“Unputdownable!” —Robyn Carr, New York Times bestselling author
Annie Taft’s wedding is four days away, and it will be one of the grandest anyone can remember in her small South Carolina town. Preparations are in order. Friends and family are gathering in anticipation. Everything is going according to plan. Except that Annie herself has vanished. Did she have second thoughts? Or has something … thoughts? Or has something much worse happened to the bride-to-be?
While her loved ones frantically try to track her down, they’re forced to grapple with their own secrets—secrets with the power to reframe entire relationships, leaving each to wonder how well they really knew Annie and how well they know themselves.
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Marybeth Mayhew Whalen’s character-driven suspense propelled me through the pages with a relentless need to absorb every word. Unputdownable!
Favorite Quotes:
Louise is one of the richest women in town but not one of the smartest. She was once quite the beauty, but that ship has sailed. She spends most of her time standing on the dock waving a hanky, begging it to come back to her. Which means she spends a lot of time in Faye’s salon.
She has always respected and feared lawyers, as if they possess something she never could, some special insight into truth and justice, a gift bestowed on them at birth, like a pitching arm or a brilliant mind.
She is standing by Faye’s elbow, annoyingly close. Faye can smell the determination on her like alcohol on a barfly.
Faye has already grown to hate that word, missing, the snakelike quality of it, the way people’s tongues get stuck on the S’s. It makes her unfairly angry at Millicent for saying it just like that, a hiss instead of a word… She is already anticipating tragedy, tasting it on her tongue like the ham that comes with funerals.
He’s heard you don’t have to let cops in unless they have a warrant, so he has no intention of throwing open his door, of saying, Come on in, fellas. Cops are like vampires; they have to be invited in, but once you invite them in, they have the power.
My Review:
I waffled a bit in how to rate this tautly written, absorbing, and well-crafted book. Yet when looking at my marked quotes, my indecision promptly evaporated as the sublime quality of Ms. Whalen’s writing removed all doubt. The evolution of the story was incrementally slow and told with a multiple POV, yet all the pieces proved to be necessary and an increasing level of tension and additional layers of intrigue steadily inched forward with each compelling chapter. I feared many loose ends – silly me! This cunning and cleverly perceptive wordsmith wrapped them all up rather neatly, and for the most part, unexpectedly. Lesson learned, I unswervingly pledge I will never second-guess her extraordinarily nimble skill for subterfuge again.
A missing bride, a handful of unrequited loves, and unsolved mysteries threaten to bring a small southern town to its knees. Each character Whalen has created is a grace note of longing, pain, or strength, and in the search for the missing woman, each is pushed to face the darkest truths he or she has attempted to hide. The characters felt like real people to me, the plot, a singular, haunting melody holding them together. A gorgeous book.
A brilliant portrayal of the dark undercurrents of a small town and the complex shadings of relationships between flawed but lovable people, all of whom are keeping secrets. The plot, deftly interwoven through the voices of four characters, builds into suspense that keeps the pages turning all the way to the end. A book club must read!
Marybeth Whalen is a master at writing stories you can’t put down.
This was an interesting mystery. There are lots of secrets buried in the pages, though most are pretty easy to figure out on your own. The beginning of the book seemed to flow quickly, but the end seemed to slow until I could not wait for the book to end.
There was a great twist at the end that I did not anticipate. I love books that make you gasp in shock. However, that was not enough to make me love the book! It was okay but not one of the best books I’ve read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
Loved it. Each character was unique with their own personality. So many books, the characters all sound the same. Good author. Will get your other books!
On the eve her wedding, town sweetheart Annie Taft, the much beloved daughter of a woman murdered twenty years before, goes missing in the same location where the murder took place. Are the two instancrs linked? So they have anything to do with the man convicted of the murder? A man who was recently released from prison? Many believe he was wrongly accused, and that Annie, whose testimony sent him to prison, was mistaken in her identification of him as the perpetrator.
But Annie may have her own reasons for disappearing, like her secret best friend Kenny, who loves her to distraction and whom she can’t seem to give up, despite her plans for marriage to the ideal groom. Her family has secrets, too, as do others in the small town of Ludlow.
Surprisingly, this book is not about secrets. Or even the murder of Annie’s mother. It’s about what tragedy does to a community. What brings it together, and tears it apart. It’s about the unfairness of untimely death, and the cruelties that seem to dog some people’s footsteps. It is also about hope, and how resolution brings a kind of peace, even if it is not the ending you desire.
The rich prose and multilayered emotion woven into this book makes it a satisfying read, a joyful one, even, if you understand that you can choose happiness even when life hands you misfortune. You can find strength and resolution, peace, and you can move forward without the ghosts of unanswered questions haunting you. It’s not a happy ending, but it is satisfying. In that way, the book echoes real life.
Pick up a copy of Only Ever Her. Block off an afternoon and let yourself fall into the pages. Join the search for Annie Taft. When you emerge you will be both exhausted and renewed.
I’m very sorry but I just can’t seem to get into this book. I don’t like the way it’s laid out or the way it is jumping all over the place. I usually love books that have different people for each chapter but this one is just to much. I keep getting lost. If I can’t follow it then I can’t relate to any of the characters. It’s just not for me.
