First, Kill All the Marriage Counselors: Modern-Day Secrets to Being Desired, Cherished, and Adored for Life

Happiness and satisfaction in heterosexual marriages are up to the wives, relationship coach Doyle insists, because it is women who hold the power to effect change in relationships. Thus, her book, as well as the relationship coaching practice it comes out of, is for women only—no couples, no men. She disdains marriage counselors because, after a frustrating time sitting beside her husband on a therapist’s couch, she decided that the profession was populated with “wounded healers,” simultaneously realizing that the best advice she’d encountered came from women in successful, long-term marriages. The book opens with a quiz to identify problems, proceeding to the “Six Intimacy Skills” whereby couples can recapture the qualities that drew them together originally. To achieve Doyle’s “spouse-fulfilling prophecy,” a wife acknowledges what she wants and, employing the Six Skills, empowers herself to cede fear-based control, restore her husband’s self-respect, receive more help by doing less, admit to vulnerability, and exhibit gratitude more often, ideally resulting in a changed husband—and marriage—potentially in a matter of weeks. This upbeat, contemporary iteration of the author’s matrimony model (first seen in her 2001 bestseller The Surrendered Wife) may help women achieve higher levels of intimacy and stronger partnerships. Agent: Jill Marr, Dijkstra Literary Agency. (June)