3.5⭐
Genre ~ domestic thriller
Setting ~ Arden Hills (maybe New Hampshire)
Publication date ~ January 23, 2023
Est page Count ~ 336 (then 56 chapters +now)
Audio length ~ 10 hours 15 minutes
Narrator ~ Karissa Vacker
POV ~ multiple 3rd
Featuring ~ dual timeline ~ then and now, murder, infidelity, child abuse
My review:
Emma, Juliette/JJ & Daphne’s parents were murdered in their home 14 years ago and the house has been sitting vacant since. The sisters are estranged and the case was never solved. Some of the small town folks think Emma did it, but Emma and husband, Nathan, have fallen on hard times and decide to live there since it’s free.
None of the characters were particularly likable in either the present or the past. I figured Nathan was going to be exactly who he was and frankly I’m tired of these husbands and their crap.
Overall, it was pretty predictable with a run of the mill plot. I suppose I liked it well enough, but I was bugged by when in the then timeline things were said like; on a Saturday afternoon less than 12 hours before their parents will be shot to death…, 2 months more of less before she…, 9 hours before she tells the 911 operator her parents are dead. You get my drift. This would be fine if they were having flashbacks, but the story seems to be told as they are living it in the then, so I don’t like it. Now I’m wondering if it was written as a sort of heading in the actual book? Please someone confirm that has read it. I suppose if so then that would be fine~ish. BTW ~ this didn’t affect my review, just pointing it out.
I enjoyed Kate’s debut more than her 2nd adult novel, but will for sure read her next one.
Narration notes:
A wonderful job done as usual. There was a slight, yet noticeable, distinction between the sisters voices.
*Thanks to the author, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the audio copy. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*
Purchase on Amazon
Add to your never ending TBR ~ goodreads
I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read it.
Book blurb:
The author of What Lies in the Woods returns with a novel about three sisters, two murders, and too many secrets to count.
Emma hasn’t told her husband much about her past. He knows her parents are dead and she hasn’t spoken to her sisters in years. Then they lose their apartment, her husband gets laid off, and Emma discovers she’s pregnant―right as the bank account slips into the red.
That’s when Emma confesses that she has one more asset: her parents’ house, which she owns jointly with her estranged sisters. They can’t sell it, but they can live in it. But returning home means that Emma is forced to reveal her secrets to her husband: that the house is not a run-down farmhouse but a stately mansion, and that her parents died there.
Were murdered.
And that some people say Emma did it.
Emma and her sisters have never spoken about what really happened that night. Now, her return to the house may lure her sisters back, but it will also crack open family and small-town secrets lots of people don’t want revealed. As Emma struggles to reconnect with her old family and hold together her new one, she begins to realize that the things they have left unspoken all these years have put them in danger again.
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The premise sounds good, but it sounds like the execution was lacking