Tara LaskowskiReviews

Tara Laskowski's newest novel, The Weekend Retreat, appealed to me because of the setting of a family winery in the Finger Lakes region. (I grew up in the Finger Lakes region and I love a good winery.)

The novel takes place during the wealthy Van Ness family's annual birthday celebration for Richard and his twin sister Harper, along with their spouses and younger brother Zach who is bringing along his new girlfriend whom no one has yet met.

The recent death of the Van Ness matriarch looms large over the gathering. She was tough-bordering-on-emotionally abusive on all her children, especially her daughter Harper. Richard's wife Elle has taken over the reigns planning the perfect birthday weekend retreat, one that would please her mother-in-law.

Things turn ugly as everyone turns on each other and someone on the outside of this heavily secured fortress has designs on getting revenge on the family- but why? Everyone has secrets they are hiding, secrets that can destroy the family. When a torrential rainstorm plunges the estate in darkness something deadly this way comes.

The Weekend Retreat has a real Succession vibe as the characters are generally unlikeable rich people with a parent who treated them cruelly at times. (The rich- they're like us. Not really.) There are lots of twists, some you'll see coming, some that will take you by surprise. The book has been called "Succession meets Agatha Christie" and that is an apt description. It's a good book to read on a rainy weekend curled up under a blanket with a cold glass of Riesling.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Fall 2023 Blog Tour.

Mystery

Suspense

An annual birthday party gone wrong.

The Van Ness family is celebrating their annual birthday bash for the twins at their mansion.

This year was no different, except for the death of their mother and the addition of Zach’s soon-to-be fiancé.

But what can go wrong and does go wrong with this year's celebration?

PLENTY!!

Each sibling has some secret.

Who has the worst secret and who will survive the weekend?

And...who is the unidentified guest who seems to be planning some disaster?

A very character-driven novel that has a slow buildup, but once ALL the secrets and conniving characters are revealed you won't be able to turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens. 4/5

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The Van Ness siblings are coming together at their estate in the luscious wine country. It is a birthday celebration for the twins of the Van Ness clan. But it soon becomes clear there is more going on than a big party. And it may include murder!

Let me just say, I did not like a single character in this book. And usually that means I will DNF it. But there was something about this book that kept me reading. The tensions, the secrets, the lies….all come together to make a pretty, dad-blame good read. And the ending…well you need to read this to find out!

Need a good family drama with a kick…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski is a highly recommended mystery where a family gathering quickly deteriorates.

The Van Ness family traditionally gathers together at their Finger Lakes winery estate to celebrate the birthdays of Richard and Harper. It is their 35th birthday this year so they are there along with their spouses, Elle and Lucas, as well as younger brother Zach and his girlfriend Lauren. Richard is an attorney, Harper runs a failing online cosmetics company while Lucas had a successful tech company. Elle plans the weekend as she feels their mother, who recently passed away, would have. The siblings all take her for granted. Zach has been just their playboy younger brother and he's brought girlfriends to the estate before.

Readers know from the opening news story that one person, possibly two have died. This is a locked-room mystery where all the players are trapped on the estate and a big storm is coming. None of the characters are particularly likeable and several are actively self-centered and disagreeable. They are all carrying resentments and jealousies from the past. None of these people like each other and they all have secrets.

The narrative is told through the point-of-view of different of family members and one unnamed party guest. All the infighting, secrets, and attitudes between family members keeps the action interesting as does the creepy setting. The setting includes secret rooms and basement tunnels in the mansion, gifts from an unknown person, an approaching storm, and a vineyard at night which all work together to increase the apprehension. Those who carefully read the novel will know who the unnamed guest is so the real mystery is what ultimately happens. 3.5 rounded up

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Graydon House via Edelweiss.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/12/the-weekend-retreat.html½

This dark story takes place in Opal Beach, a Jersey Shore-like town with authentic details such as the Boardwalk, carnivals, and winter residents (who hate the summer with a passion). These residents are insular and secretive with good reason – a girl went missing years ago and no one knows what happened to her.

