Welcome, neighbor!Julie Prentice and her family move across the country to the idyllic Mount Adams district of Cincinnati, hoping to evade the stalker who’s been terrorizing them ever since the publication of her bestselling novel, The Murder Game. Since Julie doesn’t know anyone in her new town, when she meets her neighbor John Dunbar, their instant connection brings measured hope for a new … measured hope for a new beginning. But she never imagines that a simple, benign conversation with him could set her life spinning so far off course.
We know where you live…
After a series of misunderstandings, Julie and her family become the target of increasingly unsettling harassment. Has Julie’s stalker found her, or are her neighbors out to get her, too? As tension in the neighborhood rises, new friends turn into enemies, and the results are deadly.
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4.5 stars. This was a quick read for me as I couldn’t put it down. Author-stalked-by-a-fan Julie moves her family to a new town for a fresh start. Who knew the consequences of an innocent get-to-know-your-neighbor chat? Suspenseful until the end.
Any delve into the sinister depths of suburbia is always my cup of tea and Fractured doesn’t disappoint! With shifting alliances and the driving mystery of whodunnit, this is not a book that you’ll be able to put down.
Catherine McKenzie’s gripping novel FRACTURED kept me reading late into the night. Told from the POV of two different narrators in both the past and present, the plot is intricately woven, unfolding in bits and pieces.
McKenzie’s multifaceted characters have realistic flaws and are tenderly human; I felt like I was inside their heads, and found myself rooting for Julie and John even as they made mistakes. The hints and foreshadowing are perfectly placed to intrigue without giving away twists.
Lush narrative. Realistic dialogue. Page-turning threads.
Highly recommend!
As with her previous books, Catherine McKenzie starts out with the beginning of the end. There’s an underlying tension throughout the whole book. You know something big happened, but you’re not sure to whom it happens until the end. This book is about an author who moves across the country to get away from some bad business, but her new neighborhood is less than home sweet home.
There’s an edge to this book, similar to the style of Hidden. A ticking time bomb, if you will. You’re just waiting for that one last straw that’ll push someone over the edge. The story and plot line are meticulously fluid. The characters are almost three-dimensional in that you feel like they could be living right next door. The dynamics between neighbors really make this a great read.
I really enjoyed this book. I read every page with bated breath to see if I could figure out who would be the one to fall in the end. I had it narrowed down to two people a couple chapters from the end and I was right on one. Calling this “chick lit” would be unfair. This is up there in psychological thrillers with Mary Kubica’s Pretty Baby and The Good Girl.
I was lucky enough to receive an early copy of this book in return for an honest review. I will absolutely read this one again.
I absolutely LOVE Catherine McKenzie’s writing! Whenever I pick up one of her books I cannot put it down and Fractured was no exception. Loved it and the flawed characters that you simply couldn’t help but root for
Another great read by this author. I’ve read two of her others – ARRANGED (romantic) and SMOKE (contemporary). I’m amazed that she has now mastered suspense in a way that reminded me of BIT LITTLE LIES by Liane Moriarty. McKenzie certainly writes in that stratosphere, and I look forward to reading others by her.
“They say that if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian rain forest, it can change the weather half a world away. Chaos theory. What it means is that everything that happens in this moment is an accumulation of everything that’s come before it. Every breath. Every thought. There is no innocent action. Some actions end up having the force of a tempest. Their impact cannot be missed. Others are the blink of an eye. Passing by unnoticed. Perhaps only God knows which is which. All I know today is that you can think that what you’ve done is only the flap of a butterfly wing, when it’s really a thunderclap. And both can result in a hurricane.”
This quote is the epitome of Catherine McKenzie’s Fractured. Both big and small events occur in this story but the ten-second moment from weeks ago is the one that made the life-altering fracture in so many lives. Chaos theory.
Ms. McKenzie uses two POV’s and alternating timeframes to allow the reader full engagement into multiple settings, characters, relationships, and even a neighborhood structure. Reminiscent of Liane Moriarty, Fractured is a genre blend of mystery, psychological thriller, and women’s fiction, keeping readers guessing at how these several lives are eventually going to climactically intersect…and I wasn’t disappointed. Check it out!
I am a fan of Catherine McKenzie and I really enjoyed Fractured, a story about people’s lives who are fractured by events in their neighborhood.
When Julie and Daniel Prentice move to a small community in Cincinnati, Julie meets her across-the-street neighbor, John Dunbar, and the two become running buddies. But when a few things happen in their neighborhood, their friendship is tested and things take a deadly turn. Julie, a best selling author, never really fits in with the rest of the neighbors, and is subject to harassment. But, who is harassing her? Is it her old stalker, someone new, or is this just a cry for attention?
Catherine McKenzie always writes novels with underlying tension and I just can’t wait to devour them. This was no exception!
Thanks to Goodreads First-Reads program for a copy of Fractured by Catherine McKenzie.
I really enjoyed this book for several reasons.
First, I liked the narrative style. The story is told using alternating perspectives from two of the main characters in the story. Each character adds detail and insight to the overall story. In addition, the passages are told in such a way that the story is being told starting in the past and working its way to the present. The reader knows that some event has occurred but is left pretty much in the dark until the near end as the story unfolds. Therefore, the presentation of the story builds suspense and intrigue.
A second reason I liked this book was because I never truly knew which characters were credible. It becomes easy to doubt the characters and their intentions. Is the main character reliable or could she actually be behind some of the incidents that are causing such chaos in her life?
Third, I liked the story within a story. The book centers around a novel that the main character wrote called The Murder Game. McKenzie writes the story in such a way that the reader has to wonder if the main character, Julie, is actually also the main character within her own novel. If so, was the death that occurred within that story unintentional or actually murder and did Julie play some part in it?
Finally, I think the story had a strong conclusion. It left the door open to a follow up (which I believe is out). Without a doubt, I will definitely be reading that book and highly recommend this book to others as well.
I really need to start being more selective about the books I read. With sooo much on my to-read list, there are probably sooo many four and five star books just waiting for me to read, that I don’t need to be spend the little time I have to read wasted on one and two star books. I actually feel motivated to go through my to-read list and weed out books like this one. Enough said!!!
A definite thriller with a great plot! I really wanted to keep reading all day and night – to find out how this story plays out.
Julie is a wife, Mom of twins, ex- lawyer and now famous author who moves to a new town with her family to start fresh after finding out that an old school mate is “after” her. She fears for her family’s and her own safety.
Her husband, Daniel , agrees to move the family into a nice development in Cincinnati ,but could it be that his wife is having a breakdown or suffering from paranoia?
Julie develops a friendship with John who lives across the street with his family and shares a love for running as does she.
John wants to figure out exactly” who” this author/ neighbor really is. He has a definite attraction for her.
He has read her best seller and begins to wonder if she might be the actual character in her murder mystery that many folks seem to think.
Who is really stalking Julie? Is there more to learn about this neighborhood, Julie’s book and the lives that are “fractured” as this story twists and turns!
You will love this book!
I really enjoyed this book. Had me guessing for sure. It’s told by 2 different people & it really was enjoyable to read.
The protagonist was such a passive character who allowed herself to get into a terrible situation and spent too much time thinking of worst possible scenarios. I kept reading to see how she got herself out of it.
Truthfully, I read the whole book and can’t say that I really enjoyed it. The neighborhood and it’s occupants are not realistic, everything is just a bit over the top to a point you start to thinking the author’s imagination is just too far gone.
Not a real page turner for me.
Its a great book