Lethal Anxiety: The Perfect Wife
(2026)(A book in the Perfect Spiral Psych Thriller series)
A novel by Mara Payne
Her smoothies are made with love. Her blog is filled with grace. Her kitchen has never been anything but spotless.
She has also been poisoning her husband.
Bethany Benator built her life around devotion—five homeschooled daughters, a thriving wellness blog, and a husband the whole community admires. A busy mother is a blessed mother. So when she discovered Connor’s second wife, his second life, his son on the way, she didn’t fall apart.
She reached for the kitchen scale.
Every superfood smoothie is a precisely measured dose. Every tearful blog post is a dated alibi. And every neighbor who drops off a casserole is a witness who will swear she was the most loving wife they’d ever seen.
But Connor has already updated his will. And the biological countdown is running.
She’s the perfect wife. She prefers her coffee black, and her grief is—depending on how you look at it—entirely justified.
One to two-hour read. Not recommended before cooking.
* * *
Features: psychological thriller • domestic horror • poisoning • unreliable narrator • female villain • gaslighting • trad wife • wellness culture • two-hour read • twisted ending • domestic entrapment • short-read pacing • betrayal • complicit reader
~20,000 words
Genre: Mystery
She has also been poisoning her husband.
Bethany Benator built her life around devotion—five homeschooled daughters, a thriving wellness blog, and a husband the whole community admires. A busy mother is a blessed mother. So when she discovered Connor’s second wife, his second life, his son on the way, she didn’t fall apart.
She reached for the kitchen scale.
Every superfood smoothie is a precisely measured dose. Every tearful blog post is a dated alibi. And every neighbor who drops off a casserole is a witness who will swear she was the most loving wife they’d ever seen.
But Connor has already updated his will. And the biological countdown is running.
She’s the perfect wife. She prefers her coffee black, and her grief is—depending on how you look at it—entirely justified.
One to two-hour read. Not recommended before cooking.
* * *
Features: psychological thriller • domestic horror • poisoning • unreliable narrator • female villain • gaslighting • trad wife • wellness culture • two-hour read • twisted ending • domestic entrapment • short-read pacing • betrayal • complicit reader
~20,000 words
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Mara Payne's Lethal Anxiety: The Perfect Wife