When Allison, a disgraced meteorologist, scores a house-sitting job in Opal Beach she discovers just how insular the townfolk can be. The story is told from various points of view, with the main story being that of Allison and her demons. Maureen, the vanished girl, has demons of her own but has a youthful optimism that makes her more appealing than Allison. I was instantly on Maureen’s side and was hoping for a good outcome for her. Allison had her moments, but it seemed that she was slow to make a move due to past events. I understand how she was written, but I wanted her to have a little more backbone. Perhaps she was outshone by the brightness and promise of Maureen. I absolutely loved, loved, loved that Maureen considered herself a mermaid, with her tail flapping at times when she was most confident. It’s too bad that some of that confidence didn’t rub off on Allison.

Allison is befriended by a few friendly residents of Opal Beach and shunned by others. As the plotlines converge and we see characters commit actions in their youth, the reader will find out that what happens in the 80’s does not stay there. The author is skilled at creating the carefree attitude of summer down the shore, both in her character description and the environment. Laskowski is adept at setting a mood with weather; I wondered if that was a subtle nod to Allison. Maureen’s weather is mostly warm, sunny, and full of promise, while Allison’s is bleak and cold. There has been quite a lot of books written with converging multiple points of view, and I may be growing weary of that. However, the author managed to keep my interest going until the plot twists captured my attention – then I didn’t put the book down until it was finished.

The themes of sisterhood and betrayal illuminate just how brutal it can be when women turn on each other. Women grab onto their anger and never let go until the death, either literally or figuratively. ONE NIGHT GONE places the reader firmly in the middle of this anger and doesn’t let go.

Theresa moves to Ivy Woods Drive with her new husband - the high school principal and her teen daughter. She has always admired Ivy Woods, but her husband doesn't realize how close her ties to the area are. Theresa gets involved with the Ivy Five, who are now only four, as they plan the big Halloween event. However, there is someone who knows their secrets and is planning revenge on the group.
It always bugs me in books that husbands and wives keep extremely BIG secrets from their spouses - and this book had its fair share of this. Granted, if it weren't for some of the secrets, the plots wouldn't work, but it drives me crazy.

Featured in a blog post at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/10/28/villainathon-wrap-up/

Mentioned in a blog post at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2020/01/06/how-i-learned-i-love-thrillers/

This is a really solid feminist murder mystery. It wasn't as spooky as I expected, but it was suspenseful, and I felt the pub text didn't give it quite the hype it deserves. I really enjoyed reading this book, and would recommend it.

Sorry I wasted my time on this one

So, the hardback edition I read had an endorsement from Tana French on the cover. I generally don't take authors I like praising others' books right on the cover, well. It's usually a sign I won't like the book, and oftentimes I feel bad about it. I didn't like this book. I do not feel bad. It was mind-numbingly boring and halfway through, I started to doze off. This author uses a similar voice for a teen in the 80s as she does a 2019 woman in her thirties, so I had to carefully look at chapter headings every single time to figure out whose POV it was. The author has some of the adult's friends on a roller derby team, which IRL is so boring I could scream. So reading about it wasn't interesting. This tried really hard to be a "for readers new to the thriller genre" but fell flat, instead winding up as a boring upon more boring character study. I wasn't attached to anyone at any moment. The author writes like she's written before, but that it's not her usual genre. She does a wonderful job of capturing the dynamics, visuals, and atmosphere of a small beach town. I liked reading those sentences. I read the book the whole way through because I had an inkling of how Alison and Maureen were connected, and wanted to know if I was right.

Overall
The Mother Next Door is a great Halloween thriller that brings a perfectly picturesque and eerie neighborhood, and secrets galore. It’s all about Halloween, past and present, and how the past, present, and future collide. While I found it to be a bit predictable and the characterizations lackluster, I adored Ivy Woods and enjoyed the slow peeling back to expose the various secrets of many of the characters. I really liked that The Mother Next Door focuses on a group of mothers who seem to rule Ivy Woods, and just how exclusive the group really is. Overall, this is a fun thriller perfect for Halloween.

Extended Thoughts
Years ago, Theresa was a college student on the periphery of Ivy Woods, a highly desirable street to live on. Now, she’s the wife of the high school’s new principal and the mother of a high school freshman. Now, she’s desperate to fit in, to be noticed by the Ivy Five, which has really been four for years, but she’s perfect for the last spot.

