Everyone Has Secrets is true to its title: secrets invade this story and readers have no idea who to trust or what really happened. It is truly a gem of a psychological thriller, but also brings up important issues like growing up, the angst of love, and the importance of truth. A J McDine is a superb writer and tells a story like no other.

Thank you to Netgalley, A.J. McDine, and Bookouture Audio for the audiobook. Tamsin Kennard delivers a fantastic narration that brings this twisty thriller to life. You'll be on the edge of your seat as secrets unfold, leading to a jaw-dropping plot twist that you won’t see coming!

''Everyone Has Secrets'' really is an utterly addictive psychological thriller, I just couldn't stop listening. And when I was not listening, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

The Griffiths family seems to have it all - Eve, her husband, and their sixteen-year-old son embody the picture-perfect family, along with Eve’s best friend Lisa and her teenage daughter Annie, who live just across the street.

However, the tranquility is shattered one fateful night when Annie is found on the tiled floor of Eve’s kitchen, struggling to breathe. As police sirens pierce the calm, all eyes turn to the Griffiths for answers. With Annie’s life hanging in the balance, Eve becomes determined to uncover the truth, but the closer she gets, the more she realizes that the people she trusts most might be hiding dark secrets.

McDine expertly constructs a narrative filled with tension and suspense, as Eve navigates a web of lies that could tear her family apart. Is it her best friend, her husband, or even her son who is lying? The author skillfully peels back layers of deception, keeping readers guessing until the very end.

Although the characters are all shown through Eve's point of view, they are richly drawn. Each grappling with their own struggles and secrets that intertwine with the overarching mystery. McDine’s writing captures the emotional weight of the story, making the reader feel every twist and turn.

A solid 5 stars and I am definitely going to read more from this author!

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for providing me the audiobook in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October, 21, 2024, go read it!

I absolutely enjoyed this audio of Everyone Has Secrets by AJ McDine. I recently also listened to The Baby by the same author and I am now hooked on her books.

How well do you really know the people you love the most?

Eve lives in the village of South Langley with her husband Noah and almost 16-year-old son Joe. Her best friend Lisa lives across the street with her 15-year-old daughter Annie. The two women had their children within two weeks of each other and the children have grown up together in and out of each other’s homes.

Joe wants to celebrate his upcoming birthday with a small party but Eve is worried out the teens drinking and smoking in her house or gatecrashers arriving at the party. Noah eventually persuades Eve that it will be good for Joe to have his friends over, they will just be across the road with Lisa. What could go wrong?

At around eleven o’clock that evening Eve receives a panicked call from Joe. Annie has collapsed on the kitchen floor struggling to breathe.
The story revolves around various secrets that some of the characters are keeping from others as well as how quickly solid relationships can change in a second when there is a serious incident. As Annie fights for her life in hospital, Eve makes it her mission to find out the whole truth behind what happened at her house that evening.

The narrator did a fabulous job and thanks again to NetGalley for my review copy.

I’ve listened to this audiobook in almost one sitting.

The combination of AJ McDine’s great writing and Tamsin Kennard’s super narration was what made this a great edge of the seat thriller!

The story centred around the Griffiths family and what secrets unfold after their son’s 16th birthday and the consequences of that night.

It’s a great read full of the usual twists and turns, thoroughly enjoyed this and definitely recommend.

Eve and her husband Noah are throwing their son Joe a 16th birthday party, and Eve wants Joe to invite her best friend Lisa's daughter, Annie. While the kids are partying, Eve and Noah are just across the way at Lisa's until they get that phone call that something terrible happened to Annie. Who can Eve trust and who is tellin the truth. All the neighbors have juicy secrets and don't want them out. This is definitely a page turner, and I am so proud of Eve for wantin to find out what really happened at the party and who is lying and tryin to get all the hidden secrets out and can she really trust everyone she loves. This book is really good with lots of twists and turns so many.

I was given a copy by the publisher via NetGalley (Thank U), and all my opinions are my own.

AJ McDine, this book needs to be made into a TV series. This would be so good! I could not put this book down. I had chills. I was so engulfed in this story from chapter one. It was full of suspense from the beginning and kept you hanging until the very end. Wonderfully done! Add this to your TBR for a thriller!

