A perfect holiday gift.Shari Lapena’s new thriller, AN UNWANTED GUEST, is available now!“Smart and suspenseful. . . you’ll never see the ending coming.” –PureWowIn this neighborhood, danger lies close to home. A domestic thriller packed full of secrets, and a twisty story that never stops—from the bestselling author of The Couple Next DoorHe looks at her, concerned. “How do you feel?” She wants … Couple Next Door
He looks at her, concerned. “How do you feel?” She wants to say, Terrified. Instead, she says, with a faint smile, “Glad to be home.”
Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind.
There’s a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town.
The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good.
Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won’t stop asking questions.
Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.
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A Stranger in the House is a thrilling read that is sure to have your pulse pounding from the get go, WOW what a read! Barely a chapter into it, and Ms. Lapena’s twisted little story line and captivating words had me sitting up and taking notice, it is definitely one of the best books I have read this year! This was my first encounter with this authors work and I have to say that it left me impressed, and eager for more. Highly recommend you get your hands on this one, it’s sure to satisfy!
Great book! Easy reading and great ending
Second book by this author that I could not put down. Great ending.
I read Shari Lapena’s debut thriller last year, The Couple Next Door, and I loved it! So you can imagine my excitement over her new book, A Stranger in the House, as well as my disappointment when it just didn’t live up to her first novel.
I had high hopes for this book going into it. The bar had been set high with The Couple Next Door. But unfortunately, A Stranger in the House was far from the thriller I had hoped for. The story was nothing original – a woman running from her past, an obsessed ex-lover, a marriage full of secrets, etc. Basically, I felt like I had already read this story dozens of times. There were a couple of surprise “twists” at the end, however, one really wasn’t that much of a shock and the other was very predictable. In fact, I had even said out loud to myself during the book, “I bet such and such happens…” and in fact, it did.
If you really want to read a good mystery/ thriller, you should check out Lapena’s previous release, The Couple Next Door. That one kept me guessing all the way through. Hopefully her next one will live up to her first one.
Read full review at: KaitsBookshelf.com
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“Suspicion is an insidious thing…”
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It’s true. So is an overdone genre/plot concept… Honestly, if the recent spate of trending books are to be believed, everyone in the suburbs is a sociopath, amnesia is as common as the cold, and no one is EVER who they claim/seem to be. I picked this up at the library – I figured it’d be a quick read, with a twist. I didn’t expect great literature, but thought it’d be entertaining. Not really… By now, the concept of the housewife-who-isn’t-what-she-seems is pretty well done for me – this confirmed it. It read quickly, but was pretty unbelievable from start to finish. And the characters were dreadful – I didn’t like any of them, didn’t feel sympathy or empathy, didn’t really care what happened in the final pages. That I kept reading it to the bitter end, despite these things, is a testament to LaPena – I kept expecting something surprising, and her reputation kept me looking for it all the way to the end pages. There was what is technically a twist at the end, although if you’ve read ANY of the previous books in this genre you will see it coming from about six miles away. And it felt tossed in at the end, like she recognized that she’d short-changed the readers with a cobbled together plot and small, weak, cast and felt compelled to add something to try to compensate… All in all this was not a winner for me.