From the author of Her One Mistake, hailed as “chilling, captivating” by New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda, comes a riveting new suspense novel about three ambitious women whose lives are turned upside down in the aftermath of a horrifying fire, which destroys a successful advertising agency and threatens to expose a tangled web of lies.
Laura has returned to work at Morris and Wood after her maternity leave, only to discover that the woman she brought in to cover for her isn’t planning on going anywhere. Despite her close relationship with the agency’s powerful CEO, Harry Wood, she feels sidelined—and outmaneuvered—as she struggles to balance the twin demands of work and motherhood.
Mia was only supposed to be a temporary hire at Morris and Wood, but she’s managed to make herself indispensable to everyone. Everyone, that is, except Laura. If people only knew why she was so desperate to keep her job, they might not want her to stay.
Janie gave up everything to support her husband and the successful agency he runs. But she has her own dark secret to protect…and will go to any lengths to keep it safe.
With signature prose lauded as “breathtaking” and “bone-chilling” by USA TODAY bestselling author Cristina Alger and plenty of shocking twists and turns, Three Perfect Liars is an unputdownable thriller for fans of Watching You and The Couple Next Door.
Review –
In this book the chapters alternated between three women at different time frames before the fire. They were broken up with current day police interviews regarding the arson.
Each of the main characters is flawed and very relatable. Not one of them is all that likeable, yet their life choices are defining and it is enjoyable to read each of their perspectives. Laura is a new mom trying to make her way back into her career, while Mia is just starting out. Janie, on the other hand, is a successful attorney taking a step back to be at home with her kids. I really appreciated how the author was able to present these women with different backgroundsand show the importance of supporting women and their life choices.
For me, this was not a thriller, just pure crime fiction/drama. I kept listening because I was curious to learn what would happen next. The writing was excellent and the characters and their emotions rang true.
Obviously, someone set fire to the Morris and Wood building. But who? This story slowly unwinds, which could be a problem for some, and to be honest, I would have been happier with a little more tension and excitement.
All in all, it was a good book even if the plot felt a bit drug out.
Stephanie and Patrick are recently married, with new-born twins. While Stephanie struggles with the disorienting effects of sleep deprivation, there’s one thing she knows for certain – she has everything she ever wanted.
Then a woman from his past arrives and makes a shocking accusation about his first wife. He always claimed her death was an accident – but she says it was murder.
He insists he’s innocent, that this is nothing but a blackmail attempt. But is Patrick telling the truth? Or has Stephanie made a terrible mistake?
How will it end?
Review –
“The End of Her is my third Shari Lapena novel, and while I didn’t think it was her best, it nonetheless hooked me and fed my addiction for her stories.
The plot follows several seemingly unrelated groups of characters, whose connections will be revealed later, but the main focus is on Stephanie and Patrick, a young couple from upstate New York who have just welcomed twin girls. Unfortunately, both babies are colicky, crying from evening until late into the night. A stay-at-home mom, Stephanie feels she is at her wit’s end, and Patrick, a partner at an architectural firm, also finds his work performance suffering due lack of sleep.
The last thing this poor couple needs is even more trouble, but that’s exactly what turns up in the form of Erica, the best friend of Patrick’s first wife Lindsey, who had died years before in a tragic accident. But now, Erica has tracked Patrick down with the intent to extort him, claiming to know what really happened. Unless he paid her, Erica has threatened to go to the police with the story that Patrick had in fact murdered his first wife, making it look like an accident.
Knowing that Erica is an expert on manipulation, Patrick is terrified, having no doubt that she can make it sound convincing. Of course, it doesn’t help that he had put out a life insurance policy on Lindsey just before she died— or the damning fact that he and Erica had been sleeping together at the time. This last tidbit, Erica promises to tell his current wife if Patrick doesn’t pony up the cash, and remind Stephanie that “once a cheater, always a cheater.”
