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A fast-paced, riveting psychological thriller that skewers our modern obsession with home renovation and fixer-uppers. Holly and Robert Barron are attractive young real-estate investors and contestants in a competition run by To the Manor Build, the nation’s most popular home renovation app. With millions in product endorsements and online followers at stake, they’re rehabbing a Vermont home they scored at a bargain price into a chic hilltop estate ideal for entertaining. It’s all camera-ready laughs and debates over herringbone tile until Holly and Robert go missing hours after their picture-perfect wedding—leaving behind a bloody trail. Suspicion falls quickly on Erika Turnbull, the Barrons’ twenty-something assistant—eager, efficient, and secretly in love with Robert. Did Erika let her misguided passion turn her into a murderer? So claim the townsfolk of Snowden, Vermont, who still haven’t forgiven her for a tragic accident back in high school. But Erika’s mother, Kim, is not about to let small-town gossip and a cop with an axe to grind destroy her daughter—again. With time running out and their own lives at risk, the mother-daughter duo set out to find what really happened to the Barrons. First, though, they’ll have to confront the vengeful former owner of Holly and Robert’s estate, ruthless reality-show producers, and a secret that might bring their own house down.
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Thank you to NetGalley and Harpers Perennial and Paperbacks for the ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review.
I am a big fan of Sarah Strohmeyer’s chick lit books so I was very excited to see she’s been writing thrillers. Unfortunately, this book fell flat for me.
The book is very predictable, which wouldn’t be a bad thing, except it feels like the entire book is spent building up to “something” and when it ends as you expected it’s a let down. There were also big clues mentioned in the beginning of the book that are never mentioned again and it just felt like she wanted to include them but then couldn’t figure out how to incorporate them into the story’s end. Overall, the book left me unsatisfied and towards the end I had to force myself to finish it.