The Ivy Five is a group of four mothers led by Kendra, the one who has it all together and plans the most amazing Halloween party ever every year. They’re an exclusive group bound by motherhood and secrets, the kind of group you want to join. But, this Halloween, secrets are about to be unraveled, the past is about to come back, and Theresa might not be an entirely new and innocent face on Ivy Woods.

The Mother Next Door is a fun, eerie Halloween thriller. Set during the month of October, both in the present day and some years in the past, everything in and around Ivy Woods is centered around the incredible Halloween street party the Ivy Five plans and hosts every year. It’s the place to be, the thing to take part in. But something terrible happened years ago, an accident or a murder, who knows, but the legend of the Ghost Girl lives on, and someone has an idea of what might have actually happened.

As a thriller set during the Halloween season, I was a little hesitant to pick up this one, but I’m really loving books about moms and motherhood, so I decided to close one eye and jump. Ultimately, there’s a real creepy vibe throughout the book, one that might just make you think someone’s peeking in on you, but it was also a bit predictable to me.

Ivy Woods felt like the quintessential autumnal street. A cul-de-sac bordered by woods where there’s a creepy bridge and the story of a girl who died after being jilted, I could practically hear the dry leaves skittering around and wanted nothing more than to pull my sweater tighter around me. The autumn vibes were amazing and really made me believe I was there. The descriptions were spot on and kept me immersed in this little street. It also expanded to the high school and a university, but neither felt particularly fleshed out. Everything went into Ivy Woods, which was fun, but made the outside world a bit dull.

The story, too, was just a little too predictable to me. I felt the one behind it all was a little too obvious, even though a few small paths opened up and made wonder a little. Still, it was fun to find out more of their motivations and their story. Overall, there was a nice unfolding of the story, like pulling back layer after layer. I did feel it took a little too long and sometimes the story got a little hung up on some details, repeating them to keep the story going a little longer, but it was kind of fun to shuffle along and find out the big picture little by little. Even if it was a little predictable. And even though I felt like all the characters were forever hung up on another one to the point where it was boring and repetitive and I just wanted someone to jump out and say, “Boo!”

The Mother Next Door follows three people: Theresa, Kendra, and an unknown third who is telling about a Halloween. I enjoyed all three of them, but, between them and the rest of the Ivy Five, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of personality going on. One of the Ivy Five was a Southern sweetheart who only seemed to exist in one way and the other two were continually getting scrambled in my head. Since Kendra is really the only one of the original Ivy Five who gets to tell her story, it was easier to get to know her, but she’s so polished and put together that I felt like everything she gave was just a front. Theresa was fun as the outsider trying so hard, but she also lacked personality. It was hard to tell what was her and what was her trying to be one of the Ivy Five. It didn’t help she had so many secrets of her own that she took pains to hide from the reader, so it was really difficult to get to know her, too. The only truly interesting perspective was the unknown third narrator’s. For a while, I couldn’t quite tell if it was set in the future or the past, but it slowly came to light in a most chilling way. Even though I had no clue whose story it was, the whole thing gave me the shivers. It was dripping with hate and derision and said so much about the person behind it. I couldn’t quite tell if it was fictionalized or factual, which made me all the more desperate to find out what really happened.

Overall, though, the characters were lackluster. They never seemed to changed, never showed any growth. Most of the minor characters felt like cut outs. All the men behaved the same way, the children were just kind of wild, and even Theresa’s husband seemed perpetually in a good, clueless mood. Some felt a little too off-hand about things and some refused to take accountability for their actions. It was sometimes annoying and baffling at how they managed to get so far.

Ultimately, even though the characters lacked personality and the story was predictable, the peeling back of layers and secrets and watching the past and present collide really was worth it. I loved the Halloween vibes The Mother Next Door provided, and I’ll be looking at mother groups with a different eye. It was so much fun to read about all their secrets and the way they impacted their lives and decisions.

Thank you to Justine Sha for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

I love the vibe of "The Mother Next Door". Reading it in the dark only added to the intrigue. The good wives club isn't so good after all, but what are they willing to do to keep their secrets from being exposed?

So many personalities, so many different ways this could have gone, and I loved every minute of it!

