Her Beautiful Life
- Judith D Collins
- Jan 1
- 6 min read
By: Brianna Labuskes
Narrators: Moniqua Plante, Jess Moran, Maria McCann
ISBN: 978-1662527456
Pub Date: 01/01/2026
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Format: Other
My Rating: 4 Stars
The truth of one woman’s private life reveals the terrifying depths to which people will go to deceive in a twisting novel of suspense from USA Today bestselling author Brianna Labuskes.
When journalist Holland Tate is granted an interview with Catriona Bouchard, her former best friend turned mega-popular tradwife, she jumps at the chance to also possibly rewrite their bitter ending. But at the Bouchards’ gated compound, what she finds is not the independent woman she once knew. Cat may have six beautiful children and be married to the man she calls the love of her life, but she’s a ghost of her former self.
With each passing hour behind those locked gates, Holland uncovers dark secrets, darker obsessions, and hidden motives that shine a new light on the events that ended their friendship. Cat’s beautiful life, it seems, is nothing more than an ugly lie.
Even as danger mounts, Cat sticks to the narrative she’s selling: She lives a perfect life with her perfect husband. Holland came to the compound to get the killer story behind that glossy image. Now all she cares about is getting out of there alive.
My Review
HER BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Brianna Labuskes is a gripping psychological thriller that weaves a complex narrative around a determined journalist who finds herself in an unsettling reunion with her estranged best friend. This former confidante has transformed into a captivating "tradwife" influencer, living a seemingly idyllic life at an isolated family compound.
As the journalist delves deeper into their past during this tense interview, an atmosphere thick with unspoken secrets and lurking dangers begins to unfold. The serene exterior of the compound masks a web of dark truths that threatens to shatter both their lives.
Brianna Labuskes brilliantly explores the tension between curated online personas and the darker realities they conceal in this twisty, popular trad wife thriller.
About...
HER BEAUTIFUL LIFE primarily focuses on two main female characters, whose dynamic drives the psychological thriller, with a few supporting characters filling out their world.
Main Characters
Holland Tate:
A journalist who feels stalled in her career at Profile magazine. She is the primary point of view through which the reader enters the compound. Holland is motivated by the desire for a "killer story" and a personal need to understand and potentially "rewrite" the bitter ending of her 11-year-old friendship with Catriona. Once inside the compound, her initial journalistic curiosity turns into a fight for survival as she uncovers dark secrets.
Catriona "Cat" Bouchard:
Holland's former best friend and roommate who has transformed into a mega-popular "tradwife" influencer. On social media, she presents a perfect life with a French financier husband and six children, seemingly living her dream life at a Vermont orchard compound. In reality, Holland finds her a "ghost of her former self," raising questions about her agency, happiness, and whether her beautiful life is an "ugly lie".
Supporting Characters
Kris Bouchard:
Catriona's French financier husband. He is portrayed as controlling, and his behavior and the isolated nature of the family compound contribute to Holland's rising suspicions and the building tension of the thriller.
Catriona's Children (and Stepchildren):
Cat and Kris have six children. Worrying "innuendo" from Cat's stepson is one of the key factors that alert Holland to the dark side of the family's seemingly perfect life.
Detective Jamie Alvarez:
She is the investigator on the case, characterized by a keen intuition and a professional skepticism that stands in stark contrast to the performative perfection of the Bouchard family compound. Her chapters provide a necessary shift from the highly subjective and potentially unreliable narratives of the two main characters, Holland and Catriona.
Holland hopes the career-making story can also help rewrite the bitter ending of their friendship. However, once inside the compound, Holland finds Cat a "ghost of her former self," raising immediate suspicions that the "beautiful life" portrayed online is a facade. Cat's husband, Kris, seems controlling, and the overall atmosphere is menacing.
She begins to uncover dark secrets, past traumas, hidden motives, and a history of domestic issues, which challenge Holland's own memories of their shared past.
The narrative successfully uses a dual timeline and multiple perspectives to explore their violent pasts, unraveling what really happened. The tension escalates significantly when a body is discovered at the compound, leading to police involvement and a murder investigation. The danger mounts as Holland realizes she needs to escape the locked compound alive.
