Compelling, suspenseful and mysterious I was gripped all the way through and couldn't put it down. If you like books that make your heart race this is for you

This book is my favourite one written by Vanessa Garbin. It gave me the chills and the isolation of the house made the settings perfect and I was easily able to picture it. Marylin isn't sure whether to go to the reunion with her old highschool friends but when she does shocking secrets are revealed. I was suspicious of everyone involved at some stage and I had not guessed who the culprit was when it was revealed. I loved it and read in one sitting without stopping.

Thankyou to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this ARC.
This is my first title by this author and i did enjoy and will read more from them in the future.
I really enjoyed this book and found that some of the characters were hiding things and arent what they originally seemed which i enjoy in books.
Thankyou again.
3/5 stars

Page turner for sure!!!! This book kept me wanting to keep turning the pages so that I could find out what would happen next! Some of the characters could have done with a little more depth but overall this book was fantastic full of unexpected twists and the ending kept me up late into the night cuz i was on the edge of my seat I had to figure out how it would end this is a great book for all thriller/locked room trope mystery lovers!!!!!

Much thanks to #netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this ARC
All thoughts and opinions are my own

I really liked the premise of this book - a group of high school friends is drawn back together ten years after a tragic event tore their group apart - and was hooked by the prologue, which kept me wondering how the plot was going to reach such a dramatic and ominous denouement. I found Maz to be an interesting, sympathetic protagonist and, initially, not knowing who she (or we, the readers) could trust made for an intriguing, compelling narrative.

This story is a pacy thriller that kept me engaged, but the constant twists eventually became exhausting; it was difficult to truly become absorbed in the story as every revelation or assumption is highly likely to be contradicted or undermined shortly afterwards.

The character development is notably weak for several of the supporting characters: Lucas' only characteristics are that he loves Sienna and 'hates the rain and getting wet', while, in the first two thirds of the story, Jake is so vaguely and generally suspicious that his fiancée announces at one point, 'Just because he's got an eyepatch doesn't mean he's the villain!' The early chapters are very heavy with exposition so that we can follow the relationship dynamics between Maz, Lizzie, Tamara and Sienna, and it would have made more sense to have the parallel timeline introduced from the start to avoid this.

The final few chapters are a breakneck ride with approximately 24(!) revelations coming one after another.

In summary, while this story has a lot of potential and is certainly entertaining, it didn't live up to its early promise for me.

This was a nice easy read and I got into it straight away.

Worked out pretty early on that one of the characters at the beginning of the book wasn't all they seemed, so I wanted to see how the plot unfolded and who that character fitted in with.

Would recommend,

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book, this is my honest opinion

★★☆☆☆ (2.5)

My favourite genre I think maybe ever is this type of fast-paced, twisty, murder-mystery type book. My curiosity always gets the better of me and I have to find out what happens (no matter how painful the actual writing may be to get there), which means these are always great books to get me out of reading slumps. This is one of those books.

Set almost entirely on a weekend retreat, old friends who haven't spoken in ten years following a tragic event return to the same beach house in order to bury the trauma. However, as often happens in these books, it doesn't exactly go to plan.

The prologue grips you from the first page, and the pace never really lightens up after that. The reader is constantly being pulled in different directions, not knowing who to trust or even what happened ten years ago that is making everyone so twitchy. While this can keep you on your toes, it also becomes exhausting to read. The characters are all dislikeable, and flit between decisions like a feather - whilst I'm sure the intention was to keep everyone a possible suspect, what it does is make it incredibly difficult to connect with any character and the twists and turns become hard to keep track of due to the sheer number of them.

Halfway through, a second timeline is added, to show the truth of what happened all those years ago. Yes, this does help to have these simultaneous to each other and means that the reader isn't just being told what happened (especially by all these completely distrustful characters), but I personally have a pet peeve with books that completely change structure halfway through; for me, if it was going to be a dual-timeline narrative, it should have done that from the beginning. The ending also feels incredibly rushed and unbelievable, (view spoiler) with the addition of a 'happily ever after' epilogue that feels like an afterthought.

In saying that, if you are looking for an easy-to-read, page turning book to get you out of a slump, or read on your morning commute that you don't really have to think too much about - this is perfect. If you like books that are intricately plotted, well-thought through with fully realised characters...maybe keep looking.

cw//
burying alive, murder, mentions of terminal illness, mentions of cancer, mentions of mental institutions and mental instability, mentions of self harm

A really easy and enjoyable read!

The plot is good, a bunch of old school friends who haven’t spoken in 10 years get together to have a reunion in the same place something tragic had happened in to them only 10 years before. We get to meet each character and get a good strong description of them (which really helps visualise the characters)!

The main character, Marilyn, refuses to tell her boyfriend, Lance, of what happened in the home so the reader is kept in the dark for a lot of the book which was frustrating and then when what happened is revealed, it is done very quickly and can get confusing. However it is a suspense thriller so not knowing is usually part of writing style. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn’t.
I enjoy when I’m trying I figure out everything along with the characters but I dis have to go over the reveal once or twice in order to fully get it.

There were a lot in the friend group as well and each of them had a partner so it was difficult at times to differentiate each character and who their partner was. I also felt like one or two of them were just fillers and was questioning their fate at the end..

Overall it was a good light read, enjoyable and I will be looking at more of her books!