A woman in search of a fresh start is about to get more than she bargained for in this twisty and addictive domestic thriller for fans of The Couple Next Door.Fleeing Brooklyn with little more than a suitcase and her trusty dog, Lucy King heads to rustic Woodstock , New York, eager to lose herself in a quiet life where her past can never find her. But when she meets Vera and John, the alluring … and John, the alluring couple next door, their friendship proves impossible to resist. Just as Lucy starts to think the worst is behind her, the couple delivers a staggering bombshell: they, too, need to escape their troubles–and the only way they can begin their new life is if Lucy helps them fake John’s death.
Afraid to lose her newfound support system, Lucy reluctantly conspires with them to stage an “accidental” death on a hike nearby. It’s just one little lie to the police, after all, and she knows a thing or two about the importance of fresh starts. But what begins as an elaborate ruse turns all too real when John turns up dead in the woods the morning after their hike. Now, Lucy must figure out who she can trust and who’s pulling the strings of her tenuous new life . . . before she takes the fall for murder.
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ALL THE BROKEN PEOPLE is one of the best thrillers I’ve read all year. I devoured it in two days, desperate to learn more about these mysterious characters. When I was reading, I had the same feeling I got when I first read GONE GIRL—that there was something sinister and brilliant under the surface that would change everything I thought I understood about the story, and it turns out I was right. The writing is beautiful and evocative, and the tension begins right on page one, with surprising, propulsive twists throughout the book. My need to keep reading felt almost feverish at times; I simply had to know what was going to happen. The mystery comes to a satisfying—if devastating—conclusion, and the last chapter provides such a fascinating character study of the narrator that, even if the rest of the book were a disappointment (which it absolutely is NOT), it’s worth reading for that ending alone. This is Leah Konen’s first adult thriller, and now I cannot wait until her next. (Also, for anyone who needs this assurance as much I did: the beloved dog character, Dusty, does NOT die or come to any harm in the book.)
Leah Konen hits it out of the park with her debut suspense, All the Broken People, in which a faked death goes horribly awry. Konen delivers with Lucy, who escapes to rustic Woodstock for a fresh start, only to discover her new neighbors are harboring disturbing secrets of their own. A sly, up-all-night thriller that ends with a surprising bang.
Lucy King is running form her physically and mentally abusive boyfriend. Along with her dog, she keeps looking over her shoulder, scared to death he will find her.
Her next door neighbors, John and Vera, prove to be very friendly, very helpful and Lucy is grateful for their newfound friendship.
As Lucy thinks the worst is behind her, her neighbors tell her, they, too, are running and looking for a new start. And they have a plan ….
The only way they can start a new life is for John to fake his own death.
As with most plans, this one goes astray … and John is found murdered … for real.
When Lucy finds that she is the prime suspect, she doesn’t know who she can trust, but she needs to find a killer before she takes a fall for murder.
There are lots of twists and turns…. too many to keep track of. The story loses its appeal when trying to figure out what’s going on. On one level, it was a page turner, but the characters spent a lot of time drinking wine and then making decisions that didn’t make good sense. This was not one of my favorite reads. I didn’t find it especially thrilling.
Many thanks to the author / Putnam Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
A compulsive thriller that grabbed me from the moment I read the premise—a fake murder gone wrong. A riveting story and a set of intriguing characters—starting with the protagonist, Lucy King, and her friends Vera and John—that still haunt me days after finishing the book. The many twists at the end of the book left me breathless. Just as I thought I knew who’d done it, a new twist turned everything upside down.