Shari Lapena | SOMEONE WE KNOW

Plot (via Goodreads):

"This is a very difficult letter to write. I hope you will not hate us too much. . . My son broke into your home recently while you were out."

In a quiet, leafy suburb in upstate New York, a teenager has been sneaking into houses--and into the owners' computers as well--learning their secrets, and maybe sharing some of them, too.

Who is he, and what might he have uncovered? After two anonymous letters are received, whispers start to circulate, and suspicion mounts. And when a woman down the street is found murdered, the tension reaches the breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they're telling? And how far will all these very nice people go to protect their own secrets?

In this neighborhood, it's not just the husbands and wives who play games. Here, everyone in the family has something to hide . . .

Review:

This is the fourth and newest title from Lapena and so far, I am really digging her writing. Reader beware, from my perspective, this one was more a domestic suspense than her previous titles. While I found the plot to be more complex and had more time to really build up, the pacing was a lot slower and it had a lot more of that domestic aspect to it. The very beginning chapter both shocked me and also provided enough of the details I needed to really keep me wanting to turn those pages.

I really enjoyed this sleepy and suburban tale that felt a little campy and reminiscent of the darker episodes of Desperate Housewives. While we kind of have two different main focuses of the novel going on, it was really fun to flip those pages until they crashed together and kicked the story into high gear. This is definitely a binge-worthy thriller with a disciplined pacing. I found a lot of the characters to be really fun to read and honestly, some of them were a little cliched, but it just made the story so entertaining. I will admit, a few of the twists towards the end kind of felt a little far-fetched for me initially, but as as the story progressed, I just really got involved in the soap-opera undertones to this novel and found myself letting lose and just going with it - trust me, it worked out really well for me.

Without giving anything away, the last 100 pages just kept me so immersed that my house could have caught on fire around me and I probably wouldn't have noticed until the flames burnt the pages. I was loving getting to the bottom of this mystery and wondering at the same time what would happen to these beloved characters that I spent so much time with - even the million red herrings that were sprinkled throughout! I had my eye on everyone and still never saw the ending coming. Shari Lapena is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to what I consider a "weekend read" because there's no way you'll want to try to manage your time during the week with one of her novels.

Special thanks to Pamela Dorman Books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4/5