I listened to the audio on this one, and the narrator did a great job. This is a believable domestic thriller about when the unthinkable happens a few times over. I wouldn't say it's an edge-of-your-seat nail-biter, but it's a decent, enjoyable read.

Eve's seemingly perfect life gets turned upside when her goddaughter, Annie, is given illegal drugs at a party thrown by Eve's son and Annie ends up hospitalized. As Eve tries desperately to find out who supplied the drugs, she learns that her family isn't the only one with dark secrets.

This one jumped into the action quickly and the characters felt real. I enjoyed the story and the narration. I just struggled with this one because instead of there being in depth on one big secret and a bunch of little secrets or maybe going in depth on two big secrets it seems to try to go a lot of places and ended up being a little all over the place. I still enjoyed the story and I think the author is super talented, this one just wasn't my favorite.

A J has easily become an auto-read author for me. The writing pulls me in so quickly, and it's like once I start I can't stop. I feel like an investigator trying to connect the dots and figure out who did it. Of course, as usual, I was wrong, which just makes the reveal so much more intriguing.
Maybe I wouldn't call this one a thriller, more of a psychological family drama. The characters and their secrets were very relatable. The epilogue has me biting my nails, wondering if more is to come. Looking forward to many more reading from this author for sure.

Everyone Has Secrets by A J McDine
Narrated by Tamsin Kennard

It's easy for me to "know" what I'd do in the situation that Eve finds herself and her family on the night that her son has friends over for a party without parents. I have never had children or grandchildren so I don't have to filter what I want to do through what I should do in a way a parent will be compelled to do. Sadly, the events in this story ring true, could really happen, have happened before, and will keep on happening as long as there are parents, kids, and outside influences.

The world blows up for Eve, her family, her best friend, and her goddaughter on an ordinary night. But as Eve digs into what happened that night, all against the wishes of law enforcement and common sense, Eve realizes her world had been on this path for a long time. Just where this path has led from and where it's going, Eve doesn't know but she does know that if she doesn't make some decisions and influence some minds and events, life could get a lot worse than where it's heading at the moment.

Heartbreaking, tension filled, and too realistic for comfort, it's scary to see the pressures on both children and parents. But it's also scary to see that so often adults make decisions that will mean no one learns from what has happened in the past, that things will just keep on going as they have gone on, that is unless, someone takes a stand. I really liked the epilogue of this story because I think if another story comes from this one, it'll be because some people took the easy way out. As always, Tamsin Kennard does an excellent job of narrating chaos among what first appears so sedate and serene.

Thank you to Bookouture Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this E-ARC audiobook.

The title of this book is very accurate. Everyone has secrets, and as a mother races to find out who was involved in the tragedy that occurred in their home, she starts to realize just how many secrets those around her are hiding. I think the author did a great job writing a story with lots of twists and reveals and did a good job keeping the ending somewhat veiled while also making perfect sense as you think back over the book. I liked that none of the characters were perfect or blameless. While some weren’t directly connected to what happened at her son’s party, they still were flawed people. They weren’t bad enough to be villainized or dislikable, though. They felt very real. The narrator also did a fantastic job reading with emotion and using different voices when needed for dialogue.

AJ McDone does it again it crafting a book that pulls me in and keeps me engaged and not wanting to take a break from reading!

I listened to the audiobook and the narration was great. The natural voice and speed were listenable without any manipulation. How we o did listen to it on 1.75x as I couldn’t get enough of listening.

Now it’s listed as a mystery thriller and a tag line has it as “An utterly addictive and gripping psychological thriller with edge-of-your-seat suspense” but I disagree. I didn’t find suspense in that way at all. It also wasn’t really a thriller. A mystery, absolutely. A page turner to find out the ending, absolutely. Unexpected twists? Yup!!

Now it has suspense in that since you are told some information fairly early on and you wonder how things will change or what twists are coming but it’s not that edge of your seat type.

Sorry maybe I don’t have the words! But the book is well written with likable characters for the most part. It also takes pace in the UK which I love as I always learn something new. This time it was how they pronounce the word nauseous 😝

The book comes out on October 22nd 2024. I highly suggest picking this up as it really is a page turner.

I am thankful to have gotten the ALC for free from Netgalley and Bookouture Audio so I can leave my voluntary review.

My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars and I rarely round up.

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again

Eve Griffiths seems to have the perfect life in a lovely home with her husband and teenage son, and her best friend close by in the beautiful village where they all live.

