You Are Not Alone

You Are Not Alone was an amazing read with a suspenseful plot and a fantastic set of characters.

Shay Miller is down on her luck with no boyfriend and a dead-end job. One morning while waiting for the train, Shay witnesses a woman commit suicide by jumping in front of the train. After the event leaves her shaken, Shay falls back on her need for information and begins a search to find out who the woman was and why she committed suicide, but her investigation leads her down a path she may not be able to come back from.

You Are Not Alone, like the other books by this author duo, is a hard book to summarize without giving too much away. A simplistic summary would be that the book is about Shay, a woman who loves data and statistics, searching out information about the woman who committed suicide in front of her. After Shay finds out the woman’s identity and attends her memorial service, it brings her into the orbit of Cassandra and Jane Moore. The Moore sisters live a glamorous life with a close-knit group of friends that to someone lonely like Shay, look like they have everything she wants out of life. But the Moore sisters have many secrets and when they believe Shay knows more than she should, they draw her into their circle.

The book is told in alternating chapters from the points of view of Shay, the Moore sisters, and the various women in the Moore sisters’ friend group. The authors did a great job giving everyone a distinctive voice and I never found myself confused about whose chapter I was in. The chapters of the Moore sisters’s friend group in particular were interesting as they showed how much influence Cassandra and Jane truly have over everyone in their lives. Those chapters also allowed us to see how everyone became connected to the Moore sisters and what the group gets up to in its spare time.

This book hooked me from the start as it was such an intriguing premise and I was curious what direction the authors would take things. The plot is full of twists and turns you won’t see coming and there were numerous occasions that I was sure Shay wouldn’t be able to find her way out of the situation she was in. The books from these authors have an addictive quality to them and I find myself unable to put them down. You Are Not Alone was no exception and I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for a captivating, thrilling read.

You Are Not Alone is definitely my favorite book from this writer duo so far and I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with next.

Psychological Suspense at its best! This book will grab you and won’t let go until the end. I walked and read, changed laundry and read (it took a long time to empty the washer) ..you get the idea. Shay, is a quiet analytical young woman who lives with her best friend Sean (and is secretly in love with him-though he has serious girlfriend) who in the blink of an eye loses her job, witnesses a suicide, and loses her apartment. The suicide was so traumatic Shay felt compelled to learn more about the woman. Seeing a flyer for a memorial, Shay shows up and upon meeting the woman’s friends is quickly drawn into their circle. Her new friends seem concerned for her welfare and quickly take Shay under their wings, helping her find a place to live. Always on the outside, Shay marvels at how the connection with the the women greatly improve her outlook on life and her self-worth. No spoilers here so read on for the rest of the story.......that is after you’ve gathered all you’ll want around you so you don’t have to stop reading.

I’ll have to admit to a little bias.. I loved Sarah’s solo books just as I knew a book edited by Greer was bound to be a good one, so when their first book was announced I preordered & was as excited as Christmas morning when it landed in my Kindle app. I am an avid reader of psych suspense and these two ladies CAN NOT write a bad book.

With plot twists you’ll never see coming this is sure to be another instant best-seller

March 2020 : 5 Stars Shay Miller is a bit of a longer who just doesn't quite fit in, so when she witnesses a suicide, she becomes obsessed with the woman's death. Enter the Moore sisters (Casandra & Jane) who become her new friends. She'll soon see that their kindness doesn't come free.

Their first two books, The Wife Between Us 3 Stars & An Anonymous Girl 4 Stars. The sample was very intriguing and made me jump right in. I like their writing style. Enjoyed how the sisters made friends with Shay & dragged her into their "club". Enjoyed hearing Shay's interesting statistics at the beginning of her chapters. A couple of surprises along the way that really got me! Original plot for me. This book needs to be a movie !

This was my 3rd book of y’all’s! I love ur style showing the story from all different perspectives. Yall make it hard to put the book down. Was at the dentist with my book in tow and the assistant asked what I was reading and I showed her “you are not alone”. She looked it over and got excited, even said she would try to get it on payday. I was only 36 pages from finishing. When I went in for my follow up appointment I brought “anonymous” with me as well and gifted them to her. Now she’s hooked ♥️

This mystery book was a pretty good read. There are a lot of characters that you find intertwine with each other. When the main female character Shay, witnesses a tragic occurrence she has no idea how it will become the center of her entire life and it is leading her down a dangerous road. She will soon become engulfed with new friends not realizing who they truly are and what is truly at stake. The characters in this book all have secrets and as you learn each second you become more and more aware of what is truly going on and the intense impact sisters, Jane and Cassandra have. They are the ultimate puppet masters, except nobody truly knows how, why, or where it will go. I thought that Shay was a very strong character, although a little naïve. By the end I felt that she was redeemed and I was glad to see the authors portray her in a positive light and as someone who actually had a great deal of intelligence. If you like a twisty and turny type book, then you will enjoy this.

