Book Review: The Good Sister
I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Author: Sally Hepworth
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publish Date: April 13, 2021
Format: eBook
★★★★☆
This book is perfect for those that like: Family Drama, Unreliable Narrators, and Sweet, Understanding Boyfriends.
You might not like this book if you aren’t into: Stories with Mentions of Child Neglect or Abuse.
Purchase: Bookshop / Barnes & Noble / Amazon
From Goodreads: From the outside, everyone might think Fern and Rose are as close as twin sisters can be: Rose is the responsible one and Fern is the quirky one. But the sisters are devoted to one another and Rose has always been Fern's protector from the time they were small.
Fern needed protecting because their mother was a true sociopath who hid her true nature from the world, and only Rose could see it. Fern always saw the good in everyone. Years ago, Fern did something very, very bad. And Rose has never told a soul. When Fern decides to help her sister achieve her heart's desire of having a baby, Rose realizes with growing horror that Fern might make choices that can only have a terrible outcome. What Rose doesn't realize is that Fern is growing more and more aware of the secrets Rose, herself, is keeping. And that their mother might have the last word after all.
Confession: The Good Sister was my first Sally Hepworth book.
She’s popped up in my recommended authors for a while now and bookish friends have told me variations of “if you like Liane Moriarty/Paula Hawkins/Lisa Jewell, you will love this author” (and I do love those authors), but I still never got my sh*t in a pile to read any of her books. As luck would have it, I ended up with an ARC of The Good Sister right at the end of last year.
Y’all.
WHY have I been dragging my feet on her??
I read this in a day. I thought I would give it a few chapters and see if her writing lived up to the hype, and before I knew it, it was five hours later and I just Needed to Know How it Would End.
As a new reader, my biggest question so far has been is this her typical writing style? Do her books always read like romances with a bit of suspense/thriller mixed in? Because man, for the first half of this book, I was like, FERN AND WALLY ARE TOO CUTE AND I WOULD DIE FOR THEM. I even checked at one point to make sure that the book was in fact a mystery/thriller. Once confirmed that The Good Sister was in fact a thriller, well, that is when I got nervous.
I mean, with romance, I know that no matter how bad things get, I’m still guaranteed a Happily Ever After ending, but with this one?? Y’all. I had no idea and it was TOO MUCH and yet, I LOVED how much tension I felt wondering how it would all play out. I won’t give away the ending because I’m not a monster, but I will say that despite being slightly predictable I was still satisfied with how the story wrapped up. I could have done without the button on the end, but meh, it was fine.
Overall, this story grabbed me from the beginning and gave me enough twists and turns to keep me engaged through the last page. And now I’m excited to explore her entire back catalog.