The Last Mrs. Parrish (spoilers and ending explained) | Liv Constantine
This review contains spoilers for The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine. In this post I briefly summarize the twists and turns and explain the ending. If you are looking to avoid spoilers, head back to my spoiler-free review!
A deliciously unlikable narrator, a twist you won’t see coming, and a secret game of cat and mouse all make The Last Mrs. Parrish easily on my list of best psychological thrillers. With the sequel out, I wanted to offer a refresher on that twisted little minx, Amber Patterson, and remind myself where her story left off.
What genre is this?
I think Abby from Crime by the Book said it best when she described The Last Mrs. Parrish falling somewhere between a psychological thriller and women’s fiction. I find that to be true of all of Liv Constantine’s books. While I would still describe it as a psychological thriller, it’s a fair point that it falls in domestic suspense as well.
What is The Last Mrs. Parrish about?
Amber Patterson comes from a poor background and is intent on finding a way to marry into money. She has all of the tools—she’s beautiful, smart, and good at putting on a fake act. That should be enough to snag a rich husband. Amber has her sights set on one in particular—Jackson Parrish. Finding her way into his life—and bed—means getting close to his wife, Daphne Parrish. Amber plots, schemes, and manipulates her way into a friendship with Daphne. She finds Daphne’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and uses them to destroy Daphne’s marriage and set herself up as the perfect replacement. But what will happen if she succeeds?
How does Amber Patterson steal Jackson?
The first half of the book is narrated solely by Amber, and I absolutely hated Amber. She is fun to hate, though. A truly horrible person! Amber is a con artist, and that is not hidden from us. She starts by befriending Daphne, and this involves changing her appearance and creating a fake backstory. She dresses to downplay her looks. She bonds with Daphne over a fake dead sister who she claims suffered from the same illness as Daphne’s sister. She volunteers for Daphne’s charity. She makes Daphne feel sorry for how poor she is. She eventfakes an assault at work so that Daphne will tell Jackson to get her a job at his company.
This is the beginning of the end for Daphne and Jackson’s marriage. Once at his firm, Amber sabotages his executive assistant and manipulates her way into the role. When Daphne is stuck at home with a sick kid, Amber goes in her place to a fancy dinner and Broadway show with Jackson. Not long after, she seduces him. Over the next few months, their affair grows and Amber continues to make herself the attractive alternative to Daphne. As Daphne spirals over Jackson’s distance, she confides in Amber about her concerns that Jackson may be cheating on her. That’s when Amber figures out exactly how to take Jackson for good—she needs to get pregnant with a son. This is the one thing Daphne has never been able to provide him. And so, Amber does.
How does Daphne not see it coming?
The version of Daphne Parrish we get through Amber’s eyes is one of a privileged woman who is easy to take advantage of. That all changes when the book switches to Daphne’s perspective at the halfway point, and we get a very different picture of who Daphne is and what her marriage to Jackson is like. This Daphne is an empath, passionate about the non-profit she wants to start in her sister’s honor, and truly sees Amber as a friend.
Daphne tells the story of her marriage to Jackson, who was the financier of her non-profit and eventually, the two fall in love. Their courtship is so sweet, and it isn’t long before they are married. After the wedding, cracks began to show. Jackson needs to be in control more than Daphne realized. When she gets pregnant with a daughter, Jackson expresses his displeasure it isn’t a boy, and their happiness crumbles. He degrades Daphne, verbally and psychologically abuses her, and isolates her from her family. When she suggests separating, he has her committed for psychiatric help, permanently ensuring that if she leaves he will get to keep their daughters. Trapped in an unhappy marriage and with few close friendships, Amber is a welcome person for Daphne’s life, and Daphne didn’t see the con artist in front of her.
Or did she?
What’s the big twist?
Liv Constantine pulls a late-story blindside that really got my toes curling with excitement. It turns out Daphne realized that Amber was trying to steal Jackson, and she has been secretly helping her. Amber is her ticket out of an unhappy marriage, and she’s more than happy to provide Amber with the ammunition to steal her husband while making herself as unattractive to her husband as possible. Diabolical!
Daphne had good intentions—when she met Amber she genuinely thought Amber was her friend and she took Amber under her wing. However, that all changed when Daphne’s friend Meredith reveals that Amber isn’t who she claims to be. Daphne seeks out a private investigator who uncovers all of the dirty secrets from Amber’s past (including her real name). Now she sees why Amber never wanted her picture taken—she’s hiding from a warrant for her arrest. It seems Amber is as horrible as Jackson is, and Daphne has been manipulating the two right into each others arms (and out of her life).
So…who is Amber really?