The Mother Next Door by Tara Laskowski keeps me guessing until the end. I do not see the twist until it arrives, and then it makes perfect sense. The ending, though disturbing and "wrong" on so many levels, also makes sense. What makes this book is the ordinary suburban setting. The setup, the group, the situation, and the story rings true. As such, it reads more like drama than thriller but one that I eagerly follow along on until the last page.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2021/10/the-mother-next-door.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and the HTP book Fall 2021 Mystery & Thriller tour.

The Ivy Five is a group of neighborhood women who throw a huge Halloween bash every year. It is the block party to end all block parties. But this year is a bit different. These women start to receive threatening messages. Their secrets are about to be revealed. Will they survive what others do not know?!

I have never been a huge fan of novels about friends. I don’t know why…just not my thing. However, this novel may have changed all that! Talk about twisted and full of secrets. I thought I had it figured out…then it twisted again. Now, it does have quite a few characters. But the author did a great job with their individuality. This helped me to keep up with who is who and who did what!

The intensity just keeps building the more you read. Not only that…the questions just keep mounting. I swear…everyone has a secret they are hiding!

Need a good, twisted novel about friends…this is it! Grab your copy today!

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

Theresa is new to the exclusive cul-de-sac Ivy Woods Drive and wants to fit in.

The Ivy Five moms welcome her since one of their five has been gone for a long time. If they allow her in, they will be back to five instead of four.

The four Ivys - Kendra, Bettina, Pia, and Alice have always hosted a Halloween Party that took months to prepare for and a party that was talked about as the best ever.

This year someone has been sending messages saying they know what the moms did in the past. What could that be?

They ignore the messages at first, but they come more frequently and scare the Ivy Five.

Wonder who did what and when?

The women are all catty and shallow with secrets of their own, including the missing Ivy girl.

I didn’t like any of the women. Or trust them.

What will happen at this year's party?

Will everyone's secrets be revealed?

Will it be perfect just like each woman thinks she is?

The book flowed well, but there was too much drama in it for me even though the theme seemed to be that you never know who to trust. 3/5

This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Over the last decade or so, Halloween has become a holiday to rival Christmas. Tara Laskowski uses an elaborate neighborhood Halloween celebration as the centerpiece of her twisty novel The Mother Next Door.

When Theresa's husband Adam gets a great job as the new principal of a well-respected suburban high school, she does her best to fit in with the moms in Ivy Woods, her new neighborhood and the best cul-de-sac in town. Kendra is the Queen Bee of what is known as the "Ivy Five", and Theresa's new neighbor.

Kendra rules over all the other moms, and when she takes Theresa under her wing, the other Ivy Five (Alice, Bettina and divorced mom Pia) somewhat reluctantly follow along. But where is the fifth mom of the Ivy Five?

That is a question that Theresa wants an answer to, but information is not ready forthcoming from the other moms. They make snide comments about the missing mom, about her looks, her artistic talent, and the reason she left town.

As the Ivy Five plan their Halloween Spectacular, in which the entire town comes to Ivy Woods to participate, Theresa joins in and is pulled in further into the Five's orbit. She and her high school freshman daughter Lily go all out decorating their yard as a graveyard.

Theresa is not fond of Lily's new friend Ellen, who seems obsessed with a local legend of a young woman who jumped off a bridge to her death years ago on Halloween.

There are secrets abound, including a big one that Theresa is hiding from her husband, and when it appears that someone is stalking the Ivy Five on Facebook and then in person, it looks like things may come to a head at this year's Halloween Spectacular.

The Mother Next Door is the kind of book you stay up late to finish (I was up way past my bedtime reading this one). Laskowski invests you in her characters, and her propulsive story, when you can finally let out the breath you have been holding as you find out exactly what is going on here. It's a terrific Halloween read, and fans of Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies will enjoy.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on Tara Laskowski's tour.

The Mother Next Door by Tara Laskowski is a highly recommended novel of domestic suspense.

The neighborhood of Ivy Woods Drive is known for their annual Halloween block party. An exclusionary group of women who call themselves the Ivy Five have been in charge of the event for years, although now there are only four members, with the "Queen Bee" Kendra firmly in charge. When Theresa and Adam, the new high school principal, move into the neighborhood with her teenage daughter, Theresa is anxious to fit in and with Adam's position, she is an obvious choice to be the new fifth member of the group. The previous fifth member left under mysterious circumstances and some dark secret the group holds seems to involve her. As the group gathers to plan their annual event, it seems that secrets they have all been holding may be revealed by someone who is threatening them.