My thoughts...
Character-driven, HER BEAUTIFUL LIFE utilizes a complex, multi-perspective, and dual-timeline point of view (POV) structure to build psychological suspense.
Dual Perspectives:
The novel primarily alternates between the perspectives of the two main characters, Holland Tate and Catriona Bouchard. While the audiobook features three distinct narrators, the core focus remains on these two estranged friends.
Dual Timelines:
The story shifts between the present-day events at the isolated Vermont compound and flashbacks to 11 years earlier in Savannah, Georgia. These memories are crucial for revealing the "dark secrets" and the "bitter ending" of their initial friendship.
The book features unreliable narrators, a common trait in Brianna Labuskes's psychological thrillers, if you have read her previous work. Readers will be left guessing about the character's true intentions and shared history.
With strategic use of dialogue and reflection, the author skillfully balances suspense with moments of reflection and dialogue through Holland's journalist lens to scrutinize the inconsistencies in Catriona’s "glossy" persona.
From jaw-dropping surprises and unsettling twists, readers will be caught up in a guessing game with these unreliable narrators, keeping you page-turning into the wee hours of the morning.
Primary Themes
~The Facade of Perfection vs. Reality:
Showcasing how social media can be used to perform a "beautiful life" while hiding trauma and domestic issues.
~Female Agency and Autonomy:
Traditional wife versus the working wife. A new generation of Stepford Wives" or if women are genuinely exercising their agency to live freely.
~The Power of Narrative and Deception:
Exploring the terrifying depths people will go to deceive others, and how these narratives can shape—or distort—memory and truth.
~Toxic Female Friendships:
Driven by the complicated history between Holland and Catriona, it examines how past obsessions and unresolved trauma can resurface and endanger current lives.
~Domestic Violence and Control:
The isolated atmospheric compound setting serves as a backdrop for themes of domestic suspense, exploring whether the protagonist’s "perfect" life is actually an environment of abuse and controlling behavior.
~Parasocial Relationships:
The book serves as a commentary on the nature of influencer culture and the intense, often one-sided relationships followers form with the digital personas of public figures.
A core theme is the "terrifying depths" that those will sink to maintain a facade or deceive others, suggesting the act of selling a narrative to the world eventually requires the seller to become a "ghost" of themselves to maintain the performance.
The central takeaway of Her Beautiful Life is a psychological exploration of the perilous gap between performance and reality, particularly regarding the "tradwife" lifestyle and modern social media influencer culture.
The novel warns of the cost of deception. A curated perfection is often a form of imprisonment. Catriona’s "beautiful life" on social media serves as a public cage that masks her private misery, suggesting that the more perfect a life appears from the outside, the more likely it is to be built on an "ugly lie."
Other themes
~Unreliability of Memory
~Trauma, Grief, Betrayal
~Power, Control, Manipulation
~Journalism and the pursuit of truth
~Nature vs. Nurture
~Loss of Identity
~Domestic Abuse
~Cost of Performance
Recs...
Readers who enjoyed HER BEAUTIFUL LIFE and its themes of social media facades, toxic female friendships, and domestic suspense will likely be interested in other psychological thrillers that explore the dark side of curated lives and hidden secrets.
~The Tradwife’s Secret by Liane Child
~Tradwife: A Novel by Michelle Brandon
~Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris
~Verity by Colleen Hoover
~Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
Pub Date: Jan 1, 2026
My Rating: 4.5 Stars
Praise
“Labuskes’s critique of social media takes aim at soft targets, but she pulls off some truly surprising and unsettling twists along the way. Psychological thriller fans will get exactly what they came for.”
―Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Brianna Labuskes is the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Lies You Wrote, The Truth You Told, and By the Time You Read This in the Raisa Susanto series; See It End, What Can’t Be Seen, and A Familiar Sight in the Dr. Gretchen White series; and Her Final Words, Black Rock Bay, Girls of Glass, and It Ends with Her. She lives in Pennsylvania with her puppy, Jinx. For more information, visit www.briannalabuskes.com.