To head off the disaster, Patrick decides to come clean to Stephanie himself, preemptively telling her about the affair. However, on the death of his first wife, Patrick is adamant that it was an accident, insisting that it was all part of the lie made up by Erica to get at their money. Disappointed in her husband for his past involvement with this crazy woman, Stephanie is nonetheless supportive of him, believing his side of the story. But after refusing to pay, neither of them was prepared for Erica to actually follow through on her threat, getting the police to reopen Lindsey’s case.
Suddenly, all of Patrick’s past indiscretions are laid bare for everyone to see, jeopardizing his career and the life he has built. Devastated that her husband has been keeping secrets from her, Stephanie’s trust in him is also eroding. She knows Patrick isn’t perfect and he’s made plenty of mistakes, but could he really be capable of murder?
The End of Her asks the same question that many other domestic suspense thrillers about married couples do: Just how well do you know your spouse? In Stephanie’s case, apparently not very well. An absolute terror of a woman storms into her life, blowing to hell the notion that she and Patrick have the perfect marriage. But while readers are meant to despise Erica with a passion, and to sympathize with the protagonists whose lives she is trying ruin, Shari Lapena isn’t about to let Patrick off the hook either. Sure, he may seem sincere, and come on, how many people can honestly claim they’ve not made any dumb choices in the past? And yet, as the lies start piling up, you can’t help but start to wonder. Either Patrick has got to be the unluckiest person in the world to be caught up in all these coincidences that make him look hella suspicious, or quite simply put, he is hiding something. And for all that Erica is an evil conniving bitch, she genuinely believes she is doing Stephanie a favor by outing Patrick as a murderer, so there appears to be a part of her not solely motivated by the money. In the end, readers are torn back and forth between whether Patrick might be guilty or innocent, and I loved the way the author kept this part of the mystery going until the very end.
In terms of criticisms though, the plotting was kind of a mess. That’s because Erica, disgusting piece of human scum that she is, is also running a racket on two other couples at the same time (related to the main storyline, but I won’t say how) and every so often there would be these other perspectives randomly inserted into the narrative. Certain developments also felt too convenient, not to mention the moments where I felt the characters were deliberately written to be the stupidest people on the planet in order for them to miss the obvious solutions dangling in front of their faces.
And then there was that ending. Ugh. I’m sure in the author’s mind it was a fiendishly clever example of poetic justice meant to be her mic drop moment, but in reality, it just came across as horribly contrived, leaving me feeling cheated. After all, endings are so important when it comes to thrillers, and I hate to say it, but this one just didn’t stick the landing.
Still, right up to that point, this was a rocking good book. The End of Her may have had its hiccups, but nevertheless it kept me engaged and turning the pages through the whole thing. I’m still a huge fan of Shari Lapena, who remains on my must-read authors list, and I can’t wait to check out what she writes next.” bibliosanctum.com
The day Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move on; she wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his friend’s bachelor party? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this time later, who is the mysterious yet strangely familiar figure suddenly haunting her new life?
In No One Knows, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Nicholas Drummond series expertly peels back the layers of a complex woman who is hiding dark secrets beneath her unassuming exterior. This masterful thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Liane Moriarty, and Paula Hawkins will pull readers into a you’ll-never-guess merry-go-round of danger and deception. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops…no one knows.
Review –
I will not tell you what happens in this book because there are so many twists and turns and it keeps you on the edge of your seat until the end and then you are left with your mouth agape.
No One Knows will have inevitable comparisons to Gone Girl, but this is a more realistic storyline. It will have readers guessing who can be believed and what are their ulterior motives. Ellison messes with the character’s head as well as the readers with her many directional path changes.
I will say that I thought that Opryland in Nashville as the scene of Josh’s disappearance was genius. It is huge and so very easy to get lost in. The author has said that it is a metaphor for this story because anyone who visits there can get turned around and see different things at different times.
I loved this book all the way through and got whiplash from all the twists and turns but loved every minute of it!
Kathy's Book Bag 