None of the characters are going to win a personality contest for their likeableness or charisma as it is clear they all have secrets and are desperate to either be in charge or at least be a part of the "in" crowd. Theresa, who is needy in her desire to fit in would be the most sympathetic character. The story unfolds through chapters from the point-of-view of Theresa, Kendra, and an unnamed character who seemingly knows one of their secrets and hold nefarious intentions toward the Ivy Five. The focus is on the character development of Theresa and Kendra, rather than all the other characters who are bit players in the drama.

The plot with a ruling group of residents running the neighborhood is a known quantity as it has been used in many novels. The plot is basically the reaction of the inner group of four to the threats via anonymous contact. They are trying to discover who it is, although they suspect the former group member, and there is a lot of talk about keeping their secret. And planning for their large Halloween Block Party. This is not a fast-paced suspense novel, but rather a slow smoldering burn as the count down to the block party occurs, more secrets are revealed, and the unnamed person threatening to reveal their secrets is becoming emboldened. There are several twists near the end. The Mother Next Door is an entertaining seasonal novel.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Graydon House.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/10/the-mother-next-door.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4278482302

The story is told in alternating voices thirty years apart, Allison the weather girl, and the carny girl Mauren...with a mysterious past. I usually don’t care for stories told in alternating voices or timelines decades apart but this all worked very well in this book with the author doing an excellent job of bringing the two timelines together and weaving them beautifully. There is a surprise regarding who was the biggest, evilest villain and who was actually pulling the strings from the beginning.½

T༙h༙e༙ M༙o༙t༙h༙e༙r༙ N༙e༙x༙t༙ D༙o༙o༙r༙

Mysteries are not usually my thing, and I tend to steer well clear of anything labelled as a book club favourite, so I’m not really sure how this novel got onto my TBR… Yet it was a pretty decent read overall, even if I could kind of tell who the killer was and most of the characters were relatively predictable in their simple development. What made the story interesting were the undertones of feminism throughout, driven largely by the conflict between the protagonist Allison’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity and her refusal to let the murder of Maureen be ignored in the small coastal town of Opal Beach. Small towns always have their hidden secrets and drama, so it’s easy for the author to spin a tale of infidelity, betrayal, and greed into a captivating story! Would I read the book again, absolutely not; but would I recommend the book to others, maybe, as long as they don’t have expectations of anything more than light entertainment.

One Night Gone: a Novel by Tara LaskowskI

October 1, 2019
Harlequin Books
Fiction
348 pages
Rating: 4/5

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Harlequin in exchange for an unbiased review.

The story is told through alternating timelines at Opal Beach, about 2 hours from Philadelphia, PA.
It all begins back in the summer of 1986 at a party on the beach where flyers are posted regarding a missing woman. Fast forward to September 2015 in Manayunk where Allison has been living with her sister Annie, a nurse, after a tumultuous divorce from Dennis “Duke” Shetland. Allison had a great career as an on-air meteorologist in her local town until she gets fired for an angry outburst during her forecast.

In October 2015, with the help of her sister, Allison moves to the affluent Opal Beach where she will house sit for Patty and John Worthington on Piper Sand Road. Sisters, Delores and Sharon, as different as night from day, help Allison settle into life on Opal Beach. It isn’t long before she meets a lot of the locals who live there after the tourist season is over. She is befriended by Tammy, owner of the local coffee shop Sweet Spot, who draws her into trying to solve a 30 year old mystery regarding a missing girl.

The mystery unfolds as it goes back to June 1985 where Maureen is working for a traveling carnival in Opal Beach for the summer. Maureen is a street smart girl running from a dysfunctional family like most of the carnival workers. She usually enjoys scamming the local rich guys without getting emotionally involved. That changes one night when Tammy and Clay come to her rescue from Desmond, her sleazy boss. Tammy has Maureen live with her and roommate, Mabel Haberlin, who is less than thrilled with the intrusion.

Allison’s peaceful time on the beach becomes complicated after getting involved with helping Tammy. It seems the missing girl from the past was Tammy’s friend who she fears was murdered. The lives of many people will soon be disturbed once questions of the past resurface. When truths and lies are revealed everyone’s life is altered in ways no one was expecting.

