Sara Shepard | REPUTATION

Plot (via Goodreads):

Aldrich University is rocked to its core when a hacker dumps 40,000 people's e-mails—the entire faculty, staff, students, alums—onto an easily searchable database. Rumors and affairs immediately leak, but things turn explosive when Kit Manning's handsome husband, Dr. Greg Strasser, is found murdered. Kit's sister, Willa, returns for the funeral, setting foot in a hometown she fled fifteen years ago, after a night she wishes she could forget. As an investigative reporter, Willa knows something isn't right about the night Greg was killed, and she's determined to find the truth. What she doesn't expect is that everyone has something to hide. And with a killer on the loose, Willa and Kit must figure out who killed Greg before someone else is murdered.

Told from multiple points of view, Reputation is full of twists, turns, and shocking reveals. It's a story of intrigue, sabotage, and the secrets we keep—and how far we go to keep them hidden. Number one bestseller Sara Shepard is at the top of her game in this brand-new adult novel.

Review:

I'm going to start this review out with two reasons why you should read this book - it is Sara Shepard and there is a Taylor Swift reference. Two things everyone should love. I honestly didn't catch the Taylor Swift reference until the chilling and ominous prologue that was titled Look What You Made Me Do and I was like "SARA I LOVE YOU." Growing up devouring the Pretty Little Liars series, I was so anxious to read an adult novel by Shepard and I was pleasantly surprised with how seamless this one was.

In pure Shepard form, she has this knack for both giving you a lot of information and yet keeping some information that is related to this story to herself to wallop her reader with later. I love how Shepard sets the scene with this one and I was captivated with this story. It was thrilling and pure entertainment wrapped up in this fantastic story with such an intriguing bow. There were so many moments where I kind of had to read things twice because I wanted to remember some smaller details that I knew were going to be brought to the forefront later and this story kept its captivity over me increasing with each and every single page. I think with a story like this in a collegiate setting, it just intertwined so well that I couldn't put this one down for a minute without wondering what was going to come next.

The characters in this novel were fantastic and each not only served their purpose, but just kept constantly growing with each chapter. Each character that had a perspective really dazzled on the pages and all secondary characters were not wasted one bit. I will say, this one reminded me of an equal combination of Desperate Housewives and The Real Housewives franchises with a great murder whodunnit element that electrified the plot and built such a wonderful story. Lynn was probably my favorite character to read because she was just so cutthroat and her brutality just had me laughing out loud at times and terrified during others wondering what this fictional character was capable of. I loved all of the different perspectives, but definitely looked forward to hers the most.

Shepard started this one out with a bang and then kind of let thing settle and slow down a bit for the sake of introducing this brilliant cast of characters and I didn't mind the slow-burning aspect during this time. Well, it didn't last long because before I knew it, there was a murder and shortly after a ton of secrets and lies were being exposed and I was feeling the effects of this book hangover for days after finishing it. I for one am loving Sara Shepard diving into adult thrillers and I cannot wait to see where she goes from here.

Special thanks to Dutton for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4/5