A Sociopath's Guide to a Successful Marriage

A Novel

Read by Perdita Weeks

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About The Book

A good mother will kill for her family. And, sometimes, for fun in this “wickedly dark and hilarious debut” (Alice Feeney, New York Times bestselling author of My Husband’s Wife).

Meet Lalla Rook. Lalla has a lot on her to-do list: help her husband make partner by flattering his masculinity, secure her dream home in Hampstead, get her daughter into private school, host her four-year-old’s birthday party, and remove the dead body from her living room.

Lalla can’t pretend she hasn’t missed the adrenaline rush that comes with transgressing. And, as a wife and mother, she’s already an expert multitasker. So disposing of a body, framing a friend, and being the world’s best homemaker should be easy to achieve.

It’s just that her husband seems distracted, her daughter faces an uncertain academic future, and then there is the unexpected intruder in her living room, a stranger she has stabbed seven times. Avoiding the law is the least of her worries—not when she has a past to keep hidden.

Brimming with brio, humor, and just a dash of murder, A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage introduces a brilliant new anti-heroine in “the most wildly entertaining novel you'll read this year” (A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window).

About The Author

© Zoë Norfolk
MK Oliver

M.K. Oliver is a former English teacher and headteacher originally from Liverpool. He long dreamed of becoming a writer and after many years of working in schools, he took the exciting decision to put down the whiteboard marker, take up the keyboard, and give it a go. He enjoyed writing courses at Curtis Brown, Faber & Faber, and the Royal Court Theatre and now lives with his family and talkative cat in North London.

About The Reader

Perdita Weeks

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio (February 17, 2026)
  • Runtime: 10 hours and 35 minutes
  • ISBN13: 9781668135020

Raves and Reviews

"Lalla is the embodiment of a sociopath—and Weeks’ insightful performance almost makes her likable."

– — Kirkus

"Perdita Weeks completely captures Lalla Rook’s inner snark in this satirical portrait of a sociopath. Gallows humor abounds as Lalla manipulates everyone and everything around her to achieve her goals—a partnership for her husband at his firm, an upscale house in a posh neighborhood, a place in a prestigious school for her daughter, and even murder, when necessary. Weeks makes Lalla sound perfectly reasonable and utterly without guilt as she crosses items off her to-do list, including framing her best friend for murder. With friends like Lalla, who needs enemies? Weeks uses an almost flat affect that conveys a woman convinced of her own sound reasoning."

– — Kirkus

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