Review: The Drowning Girls

The Drowning Girls by Paula Treick DeBoard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An enjoyable read, with a twisty ending.

The Drowning Girls by Paula Treick DeBoard is a fast, interesting read. The story follows married couple Liz and Phil and Liz’s teenage daughter Danielle as they move into a gated, luxury home community called The Palms. Everything in The Palms is something most people could only dream of. Paradise, Phil calls it.

Phil has taken a job as the community manager. He deals with any complaints, inquiries, and parties being thrown at The Palms. Liz is a high school guidance counselor, and Danielle is set to begin her freshman year of high school at the end of summer. In exchange for Phil’s job, they family gets to live in a magnificent home for free.

And then one day shortly after they arrive, Danielle becomes best friends with beautiful Kelsey Jorgensen. Kelsey is stunning, popular, and cool, while Danielle is intelligent, nerdy, and still on the bridge between childhood and adolescence. With Kelsey’s friendship, Danielle crosses the bridge before Liz’s eyes. Who would have known that meeting the Jorgensens would begin a spiral that the family would not escape from unharmed?

The gates are meant to keep bad people out of The Palms, but what about the bad people who live within those gates....

There is darkness to The Palms, lurking beneath the shiny veneer. The gates close everyone in, and the privilege that comes with their level of wealth is dangerous for those who don’t truly belong. Do the gates exist to keep people out, or to keep those secrets in?

View all my reviews

Comments

Review: When Never Comes

When Never Comes by Barbara Davis My rating: 4 of 5 stars Sometimes learning to let yourself be happy is the hardest lesson of all… Though the premise of this book may sounds like it veers towards thriller, it is anything but that—in a good way! Davis’s When Never Comes is a beautiful story of resilience, finding yourself, and learning to be open to happiness. It’s a story about a woman who ran away or hid her entire life, until she was forced out of hiding. This book is an incredible addition to Women’s Fiction in 2018. I think many readers will find this story to be a starting point to reflect on their own lives and identify the ghosts we all have following us around. Christine lives an enviable life… Married to handsome, charismatic, best-selling author Stephen Ludlow, book-editor Christine has the perfect marriage. They live in the very house one of Stephen’s books was filmed in for the movie-adaptation. They have no children (by choice), and Christine ...

Review: The Death of Mrs. Westaway

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book had me completely hooked from page one! I have to give this 5 glowing stars for Ruth Ware—who if I’m being honest never disappoints me! This book was positively haunting!!! It was spooky yet meaningful, with lovely prose and compelling plot twists. I cannot recommend it enough! I finished this book last night. It was one of those books that I stayed up late on a work night to finish, because I was so invested in the story. Hal’s dilemma had me completely immersed in the book. I think most readers will find themselves wondering what they would do if they were in Hal’s position! One thing that Ruth Ware does so well in this book (and in her previous work) is to write about characters that are cut off from society in some way. Sometimes this is done through a setting or an experience, and other times it is done through their social predicament. Hal fell into the latter category, with a dash of ...

Review: The Girl I Used to Be

The Girl I Used to Be by Mary Torjussen My rating: 5 of 5 stars A wonderful, psychological thriller that will make you wonder what you would do if this happened to you!!! I am a big fan of Mary Torjussen’s last book Gone Without a Trace . As a psychologist, I always find books that deal with the character’s mindset effectively to be so compelling, and this is an area Mary really excels in as an author. This book was one I read in two days (which, for someone who works full-time and has a dissertation to write is quite an endorsement). The steady building of suspense in this book had the reader feeling slightly off-kilter along with the protagonist—and that is what made it so hard to put down! I found myself skipping my lunch break to read a bit more, and turning down plans for drinks after work because I just had to know what would happen next! Plot Gemma owns her own real estate business and loves her career. She has a wonderful husband and a beautiful son, but...

Novel but Nice

Search This Blog