I really enjoyed Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's new <b>4 Star</b> book, <i>You Are Not Alone</i>. It has been the perfect psychological thriller to keep me reading late into the night.

<b>SUMMARY</b> Shay Miller is going through a bit of a rough spot in her life. She recently lost her job and is working a less than thrilling temp job to pay her bills. She is at that age (31) where her friends are starting to pair off and are no longer up for hanging out. Mel, her college BFF, is married and recently had a baby so she's not very available. Sean, her post college BFF/roommate/crush recently acquired a girlfriend and he's very into her. Not only is Jody, the girlfriend, kind of annoying, but in the small apartment, three is definitely a crowd. Even more so when Sean tells Shay that he and Jody want to live together in that apartment. Shay is kind of screwed. She needs to find a new job, new apartment, new crush (or better yet, a boyfriend) and some new friends. She

Just when Shay's life seems to be on a steady downward trajectory, something even worse happens. She witnesses a woman committing suicide by throwing herself in front of a subway. Shay is pretty traumatized by the experience and tries to make sense of it. She wants to find out more about this woman. At first her actions seem very understandable but then she steps into a gray area, crosses a couple lines and tells a few lies. She finds out the identity of the woman, her name is Amanda and she's a nurse. Soon she finds herself at Amanda's memorial service where she meets and starts becoming friends with some of Amanda's closest friends. It seems a bit odd, but Shay is pretty lonely and these people seem pretty perfect. So why not just go with it?

The two women who were closest to Amanda, sisters Cassandra and Jane, seem to inhabit a whole different NYC than Shay does. They are shiny and pretty and very well connected. They have an uncanny ability to make things happen; Shay needs a place to live ASAP, they just happened to have a friend with a swanky apartment who needs an apartment sitter. Shay wants to set up a dating profile, they help her get a makeover and take pics for her profile. They are like magic fairies. Or are they?? Weird things begin to happened and Shay begins to get a feeling that something isn't quite right. That's when things start to get really fun.

<b>WHAT I LOVED</b> <i/>You Are Not Alone</i> is a fantastic follow up to Hendricks and Pekkanen's other two books, <i>The Wife Between Us</i> and <i>An Anonymous Girl</i>. I loved all three. Each one is unique but there some common factors. All three books have main characters who remain sympathetic although they make their fair share of mistakes and can definitely be flawed. As a reader, even when they cross lines or push past <i>polite interest</i>, maybe even become obsessed, we walk with them and are still rooting for them. I think it's just good character development.

Speaking of characters, I loved how quirky Shay is. She is obsessed with data and carries a little notebook where she records facts she considers interesting. The chapters mostly alternate narrators between Shay and Cassandra and Jane. Shay's chapters start with one of her pieces of data, which generally provides a foreshadowing of the tone of the chapter. One of the more interesting chapters began with this fact:

<i>Some uses for a scalpel: surgery, anatomical dissection, and crafts projects. As many as 1,000 people per day are injured while providing medical care, with scalpel blade injuries making up 7 to 8 percent of accidental cuts and puncture wounds. —Data Book, page 61</i>

How could you not want to read the chapter following that little nugget of random facts?

The main reason I loved this book was the plot. It started with a major event and just kept going. There never seemed to be a good place to stop, so I rarely did. It went in directions I would not have guessed. It was veryX imaginative.

<b>WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE</b> There were a lot of fairly important secondary characters, maybe too many. They were not as developed as the three main characters, but they each played a fairly significant role in the plot. It was easy to confuse them with each other and became confusing in places. The

<b>OVERALL</b> Definitely a psychological thriller worth reading. I recommend it to people who love <i>thinky</i> psychological thrillers with a layered plot, flawed main characters and a lot of twists.

This was certainly a great follow up to their previous book, An Anonymous Girl. This novel is just as engaging and does in fact keep you guessing until the reveal at the end. You can start to kind of piece together the ultimate plan about midway through the book but there are still gaping holes that don't quite complete the puzzle. That is until the last couple of chapters.

The chain of events that take place as the story takes off leaves you questioning the main character, Shay, over and over again. While it is difficult to know whether or not we should truly trust someone, sometimes we are our own worst enemy. I couldn't understand why she told the stupid lies she'd told. I felt as if the story would've taken a completely different turn had she simply been honest about her interactions to begin with.

