A thriller that really kept the pages turning. I did not see all of the twists coming and was very invested in this story.

EXCERPT: 'Please look?'
When his brother sounded like the little kid he used to be, Colson stopped. There was a plaintive note that made him drop his board and approach the seagulls, waving his hands to disperse them.
The seagulls did not like it one bit. Whatever they had gotten hold of, they wanted to keep.
'Beat it!' Colson yelled, kicking sand at them. He watched as one gull almost took off, nearly lifting into the air with the object secured in his beak. But it proved to be too heavy for him and he dropped it.
Both Rand and Colson lunged forward. It was hard to tell who identified it first. Rand's tanned face paled and he turned his head to vomit, avoiding the item on the sand. Colson did not throw up, although he confessed to his brother that he could have.
'Fuck,' Colson said. 'It's a hand.'

ABOUT 'REEF ROAD': When a severed hand washes ashore in the wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Florida, the lives of two women—a lonely writer obsessed with the unsolved murder of her mother’s best friend and a panicked wife whose husband has disappeared with their children—collide as the world shutters in the pandemic lockdown of 2020.
A young woman’s life seems perfect until her family goes missing. A writer lives alone with her dog and collects arcane murder statistics. What each of them stands to lose as they sneak around the do-not-enter tape blocking Reef Road beach is exposed by the steady tightening of the cincture encircling them.

MY THOUGHTS: Great beginning, but by 50% I was ready to throw in the towel. At 51% something happened that made me sit up, take notice and think that perhaps the author was going to redeem herself. It was definitely an interesting twist that showed a promise which, unfortunately, remained unfulfilled. I struggled on to the end, unimpressed.
The premise of the novel is great, but I couldn't form any sort of connection with the characters. There is a great deal of pontification and I found myself skimming large tracts of text until something caught my eye and I would resume reading. I think that I just do not like the author's style of writing.
Most people have loved this novel, so please check out other more positive reviews before deciding whether or not to read Reef Road.

⭐⭐

#ReefRoad #NetGalley

I: @deborahgoodrichroyceofficial @post_hill_press

T: @royce_deborah @PostHillPress

#contemporaryfiction #crime #familydrama #mystery

THE AUTHOR: Deborah began her career as an actress. After the birth of her daughters, she moved with her family to Paris, then New York where she oversaw readers, manuscript acquisitions, and script development. She and her husband Chuck have restored the 1939 Avon Theatre in Stamford, CT and several hotels.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Post Hill Press via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Reef Road by Deborah Goodrich Royce for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Set during the pandemic lockdown this is the story of 'the wife', Linda and 'the writer', Noelle and how their lives collide. Privileged Linda is bored with her married life and Noelle is an isolated individual, only sharing her life with her elderly dog.

This is a superb character study of two women and how past events can impact on the present. The writing is exceptional and the reader finds questions at every turn. The background of the pandemic is a skilful plot device which moves the story forward in ways it probably couldn't without it. There is a great deal to like in this intriguing read. I was completely hooked.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Post Hill. Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting and clever story of murder, friendship, loneliness and betrayal set during the COVID 19 Pandemic. Slow to start and appears disjointed but all comes together eventually and picks up the pace to become an enjoyable read. 3.5*s rounded up to 4. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. .

My first read of 2023 and it is a WOW!!!

Tragic events from 1948 shape the lives and paths of many people. These paths will eventually get crossed and it makes for a crazy ride. Lots of twists and turns. I LOVE a book where you think you have it figured out only to have it twist to something completely different!!! I could not read fast enough!!! Highly recommend.

Thank you Netgalley and Post Hill Press for the ARC of this book to read and review!!!

There were a few bumps throughout this unreliable narrative that detracted from the intricate plot. A writer, a cold case murder victim, and a wife all intersect in this story where a severed hand is found on a beach. A it slow to start but intriguing enough that you want to know what happened. It does not quite fit into a tidy ending but still worth a read. I would read this author again.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

I am thought this book was very interesting. It showed the interweaved lives of three women, one as a child, and two of them during the Covid lockdown. I love the way the book weaved them all together. The storyline was interesting. I felt that it was a great thriller, as I did not see the end wrap-up.
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to preview this book!

