this just wasn't for me- i couldn't connect with the main character. thank you netgalley & the publisher for the arc!

Kit is a waitress, and she loves her job, can’t understand why some people find it a lowly job, it’s everything she wants it to be, she takes pride in it and with her new love interest her life is just fine
Until it isen’t, tragedy happens and she needs to leave all she knows behind her to start again…..and then something amazing happens to her, truly amazing she can hardly believe it
So starts a tale of deception, mis-trust, grief and subterfuge on a scale enough to floor anyone….but Kit just about keeps her wits about her and as the story continues she can never have imagined what dark secrets are behind her recent bad, and good fortunes!
Dark and mysterious, at times a bit repetitive and slowish but overall a good psychological thriller/drama

8/10
4 Stars

'The Waitress' is a good read but I was not sure what genre it was trying to be. There were times it felt like a thriller and others where it just felt like a dramatic fiction. The two did not merge extremely well together and I was left feeling a bit confused.
This aside, I did think the atmosphere was intense, Manning really builds the sense of isolation and I was waiting for something big to happen. Some of the plot threads do border on the ridiculous but if I put that aside, I could enjoy them.
The characters are good and left me wanting to get to know them and what happened.
Everything in this book was okay it just did not win me over.
Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an advance copy.

What a brilliant book! This had me guessing right to the end. Pacy, domineering partners, sinister and chilling this book had it all. Kit Lowman is happy and settled doing a job she loves when she gets involved with Tom. It’s then that everything goes downhill in some ways for her but some events seem to good to be true. Has her luck changed for the better or the worse? I thought that the then and now way this was written worked really well. You could only guess and speculate about what had actually happened in her past. Allergies, mental health and relationships ( good and bad) we’re all covered.

A big thank you to Net Galley for the advanced copy!

Kit is a waitress who’s never wanted to be anything more. She adores her job: she loves meeting incredible people, satisfying their every craving, and knowing she played a role in their delight. But most of all, Kit loves the anonymity the job allows her. When she wins a $2 million dollar home in a contest she entered on a whim, her quiet life becomes a little louder. As she moves into the home, things are even more unusual than she imagined. After a series of strange happenings in the home, Kit is begins to wonder if her old secrets have been discovered, even more that someone is trying to disturb her new life.

A slow burn with some thrilling moments this book was a page turner, however the twists for me flopped. The story seemed very far fetched. Who would be ignorant to just accept a multimillion dollar home? Why is someone so willing to brutally destroy someone’s life? The answers gave me some eye rolls. The dramatic ending didn’t give me the excitement I’d hoped.

3 stars as I DNFed it so I cannot comment on the entire book. I found it hard to connect with the character who seems to have an over inflated ego about her job but at the same time is desperately insecure. I also am over the whole "clickbait" writing where the character constantly refers to a bad event or secret but won't reveal what happened until the very end, forcing you to read the entire book. Because we all know if the MC just said what tf they did, the book would be over in two seconds.

I really enjoyed this book, with its dual time line of before and after something happened it makes for a fun read trying to pick up the right clues to what happened and who everyone really is.

There are some disturbing moments during this read which while upsetting were not used just to shock but to give clues and lead the way.

I found that once I reached the last 1/4 of the book I really didn't want to put it down anymore! I needed to know what had and was happening, were my guesses correct!

Overall, I found this to be a well written, pacey book with a nicely satisfying ending

An excellent read that probably deserves five stars as I was disgruntled with it having such a dark tone, but I admit to being totally flummoxed when it all tied together at the end. (okay, changed it to 5 stars....!) Mental illness, deadly allergens, job competitiveness taken to a deadly level, and so much more interwoven into a deadly web that destroyed several people, literally and figuratively...... This book had an ending I never could ave imagined. Despite its dark overtones that disturbed and aggravated me throughout the first three quarters of the book, I will be reading another of Ms. Manning's books.... Hopefully I will have better luck figuring out what is happening.... or not! Great job, Ms. Manning!

Absolutely devoured this - brilliant and pacy! Moving between the now and then to unravel the story and full of twists and turns as it goes. You're really unsure who can be trusted in this story and that makes it even more readable and unputdownable!

Kit wins a $2million home in a deal, and she accepts it - but there's darkness lurking around her, she comes off as someone who is running away from what happened in her past. She used to be a waitress at Mirabelle but has now quit her job as something happened there and she doesn't want to face her colleagues, parents and her boyfriend Tom. Her boyfriend doesn't seem to support Kit's career choice - he keeps telling her to quit, be with him and become a mother. But Kit has her dreams and she is clear that she wants to be a waitress as she enjoys the job.