An engaging story from beginning to end, although I figured out part of the mystery half way through, there were more that weren’t obvious until the end.

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

Not too much to say except that I found this to be a solid thriller by Tara Laskowski. I have never read a book from her before, but she definitely does a great job with developing the two leads (Maureen and Allison). She sets up the sleepy beach town with dark secrets very well too. I ended up pitying the characters and loved the epilogue.

"One Night Gone" has Allison Simpson struggling to move on. Readers find out that she had an epic tirade against her now ex husband while she was doing her weather report. Due to this, she goes viral and initially basks in the attention until it turns ugly (she's a woman on the internet, of course it did) and she loses her job. Her sister gets her an opportunity to house sit for a traveling couple in their gorgeous beach house in the town of Opal Beach. It's during the off season (fall and winter) so Allison is hoping that this will give her an opportunity to reset. However, as soon as Allison arrives in Opal Beach she has caused some of the residents to talk. She reminds them of a young girl named Maureen Haddaway that no one ever saw again decades earlier (1985). Allison soon starts to investigate Maureen's disappearance and wonders if a very connected and rich local family had something to do with it. Laskowski also goes back and forth and shows Maureen's POV in the 1980s timeline. We get to see her meeting the teenage versions of the adult characters we see in Allison's timeline.

So I thought this was so good. Some people may not end up liking Maureen and the choices she makes, but I pitied her a great deal. She is currently working at a carnival and finds herself drawn in against her will at times into the residents of Opal Beach. Maureen is considered disposable by so many in Opal Beach since she's considered just a "summer girl." There's just one hitch in her story-line that I didn't find believable, and that was her deciding to do a high stakes poker game for money. Other than that, I loved Maureen just wanting to belong and finding herself falling for local rich boy Clay and being best friends with a local girl named Tammy. Laskowski does a great job of capturing the mood of the mid 1980s I thought.

Allison is very strong and having a public blow up about her marriage definitely gets you on her side straight on. She's been living with her sister, but is glad tor a chance to stretch her wings to do something else. She honestly doesn't want to be known in Opal Beach, but finds out that is a bit too much to ask. When she is approached by an older Tammy to help her investigate what happened to her friend Maureen, Allison is pulled in reluctantly.

We have a chance to see so many characters who changed through the decades via both women's POV's so I thought that was pretty cool.

The writing was good. I thought that Laskowski does a great job of capturing Maureen's voice along with Allison's older and more hesitant one at times.

The flow worked between the alternating POVs though I can imagine some readers may get a bit sick of it. Laskowski does a great job of making sure you know who is "speaking" though so that should help.

The setting of Opal Beach feels very dark though you would expect it to be nothing but sunshine and ocean. Since Allison arrives during the off-season you see how isolated the community is and how it goes "dead" until the summer people arrive that many residents resent having to depend on to make ends meet.

The main reason why I gave this book four stars is that some of the book stretches belief a bit. I already mentioned the high stakes poker game. But I also had a moment of really when it's revealed who did what and how it related to Allison. It just felt very ridiculous and didn't make a lot of sense, at least to me. That said, I really enjoyed the majority of the book and think that thriller and mystery readers will like this one too.

I was sent this book from the publisher/publicity team. My ratings and reviews will be my own personal opinions and are in no way influenced by publishers or authors who may have sent me books to review.

This one has been calling my name for awhile now, and I finally pulled the trigger to give it a try.

The story tells the story with a now and then format. We are getting the Now story around Allison and the Before story around Maureen. I will be honest that not much really happens the first ¾ of the story. But, I was enjoying both the stories following Allison and Maureen which kept my interest and kept me reading.

The twist was pretty predictable as the story continued to go on. I knew what was going to happen once some other suspects came into the story. I was a little disappointed with the direction this one took. I just wanted more. It never took me to the edge of my seat moment like I was hoping.

Overall, this was ok. I really enjoyed the storytelling aspect and want to see what else this author brings!

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads. I enjoyed it, the two characters took some settling into and after having read The Last Guest House recently it felt a bit similar. The mystery was well played out though and I didn't expect who did it.