St. Martin’s Press – Review: 5 Stars

Thanks so much to the author, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the complimentary advanced e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. And thanks as well to BookSparks and St. Martin’s Press for the gifted finished copy, also in exchange for an honest review. All opinoins are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.

TW : discussion of suicide, medication overdose, drowning, murder, gun violence

This book jumps right into the story and the intrigue right from the word go, and works to hook you from page 1. This story is mostly told from Tabitha’s point of view, but we also get a few chapters from Nina Levitt’s point of view, both from her as a narrator and through a few of her diary entries. And the first entry that we see very clearly says “If you find that I’ve died unexpectedly, my husband and his lover have planned it.” Talk about drawing you in early! So we spend the whole story with the new wife, Tabitha, trying to figure out if Connor really is responsible, or if he’s innocent and someone else is to blame, or if Nina simply commited suicide.

I know there were some mixed reviews on whether readers enjoyed Tabitha as a character, but I really enjoyed her. She makes plenty of mistakes, and there are a few choices that she makes throughout the story that you’d like to believe that you’d be smarter than in the same situations, but I think that’s what I liked about her the most. I love reading a flawed character. And Tabitha, while she has a really great heart and a pretty solid moral compass, she is definitely flawed. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend this time in her head trying to figure out the mystery of who to trust. Especially as she was so suddenly thrust into this crazy world of money that is brand new to her, and watching her try to navigate it. I will say, I also really enjoyed the character of Nina, and I wish we could have gotten a few more chapters of her story. I know, she’s the supposed victim, and dies right at the start of the story, so we can’t get too much time in her head, or there wouldn’t be a mystery for the readers. But still, I said what I said. I enjoyed her as a character, and I wanted to get to know her better.

For the story, there were plenty of twists and turns to keep me hanging on until the very last page. There were a few littler twists that I guessed might happen, or that I slightly saw coming, but none of them were big enough that I found myself less invested in the story or how it got from point A to point B. This book had me staying up late and reading in bed past my bedtime, because I wanted to get to the end and see what happened next! I definitely felt the “fine, just one more chapter” draw over and over again while reading this one.

I would definitely recommend this book to my friends, and especially to anyone who, like me, was a fan of A Stranger On the Beach which is also by Campbell. This book had me hooked and feeling invested right from the beginning, and I didn’t feel like it let me go until the last page. I think if I were to reread this book I would want to read it in the evening by a fireplace with a large glass of red wine!