion as she ground the sugary flakes into mush, then swallowing and pausing a beat as if to see if it would stay down. Then she’d pick up the spoon and start the process again.
My wife shovels a new bite in while the first is mid-chew. She hunches over the bowl, her gaze pinned to my face as she listens to me talk. The Cheerios are an afterthought, her spoon passing between the bowl and her full lips without pause. Chew, slurp, brush a tendril of hair out of her face, plunge the spoon into the bowl, lick her lips, open and gulp another spoonful.
It’s a masterful coordination, made more beautiful because she is oblivious that it is happening. All of her attention is glued on me, and I know that, just as I am noticing every detail, so is she. She focuses on the press of my lips together when I pause, the raise of my brows when I ask a question, the moment I reach up and straighten the knot of my tie.
The first dead girl, she didn’t listen to me. She didn’t notice anything. She was too focused on herself, on her clothing, her goals, her music, her money, her grades. Her mind was running a race just to keep up with herself. When I killed her, she was probably thinking of the funeral and reaction more than the pain.
What would they bury her in?
Who would cry?
What would the obituary say?
They never found her body, so the burial outfit never mattered. There was also no obituary, but to her credit, there were a lot of tears shed.
If I ever kill my wife, I’ll make sure they find her body.
She deserves that.
She deserves everything.
Ebook and audio are both available in KU, paperback is on all retailers!
Get it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Length: 251 pages
Subgenres/tropes:
- Domestic Suspense
- Psychological Thrillers
- Rich people behaving badly
- Unreliable Narrators
- Dual first person POVs
- Plot twists
Description:
What holds a strong and loving marriage together? Lies and secrets in a novel of twisting psychological suspense by a New York Times bestselling author.
Los Angeles homicide detective Dinah Marino may have a complicated relationship with her family, but her psychiatrist husband, Joe, makes her feel safe, secure, and happy. She couldn’t want for a more loving or trusting man. But throughout their ten-year marriage, she’s been keeping a secret from him—a secret she’d take to the grave.
Dr. Joe Marino loves his wife more than anything in this world, but there are things he’s learned to keep close to the chest—including a few dead bodies. When a missing woman tied to his wife’s latest case is admitted to his hospital, doctor-patient confidentiality lands their marriage on some new and uneven ground.
As Dinah digs deeper into her case, tension works its way inside their picture-perfect home. Now the carefully constructed lies between them don’t just simply threaten the delicate balance of their marriage—they could kill.
First Chapter:
Chapter 1
JOE
I watch my wife eat her cereal and think about the first girl I killed. She ate cereal in a very different manner, setting down her fork in between bites and waiting as she chewed, her jaw moving in a lazy and circular fashion as she ground the sugary flakes into mush, then swallowing and pausing a beat as if to see if it would stay down. Then she’d pick up the spoon and start the process again.
My wife shovels a new bite in while the first is mid-chew. She hunches over the bowl, her gaze pinned to my face as she listens to me talk. The Cheerios are an afterthought, her spoon passing between the bowl and her full lips without pause. Chew, slurp, brush a tendril of hair out of her face, plunge the spoon into the bowl, lick her lips, open and gulp another spoonful.
It’s a masterful coordination, made more beautiful because she is oblivious that it is happening. All of her attention is glued on me, and I know that, just as I am noticing every detail, so is she. She focuses on the press of my lips together when I pause, the raise of my brows when I ask a question, the moment I reach up and straighten the knot of my tie.
The first dead girl, she didn’t listen to me. She didn’t notice anything. She was too focused on herself, on her clothing, her goals, her music, her money, her grades. Her mind was running a race just to keep up with herself. When I killed her, she was probably thinking of the funeral and reaction more than the pain.
What would they bury her in?
Who would cry?
What would the obituary say?
They never found her body, so the burial outfit never mattered. There was also no obituary, but to her credit, there were a lot of tears shed.
If I ever kill my wife, I’ll make sure they find her body.
She deserves that.
She deserves everything.
Ebook and audio are both available in KU, paperback is on all retailers!
Get it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
June 20, 2023
Today is release day!
I'm so excited because today is my favorite type of day.... release day! The day that all of the hard work on a book finally comes to fruition.
A Fatal Affair is my newest book baby, and it's a psychological thriller set in Hollywood, with lots of twists and turns.
Here's the description:
Stars. Lovers. Liars. Killers. This is Hollywood, and everyone has a part to play...
Actress Nora Kemp loves two men. One is Hugh Iverson, a philanthropic movie star who gives Nora security and respectability. The other is Hugh’s twin brother, Trent, a Hollywood bad boy who brings out Nora’s wild side. When Trent and an unidentified woman are found dead on the Iversons’ Beverly Hills property, more than Nora’s and Hugh’s reputations are at stake.
An investigation suggests murder-suicide. But there’s more to the crime than first meets the eye: suspicions of a serial killer with a bizarre motive, Hugh’s unnerved and cautious staff, and a missing mother and son. As two LA detectives sift through the deceptions of the innocent and the guilty—some living and some dead—solving the case becomes a cunning cat-and-mouse game.
Because in a city of illusions, the truth—no matter how dangerous—is so easy to hide.
Free in KU >> www.amazon.com/afatalaffair/
Audio is also free in KU!
The ebook is available on Amazon and the paperback is in all stores and retailers.
What are you reading this summer? Discovered any new favorites?
A Fatal Affair is my newest book baby, and it's a psychological thriller set in Hollywood, with lots of twists and turns.
Here's the description:
Stars. Lovers. Liars. Killers. This is Hollywood, and everyone has a part to play...
Actress Nora Kemp loves two men. One is Hugh Iverson, a philanthropic movie star who gives Nora security and respectability. The other is Hugh’s twin brother, Trent, a Hollywood bad boy who brings out Nora’s wild side. When Trent and an unidentified woman are found dead on the Iversons’ Beverly Hills property, more than Nora’s and Hugh’s reputations are at stake.
An investigation suggests murder-suicide. But there’s more to the crime than first meets the eye: suspicions of a serial killer with a bizarre motive, Hugh’s unnerved and cautious staff, and a missing mother and son. As two LA detectives sift through the deceptions of the innocent and the guilty—some living and some dead—solving the case becomes a cunning cat-and-mouse game.
Because in a city of illusions, the truth—no matter how dangerous—is so easy to hide.
Free in KU >> www.amazon.com/afatalaffair/
Audio is also free in KU!
The ebook is available on Amazon and the paperback is in all stores and retailers.
What are you reading this summer? Discovered any new favorites?
