Two New Books by Shelly Ellis

by Susan Roberts

Shelly Ellis has given her readers a two-book series full of secrets, abuse, scandal, and lies. Three women find out that they are married to the same man when they race to the hospital after he's been shot!

 

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The Three Mrs. Greys

March 2021; Dafina; 978-1496731319
audio, ebook, print (320 pages); domestic thriller

Three women all believe that they are the only wife of Cyrus Grey - a successful financial guy who travels on business frequently.

• Vanessa has been married to Cyrus for eleven years and they have three children.  The marriage isn't great but Cyrus loves his kids and provides a rich lifestyle for the family.  Vanessa is having an affair with her son's younger soccer coach who believes that he's in love with her but she has no plans to give up her extravagant life with Cyrus. 
• Noelle has been married to Cyrus for seven years.  She's a former model who desperately wants to have a baby but Cyrus keeps refusing.  She owns a boutique and despite her lack of children enjoys the life that Cyrus provides for her. 
• Diamond has been married to Cyrus for less than a year.  He saved her from her former life as a sex worker and they too live a very rich lifestyle.  She loves Cyrus and knows that he's giving her a better and safer life.

All three women love and trust Cyrus...UNTIL

Vanessa and Noelle get a phone call from the hospital that Cyrus has been shot while he was with Diamond and may not live.  It's only then that they find out that he was married to three women.  The more they find out, the more they realize that not only was he a bigamist but his business was not as legitimate as they'd been led to believe.  As all three women fall apart in their own way:  Vanessa's affair becomes stronger,  Noelle starts an affair with Cyrus's business partner and Diamond gets back in touch with her pimp.  They all know that their future is unknown but they still fight to become the ONLY Mrs. Grey.

This book is well written and kept me turning pages to find out how it would all end.  I was a bit disappointed at the end to find out that it was a two-book series and ended with a major cliffhanger.  The story was told in alternating chapters by each of the wives and it was interesting to see how all three of them dealt with this major change in their lives.  I can't wait to start reading the next book to find out how it all ends for the three women as well as their bigamist husband and his illegal businesses.

Buy The Three Mrs. Greys at Amazon

(Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read the ebook for FREE)

Truth, Lies, and Mr. Grey

March 2022; Dafina; 978-1496731333
audio, ebook, print (320 pages); domestic thriller

In the second book of this series, we find out what a terrible and despicable man Cyrus Grey really was.  Not only was he married to three women but his money was mostly made illegally and it didn't bother him at all if he needed to kill a person who betrayed him.  Cyrus was getting stressed over the marital life that he's created for himself - it was getting hard to maintain three homes, three women, and a myriad of secrets.  How will he cope with the mess that he's gotten himself into and is there a way out of it all?

The three women react very differently when they find out that they are only one of three of his current wives.

• Vanessa continues her affair with her younger soccer coach but leads him on so that he will help her kill Cyrus.  She knows that as the first wife, she is the legal wife and she and her children will be well provided for after his death.
• Noelle feels cheated.  The marriage hadn't been too great but she stayed because she wanted children.  She ends up having an affair with Cyrus's business partner who shares lots of secrets with her about their business.  She fears for the lives of the other two wives and tries to warn them but there is no trust between the three of them and each of them have a goal of being the only wife standing at the end.
• Diamond is still in love with Cyrus and would take him back no matter what.  She is finally living a life away from her past as a sex worker but ends up in trouble when she contacts her former pimp to find out if he knew who shot Cyrus.   Because of her past, Diamond is accused of the shooting and put in jail.

All three of these women are visited by detectives who don't understand how they each had no idea about the other two.  I must say that I thought both of the detectives were pretty hateful to these women in their precarious situations but the police were interested in finding out who shot Cyrus and not in playing nice with the wives.

Like the first book, the story is told in alternating chapters by the three wives but this time, there are added chapters from Cyrus.  In his chapters, it's apparent what a despicable, manipulative, and egotistical person he really was. 

Will any of these three women get their happy ending and will they learn that there is no happy ending in staying married to Cyrus?

This book was a page turner like the first one and I ended up reading it in one day.  All of the people in both books are easy to dislike because they aren't very nice people.  All of the changes that occur to the women in this book make two of them shine because of changes they make but one of them never changes.

I really enjoyed this two-book series by Shelly Ellis, a new author for me.  I'm going to go back and read some of her earlier books since I enjoyed this series so much.

Buy Truth, Lies, and Mr. Grey at Amazon

Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina with her husband of over 50 years.  She grew up in Michigan but now calls North Carolina home. She enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her family. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and historical fiction. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook.

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