Until her friend's daughter Annie is found half dead in Eve's home and everyone wants answers. What really happened to Annie? Were any members of the Griffiths family responsible for her situation?

Eve is determined to get to the truth, but to do so she will have to uncover a series of secrets kept by those around her...

Although Eve is a bit of a control freak, hard not to feel some sympathy for her. She is in a situation where literally nothing is as it seems, and she is trying to make sense of it all even though she only has some of the puzzle pieces at hand.

This was an absorbing read and quite entertaining too.it gets 3.5 stars.

I found this to be more a domestic drama rather than the thriller it is described as, up until the last few chapters.
Though not what I was expecting, I enjoyed the story for the most part and being a parent, could empathise with what the characters were going through. I did not particularly like the main character and found some of her behaviour odd and difficult to believe. I found it frustrating that she was apparently blind to what was blatantly obvious to the reader. I would have much rather have spent more time hearing from some of the other characters and more about the police investigation and drug bust.
I did enjoy the ending however, felt it was rushed and summed up rather quickly. The story starts off well, drags on a bit in the middle then has an unexpected twist at the end.
I know books with a twist are popular and while I didn’t see the final twist coming, for me it is as much about the journey as it is the destination and I nearly gave up before getting there.
With thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for my copy of the audiobook for review.

This book is a twisted family drama where everyone truly has secrets. I enjoyed the suspenseful build-up and the layers of deception throughout the story. However, I found myself a bit irritated by Eve’s gentle parenting approach. While she’s a good mother, friend, and wife, some of her decisions left me questioning her judgment, especially when it came to handling her son Joe.

The narration was fantastic and really brought the tension to life. Every time I thought I had figured things out, I was proven wrong, which made the story even more engaging. If you're looking for a domestic thriller filled with twists and secrets, this one will definitely keep you guessing.

Everyone DOES HAVE SECRETS apart from about three characters in this book! The pace of the book is exactly right, to assimilate all the necessary details.

The story takes place in the leafy village of South Langley. Eve, her husband, and their sixteen-year-old son live in the beautiful home they have always dreamed of. Eve’s best friend Lisa, and her teenage daughter Annie, live in a charming cottage right across the street. Everything seems perfect until one night the unthinkable happens in the most mysterious way and turns the entire peaceful neighborhood, with all its friendships upside down. The family is feeling stressed out and humiliated as never before! But somebody, somewhere, surely knows the truth. Is there something or somebody more sinister at work here that can't even be imagined? One thing is sure, lives will be changed forever on the night of this 16 yr. old boy's birthday party, and one person has sworn to find the underlying cause of it and find the truth. But at what cost?

The narrator, Tamsin Kennard, does an excellent job with the story. Clear, with emotion and fluency in all the right spots. The author A J McDine, weaves a fascinating tale that stays on my mind way after the last word read.

5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Oooh this was a great book!
I was gripped from the start and flew threw it.

The narrator, Tamsin Kennard, was perfect for the story and really brought the characters to life.

Love A.J. Mcdine's books, pretty much autoread for me.

Thanks to Bookouture Audio via Netgalley for gifting me an advance copy of this terrific new book.

3.5 ⭐

Oh, I did not like Eve at all.
She was the worst case of control freak and helicopter parent combined.
I actually enjoyed watching her perfect life unravel.
A highly believable scenario, where kids and drugs are involved, and how almost everyone has secrets.
Also how good they can be at keeping them.
This nicely exposes them all.
It was a very entertaining read, and I'll definitely be on the lookout for more from this author.

I really like the narrator and the speed of narration.

I like the descriptions of the settings and the unique landscape.

The characters are flawed, realistic yet likeable enough to make you keep reading.

The plot starts with a kind of mediocre occasion, to build the context before a dramatic event that goes on unresolved for much of the novel.

I kept reading on and on. It's dramatic and exciting enough to make you addicted to the drama and really wanting to find out what happens next. I love these types of novels and movies, where you're on the edge of your seat waiting for the characters to find out secrets and learn why certain things happen.

I really felt for the mother. Even though she is flawed and has made mistakes in the past, she really tries to look out for her loved ones and protect those closest to her.

Thank you to Netgalley, Bookulture Audio and A J McDine for providing me with an advance reader copy ebook in exchange for my honest feedback.