Amber is actually a woman named Lana Crump. In her hometown, she was sleeping with a man named Matthew Lockwood and got pregnant. When his mother asked her to terminate the pregnancy and Matthew stayed with his girlfriend, Lana (Amber) lied and claimed he sexually assaulted her. Matthew went to prison for two years where he was beaten so badly he ended up in a wheelchair for life. Her mother found her diary confessing what she did and turned it in to the police. Lana was arrested and fled while out on bail, abandoning her son. She found a way to get the identity of a missing girl named Amber Patterson by befriending Amber’s mother and stealing the passport.
How does it end?
Amber is mad at Jackson because initially he won’t leave Daphne for her, even after she gets pregnant with a boy. She threatens to terminate the pregnancy and forces Jackson’s hand. When the two tell Daphne, she is secretly ecstatic to be out of her miserable, abusive marriage. Amber and Jackson get married and she gives birth to their son. Daphne reconnects with her mother (who was estranged by Jackson) and the two move to California with the girls. Before she leaves, Daphne drops a bombshell on Jackson… she reveals Amber’s true identity and that she has been a con artist all along. She uses this to get Jackson to give up his parental rights.
Daphne has one final trick up her sleeve. When Amber got to leave the executive assistant position, she helped Jackson hire a male assistant to take over (she doesn’t want to lose her husband the same way she got him, after all). It turns out his new assistant was involved with Daphne’s charity, and he’s been getting intel on Jackson to turn over to the FBI, who arrest him for tax evasion. I guess it isn’t such a happily ever after for Jackson and Amber after all!
What did I think?
I found this book to be a mix of fun, horrifying, and gratifying. I never liked Amber, but I was curious to see how far she would get in her quest to steal Jackson. She is such a slimy and manipulative character, which made the reveal all the more satisfying. I felt badly for Daphne, who seemed to be spiraling. She put on weight, stopped taking care of her appearance, and asked Amber to keep an eye out if Jackson was having an affair. What a twist to find out Daphne knew all along and was setting them up!
It would be hard to read about Daphne and Jackson’s courtship and eventual marriage and not feel sympathy for her. Daphne is a good person to her core, and she’s a rare sort who didn’t marry Jackson for his money—she was in love with him. Jackson’s shift was awful to witness, and Liv Constantine showed the psychological horror of his abuse without needing to get graphic or overly detailed. I also think that since Amber is so deeply unlikeable, Daphne’s story was important to make us invested. If both women were somewhat unlikeable, it would be an entirely different book.
Should we feel good about Amber ending up with Jackson, though?
I’ve seen some readers point out that they didn’t like Daphne pushing Amber towards Jackson. No matter how horrible Amber is, should we really feel good about her being pushed into an abusive relationship? I’m of mixed mind about this. At face value, of course the reader shouldn’t want anyone to be in abusive relationship. However, that isn’t the full story. It’s not only that Amber is horrible and set out to destroy Daphne (not to mention get a man beaten in prison while falsely convicted for a crime he didn’t commit), Amber also is a completely transactional person.
Not to overly simplify this argument, but I felt it was clear that Jackson wouldn’t be able to treat Amber the way he treated Daphne because there are no stakes for Amber. Amber wouldn’t care if Jackson kept their son, as long as she ended up with money. Daphne was the opposite, and that made Jackson’s hold over her particularly gut-wrenching. If it weren’t for her kids, Daphne would have had no problem leaving Jackson. That gave Jackson something to hold over her. Secondary, Amber is just as capable of hurting Jackson as he is of hurting her. I think we can expect them to go tit for tat until something breaks.
I expect much more to be revealed about how this played out in the sequel, The Next Mrs. Parrish. I’ll be reading and posting my thoughts on that soon! As for this book, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. The first half was dominated by Amber’s con, the next quarter of the story focused on the reading connecting with Daphne and her story, and the last quarter of the book is a wild ride as we learn Daphne knew exactly what was going on and was actively moving I forward. The reveals about Amber were shocking but got smushed in at the end. I would love to know more about Lana Crump before she became Amber (and perhaps the sequel will flash back to this, or perhaps it is covered in the mini prequel).
Despite the Amber backstory being rushed, I found the way this book came together to be so deeply satisfying! Plotted to perfection, this is a must-read psychological thriller.
What about the controversy with the similarities to another popular book?
Have you heard about this? There are allegations that Freida McFadden’s book, The Housemaid, is essentially a retelling of The Last Mrs. Parrish. I’ve heard arguments that it’s a clear copy, and arguments that it clearly is a unique story. I definitely have thoughts. I have read both books. You can find my breakdown of the comparison and whether I thought The Housemaid copied The Last Mrs. Parrish over on my review of the Freida McFadden juggernaut!
