Amy is living a seemingly perfect life with an amazing husband, their young baby, and her 15-year-old stepdaughter. She has a best friend Charlotte who leads the neighborhood book club, which is held at Amy’s house. While the book club is usually a very buttoned up (and boring) evening, with a classic novel, a one-hour time limit, and very small pours of wine at the beginning of the night, the book opens with a striking newcomer inviting herself in. Roux takes over the book club, pushes the alcohol late into the evening, and then introduces a more grown-up version of Never Have I Ever where participants have to tell the worst thing they’ve ever done.
Everyone has a secret, but Amy is hiding the worst one, and Roux seems to know what it is. And she tells Amy that she’s going to pay, one way or another. But Amy isn’t going to go down without a fight for everything and everyone she loves.
This was a really fun thriller with lots of twists and turns. Both the protagonist and the antagonist were really dark, which made it more interesting, especially through their battles of wit and will. And, without giving away what happens, the ending is my favorite kind for a thriller.
Besides that, I thought the author did a good job weaving in the other characters. So many times, the side characters are mostly superfluous, but here they were all there to really add to the main characters’ motivation. I did figure out one of the last big twists pretty early on, but there were a lot more twists that I missed, so it definitely kept me hooked.