This book is written in Then & Now - this back & forth was a bit much at times, and most of the times I felt that the story was not going anywhere but was just getting dragged in the hope of creating suspense - I have read other books by this author, but to be frank this book is not so suspenseful!

Thanks to Netgalley, Nina Manning, Boldwood Books for approving the ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

The Waitress
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Thriller
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 7/21/22
Author: Nina Manning
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Pages: 290
Goodreads Rating: 3.80

TW ⚠️: Animal cruelty, anxiety/depression, and low self esteem issues

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Boldwood Books and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

Synopsis: Waitress Kit Lowman knows that people look down on her and the job she does. But being anonymous offers Kit safety and security and allows her own terrible secrets to remain hidden. And then Kit’s luck changes, and she suddenly faces a terrible dilemma: reveal her true identity and accept that life will never be the same. Or stay in the shadows…where she hopes she’ll be safe? When secrets are exposed, will someone make Kit pay?

My Thoughts: This took some time to warm up, a bit of a slow burn. Some of the book was a little slow and then some of the book was fast paced, couldn’t wait to turn the page. The story is told from Kit’s perspective, alternating between two timelines, now and then, which I do love, as you get the backstory perspective with the current happenings. The characters are well developed, have depth to them, they were creatively done, and were mysterious. The author’s writing was creepy, complex, suspenseful, and keep me wanting more. The author sets the tone of the book with extremely descriptive creepy scenes that makes you feel like you are right there, watching your back. The story provided a good amount of twists and turns, to keep you guessing, you could feel the tension, and the plot worked well for this story. I recommend pre-ordering this book today!

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

I loved this one. Very fun and suspenseful- got me turning pages as I tore through it – I had to see how it would end. The characters were likable and the story felt believable. Solid five

This one was a rare miss for me. I had a hard time getting into the story. It switched between then and now a lot, before I had any idea what was going on. The characters just seemed to fall flat to me. I really wanted to like this one!

Kit wins a $2 million home in some Publishers Clearing House kind of deal and the timeline is going back and forth between her old waitressing job and the new one, her previous boyfriend and now, when she is alone. We know that she hurt someone but we don't know how or why. We know she feels guilty and it haunts her. The story just moved at too strange of a pace for me but I wanted to stick around and see what happened.

A gripping read that was well written, with well developed characters and twists and unpredictability. Fast paced and suspenseful.

This book had a nice writing style but the plot was inconsistent and flawed, foreseeable twist and the main protagonist's naivety was somewhat unbelievable. 2.5 stars rounded to 3.

An interesting start to this book and i quite enjoyed the Now and Then chapters.
Sadly i then got quite irritated with the way it progressed, i find myself flipping through parts of it and generally found it predictable and dull.
Not Nina Manning's finest in my opinion.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy and i leave my honest review.

I don’t know what’s going on even after I passed the halfway mark. Could it be that this book is too slow-paced for me? Or it’s just not my right kind of book? One thing for sure, I clearly got blindsided by the vibe of mystery that the description provided. I like the slow-burn in a romance. I like the world-building in a fantasy. I like the mystery in a thriller. Forgive me but this book is nothing of the sort. And I struggled to get through each pages. I failed to connect to Kit Lowman, the main protagonist. Let alone any other characters in it. And even though I did finish reading, I might as well put a DNF label on it. Hope others would enjoy it though. Everyone has different opinions, after all.

Thanks to #NetGalley for my copy of #TheWaitress

This started off good but I lost interest, i I got 10% and put it down. Perhaps I will pick it up again another time.
Cute cover it drew me in

The Waitress
The BRAND NEW gripping, edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Bridesmaid for 2022
by Nina Manning
Thank you, Boldwood Books and by #NetGalley.
This book was one I had to finish in one day. Wow, Kept me on my toes, NEEDING to know the who and what happened. Of course, I never guess the true villain! Brilliantly written, dropping the breadcrumbs, and my flipping grabbing more.

Thank you #Netgalley for the advanced copy!

Kit is looking to be alone after a tragic event occurs. She leaves her boyfriend, and stops contacting her sister and parents. She needed time to regroup, so when she won a home in a nearby town Kit tried to embrace this as a fresh start. She found a new waitress job, made friends with a neighbor, got a dog and tried to start a new life. However, she couldn't help but feel that there was someone always around in her new home, someone haunting her of her past. We go back and forth with Then and Now to better understand what Kit was running from and it was not what I was expecting! Kept you on your toes until the last chapter!