Reef Road was such an amazing book. I loved the heightened anxiety throughout the whole book. This was masterful at depicting generational scars and the life of a writer.

“a single act of violence may seem like an isolated incident with a beginning, middle, and end. But it didn’t work that way. Like a stone thrown into a lake, it’s ripples continued outward in ever growing circles to the point where an observer might not be able to trace the movement of the water’s surface to the original impact from the tossed stone. But, even unseen, that connection existed”

This is an intelligent, thought provoking book that follows the perspectives of two different characters, the link between which is not at first apparent. The setting is very timely describing only the recent past of covid lockdown and the feelings that this time evoked.
I thoroughly enjoyed the ride that this book took me on and its underlying theme of the ripples caused by a single act of violence. I will definitely be looking for more material from this author in the future.

Lovely cover with promise of some exotic tale therein but unfortunately I just felt confused through most of it.

This book started with a good premise and had me intrigued to read on until about 39% in where the author veered off and began discussing other cases in addition to the two she was already going back and forth on. Once this started.i.quickly lost interest and could not finish the book as I had a hard time getting back.into the already of rhythm of the story.

Reef Road follows two women. “The Wife”, who seemingly has the perfect family life, and a “The Writer” who is obsessed with solving the murder of her mother’s childhood best friend. The story begins in Palm Beach, Florida at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, when two surfers make a gruesome discovery washed up on the shore.

From the outside peeking in, the writer finds that the wife’s pristine home on Reef Road is a façade masking a messy marriage and other dark secrets. The writer’s obsessive nature shifts from a decades old murder to focus on the wife’s life.

As a true crime podcast listener, I enjoyed the true crime portions of the book. The writer’s young life was deeply impacted by the trauma her mother experienced when her best friend was murdered at 12 years old. The mother’s possessiveness raising her led to her own struggles with mental health. The writer immersed herself in true crime research, she collected statistics about murder and spent all her time thinking about murder.

The first half of the book was very slow, it took a while for the actual plot to be revealed. I wish the connection between our two MCs happened a little earlier on. The second half was much better paced, but it was a little too late by the time we got to the crescendo of the main conflict. The ending was not very satisfying, there were many unanswered questions. I wish a sincere thanks to NetGalley and the author for an advanced copy.

Having not read Deborah Goodrich Royce previously, her latest release Reef Road had a promising premise. Ignoring the closed beach, two teenagers go surfing at Reef Road, Palm Beach, only to discover a human hand washed ashore. The narrative of what flows from this event is recounted by two women (the writer and the wife) in alternative chapters. Initially, a slow-paced story, turns dark midway and requires a trigger warning, as surprise reveals may cause distress to some readers. Based on a real crime, this standalone mystery thriller was a mixture of memoir and exposé, but sadly like its ending, was a disappointing tale. Despite an interesting hook, the author’s fictionalising historic trauma into the pandemic era, did not quite deliver, so only a two and a half stars rating. With thanks to Post Hill Press and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given.

In 1948, Noelle Huber, aged 12, was happily preparing to bake a cake when 36 stab wounds from an unknown assailant cut the preparation, and her life, short. Her parents, returning from an evening out near their home in Pittsburgh, found her dying within reach of the phone. The house had been lockfast when they left and she was under strict instruction not let anyone in, but the blind was up on the backdoor suggesting that she had recognised and let in her murderer. The only real suspect was her older brother, but his alibi, though a bit patchy, stood up. The case remained unsolved. In 2019, a writer of true crime stories begins to seriously investigate the case. Her mother was the dead girl’s best friend so the writer (which is all she is called for the first part of the book) has always known about the case; it may, in fact, have been the reason for her choice of genre. Recently, for reasons that soon become obvious, the writer has moved to Palm Beach, Florida.
Linda Alonso, mother of two small children, is originally from Pittsburgh but now lives Palm Beach, with her Argentinian husband Miquel. Palm Beach is an island, notorious for the rich and famous who have holiday homes on the southern end, but Linda and her family live in a ranch style house on Reef Road, at the northern end, which is middle class residential. Although her life appears outwardly content, there are tensions within the family – but perhaps no more than in other young families. She also has additional pressures. Her mother, back in Pittsburgh, is terminally ill and Linda has to fly there regularly to deal with matters as next-of-kin, a role she has had to take on because her estranged father has dementia and is in a care home.
The lives of these two women are intertwined, like a small star circling a blackhole; but which will be destroyed by their collision? And what has any of this to do with the severed hand washed up on the beach at the end of Reef Road?
The story takes place towards the end of 2019 and the unfurling of the plot, and the actions of the protagonists, is influenced by Covid restrictions – seamlessly influenced; the virus is just a part of the scenery like the sea, the dunes. The story is told from the point of view of the two women, chapters alternating so that we see how and why they are connected and understand their motivations and the psychological inevitability which links the murder in 1948 and the severed hand in 2020. This is masterful plotting, brilliant characterisation, and highly skilful use of language. It fully lives up to the style and high standards of her previous books.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