The sisters, Cassandra and Jane were off-putting from the beginning. I got The Shining vibes from them at first as they were always so in tuned with one another and were always together. The other friends: Valerie, Beth and Stacy weren't much better than the sisters either. The coincidences that kept happening, though not at suspicious to Shay, were very suspicious to reader. I can't tell you how many times I just wanted to shake her and say, get a grip!

Shay was so blinded niceties of her new friends that she failed to truly think about everything that was taking place. She risked a potential felony for two people she didn't know from Adam just to get back what quite possibly was never even theirs. Putting two and two together wasn't at all her strong point until it was almost too late for her. Now, caught up in a web of deceit, we are eager to learn if Shay, like Amanda, will give up or if she'll somehow work everything out in the end.

I really like this writing duo. I got hooked with The Wife Between Us and preordered their last two novels. For one thing, I really like that their writing style is current, straightforward, and easy to read.

I wish the X-Ray feature had been available on the kindle because it took me a minute to get acquainted with the women in the “sisterhood” and their different backstories/characteristics. At first I had to keep going back to page 23 to see the profiles of the women. However, I didn’t mind because I like when there’s a lot of characters in a novel of this genre.

The only first-person perspective is Shay’s. She’s 31 years old and down in her life, not excelling in any area. Shay lives an average, unremarkable life; until one day when she witnesses a girl commit suicide in the subway. The experience haunts her and causes an emotional spiral. Enter the Moore sisters.

Immediately we know something is up with Cassandra and Jane Moore and their circle of friends. As the story went on, I could see the thought processes of the sisters early on, so I figured I knew their intention. It was more a matter of seeing if Shay would catch wind and turn the tables.

With this being my third novel by these authors, and with my familiarity with this genre, I didn’t get caught by any twists for most of the novel. There was one thing, when the book was almost over, that I didn’t expect. It didn’t knock me off my feet, but it tied everything together in a very interesting way and shifted the narrative a bit. I wish there had been more suspense throughout — meaning, I wish the sisters’ intentions and actions hadn’t been so blatant, so that there could have been more mystery around Shay and her intentions, too. Instead I felt like I was just watching a lamb being led to slaughter and hoping that she would figure her way out of it. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the story and will continue to look for more works by the authors.

Trigger warning: Briefly deals with rape and sexual assault.

This is was the book that we read this last month in my book club. We tend to read a lot of doom and gloom books, which gets me out of my happy cookie cutter Hallmark ending books. This suspenseful book did not disappoint. It’s a murder mystery book (but you don’t really know about the murder until the end). This book jumps back and forth between past and present. It also jumps back and forth between different POV. I am normally not a fan of that because books tend to get confusing when they do that. But the different POV’s and time frames is what makes this book so suspenseful and tense. The way the book was laid out sent me on a ride. Especially when reading about the Moore sisters. I didn’t really like the main character though. She seemed very naive for a 30-something year old. Although, you could just chalk that up to her ignoring so many things happening around her in her desperate need for connection and friends. I am usually good at being able to predict what happened or what is going to happen in a book but this book had one bit of information that had me stunned at the end. I ended up really liking this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes suspenseful books.

Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely LOVED the first two books by powerhouse duo Hendricks and Pekkanen, so when I finally got this book on hold from my library and re-read the description (I put the book on hold months ago so I needed a refresher), I couldn't wait to dive into their latest twisted, twisty thriller...

... But that wasn't what I got. Instead, I found a confusing jumble of characters with names and interspersed backstories that were so similar I often found myself lost and having to go back to previous chapters to remind myself who was who and what happened to whom and when.

I did still easily lose myself while reading, at least during the times when I wasn't confused, so the authors' blistering pace and prose were still intact.

However, the main character in this one was, well, lacking to say the least. I won't spoil anything, but several times throughout the novel I found myself dropping my Kindle in my lap in frustration and grumbling about how Shay, who is allegedly so smart and data oriented, didn't connect all the pieces much sooner. Too often, she chalked things up to pure coincidence, always giving the people around her the benefit of the doubt, which didn't seem to fit a detail oriented character like her.

The ending also felt very abrupt and convenient. I wish Shay had pieced things together sooner in the novel so that we could have gotten a true cat and mouse game of Shay and the Moore sisters continually trying to outwit each other. Instead, we got a "big reveal" with hardly any time left in the book and a hackneyed, tired ending that's been done a million times to close it all out.

It's so disappointing, because this book's concept had so much potential to be amazing, especially in the hands of two skilled writers like Hendricks and Pekkanen. I guess not everyone can hit a home run every time, and I do really like their writing and chemistry together, so I'll definitely still be looking forward to their next novel, but this one just didn't do it for me.