You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen
Published by St. Martin's Press
Publication date: March 3, 2020
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense
Bookshop, Amazon
Shay is not where she thought she’d be at 31. She thought she was getting promoted at work and got laid off. She thought she and her roommate, Sean were moving out of the friend zone and into something more, but now he’s got a girlfriend. And now, right in front of her eyes, a woman has jumped in front of a moving subway car. Except this horrible event leads to Shay meeting two women who are exactly the kind of NYC people she’s always wanted to know. And they lead her to the life she’s dreamed of. In You Are Not Alone, it’s all good. Or is it?
Of course, it’s not, because this is the newest mystery thriller by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. The women Shay meets are Cassandra and Jane, the Moore sisters. Glamorous, wealthy, warm, and kind, they sweep Shay into their lives, thinking she was a friend of the dead woman, Amanda, who was a friend of theirs. A mistake Shay doesn’t correct, because it is so nice to have friends. And the Moore sisters have lots of them—strong, interesting women. Bit by bit, Shay moves further into their circle, thrilled to be accepted. Their attention leads her to make changes to herself and to her life, all for the positive.
But everything is not as it seems and in their trademark fashion Hendricks and Pekkanen play both sides against the middle. Shay and the sisters alternate chapters throughout the novel leaving the reader to ping pong from one version of the ‘facts’ to another. It makes for exciting, disorienting reading. Who is the villain? What really happened?
Like peanut butter and chocolate and Dolce and Gabbana, Hendricks and Pekkanen are a great pairing. There aren’t a lot of successful writing partnerships out there, because writing is a more solitary endeavor, but these two have found the keys to cranking out solid thrillers. If you’re really determined, you could probably poke holes in their plots and figure out the truth, but where’s the fun in that? If what you want is reading that entertains, takes you away and keeps you guessing, then You Are Not Alone is a great choice.
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I loved The Wife Between Us (it’s saying a lot because I’m hard to please when it comes to thrillers) but the last one of theirs I read (only a month ago and I’ve already forgotten the name) was far-fetched and silly. I have an ARC of this one and will give it a go thanks to your positive review.
I agree about An Anonymous Girl (I think that was the title) so will give you a small caveat- towards the very end there are aspects of You Are Not Alone that go a bit far. It’s just that by that point I was invested and so they didn’t bother me as much.