Thanks to Pemuted Press and NetGalley for this ARC. Wow. Very much feel a Kathy Bates vibe in Misery. Exceptional writing. Informative details- that I was ignorant to- just add to the story. Always a plus. A solid 4 star read. 4.5,

Thanks to Post Hill Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. I heard about this forthcoming book from a book podcast, recommended by a favorite bookseller of mine. She said it was a thriller that was unlike anything she had read before, and since our reading tastes overlap quite a bit, I had to pick this one up. I inhaled this book and completed it in less than 24 hours, even getting up in the middle of the night to finish it when I could not sleep! This book involves a severed hand washing up on shore, a writer investigating the murder of her mom's childhood friend, and a woman whose husband and kids disappear - all culminating during the initial lockdown in the 2020 pandemic. I loved the alternating POV chapters and non-linear timeline as well as the meta conversations about mystery writing and true crime culture. This book was exactly what I needed at the moment, and now I must look up Royce's backlist.

When a hand washes up in Palm Beach during the Covid lockdown, two women come together due to an old unsolved murder.

If you feel it’s a bit slow in the beginning, keep reading. It really picks up towards the middle and at the end it’s an unraveling where everything falls apart.. and ties together. I like the two main characters and their different motivations. The relationship and past relations were clever but at times I had to remind myself who was who.

“If you commit murder and then vanish, what you leave behind it’s just pain but absence, a supreme blankness that triumphs over everything else.”

Reef Road comes out 1/10.

Balancing on a thin line between fiction and non-fiction, this book keeps you on your toes. Is this a real case or the product of an author's imagination?

The story begins excruciatingly slowly but then the turn of events compensates you for the first 50 pages. The book casts light on intergenerational traumas whether they are inflicted by a person's act or happening on a society level. I love a good novel with several layers, and this one is a fine example - a clever and thought-provoking read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Post Hill Press for an Advance Review Copy.

I enjoyed reading this, even though it fizzled out eventually. I’m not usually a fan of mixed-up timelines, but this one was well done. I didn’t much care for the “Writer” chapters, especially because she said the same things again and again, and also went into weird tangents half the time. The Writer was also a decidedly i likeable character, and I’m ambivalent about how the book ends. But overall, ut kept me reading, so one extra star for that.

(Review copy from NetGalley)

Reef Road is a unique fiction novel that reads like true crime. I was drawn into this story immediately as it begins with a severed hand washing ashore on a beach in Florida and who doesn't immediately get intrigued with that as an introduction? From there, the story alternates between two characters that are introduced as "The Wife" and "The Writer." The Wife lives in an upscale neighborhood in Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband and two children. All the reader knows of the Writer in the beginning is that her mom's best friend was murdered when she was 12 years old and that murder altered her mother's life as well as her own. From there, the reader jumps back and forth waiting to see how these two characters and their stories converge.

What I liked about this book:
This story held my interest for the duration of the book, even at times when the pace felt slow. Much of this story takes place during the start of the Covid pandemic, which I found to be an interesting element and one I had not yet encountered in other recent books. I also appreciated that this book included real true crime stories that I found myself researching while reading this book. The story was clever and well-written.

What didn't work for me:
The pace felt somewhat slow for the first half of the book as the story builds though that did not deter me from continuing to read. And, for me, the ending was a bit disappointing.

Overall, I'd rate it between 3.5 and 4 stars. Elements of this book will stay with me as it was certainly different from other thrillers and at times had me questioning what was real and what was fiction. I would recommend this book to others and read more by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.