Thank you to #NetGalley and #Lake Union Publishers for this copy
Only a 2.5 stars from me.
I liked the concept of the story but this was quite poorly written like not even the author knew what was going on as they were writing it. You could feel the uncertainty behind their words. Not a good thing. Very disappointing.
This book was a bit of a letdown for me. I was expecting a more action-packed thriller based on the description of the book (Annie’s mother’s supposed killer, who may have been wrongly accused based on Annie’s testimony at 3 years old, is released from prison and then Annie suddenly vanishes). The book kept alternating between characters Kenny, Clary, Faye, and Laurel and I felt like I never really got to know any of them very well. I found that I didn’t really particularly care for any of the characters – they were all, for the most part, unhappy with how their lives turned out. Even Annie, as the town sweetheart, had her own demons. I was able to finish the book, but it was definitely slow moving for me.
Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for providing a copy for review.
The long-buried secrets of a small southern town take center stage in Marybeth Mayhew Whalen’s Only Ever Her, an intricately woven tale about the pitfalls of self-deception and the damage that can ensue when tragedy sends carefully crafted ‘truths’ toppling. Whalen creates a cast of compelling and wonderfully fleshed-out characters, then slowly teases back their layers, exposing their dark places in delicious and sometimes heartbreaking fashion. Engaging, honest, and deeply compassionate, Only Ever Her is one of those wonderful books that teaches us about ourselves and reminds us that in order to live fully and honestly, we must first embrace our truth.
A seductive and emotional page-turner, Only Ever Her is a moving exploration of love, loss, and regret. Told in multiple points of view, where every character has something to hide, this mysterious tale asks the question: How well do you really know the ones you love? You won’t be able to put it down, but you won’t want it to end either.
I kept waiting for the juice! The thrill! The moment I was going to turn the page and the excitement was going to begin, but it never came! I’m not even sure what genre this book would fit into nicely.
I was expecting a suspense, thriller novel and what I got was a story about a town and all the happenings going on within its society. Sure, there was an old crime. Now there is a missing girl that was about to be married. The whole town is upset. They are all looking for her, but there are 500 things going on in the background. There is not much going on about the supposed crime. Old or new.
It all boiled down to reading a bunch of pages about people I never quite cared much about.
I cared most about Annie; the missing girl. Her character was super interesting! I spent the entire book waiting to find out what happened to her. Suspecting every single character in the book of foul play; and there are many that we meet!
It was always about “Only Ever Her” for me, the rest was just noise.
I would like to thank the publishers for send me an ARC of this novel via NetGalley.
3.5 Stars
The story is one that’s been heard before. A bride disappears before her wedding. The difference is this bride has a history of disappearing for a few days at a time and always reappearing like no time had passed. Everyone in this story is holding their breath hoping that this is was the case this time too. As I kept reading I could tell that there was going to be more to this story than a bride with cold feet.
I liked that there were many characters telling the story. I found it easy to tell who was telling their tale and to see how life was affecting them. Their thoughts on Annie’s disappearance, the way the police and the town was handling the investigation, and what they thought of Annie was not always the same for each person. It was interesting to see how their points of view could be different for the same happenings.
I am a fan of Marybeth Mayhew Whalen and was excited when I heard she had a new book coming out. This isn’t my favorite but it is a great addition to my collection of books by authors I look forward to.
Small Town Secrets. Big Time Heart. This story set in fictional Ludlow, South Carolina tells a multilayered story of the secrets of various people in a small town affecting each of their lives in dramatic ways. It is a story of love, loss, and moving on, and it captures the rural small town South extremely well. The multiple interweaving perspectives could make for some intriguing cinematography, should Hollywood ever come calling for this tale, and I for one would love to see it on the silver screen and look forward to reading more from this new-to-me author. Very much recommended.
Only Ever Her is an enjoyable read, but I found the story a little difficult in that the story jumped from character to character, their back stories, their now stories and it never seemed to settle into the story of Annie, the missing bride.
The pace of this story was quick, with only about a week between the beginning and the end, but I wanted more about Annie and much more about her history. My biggest thing was who lets a 3 year old testify as to what happened in a murder trial? The whole rush to judgment thing was touched on, but it was never really explored in-depth. Also little “surprises” popped up every little while, but weren’t ever really explored either.
I think this has the bones to be a really good book, but it just seemed to be missing something. What that was, I’m not quite sure, but maybe more Annie.
1/2 Stars for this fast-paced myster. . Small towns are tough..everyone knows everyone, but certain secrets can be kept for years. A young mother is murdered with only her 3 yr old daughter as a witness. A man is sent to prison what the child says. This child, Annie, grows up as a favorite in Ludlow, SC. The town is excited about Annie’s upcoming wedding. Then, Annie goes missing. Old mysteries, new mysteries, Southern elite and outcasts come together with Annie’s family to search. By the end of thee story, all secrets are answered.
This book, while a page turner, wasn’t quite as good as the author’s previous novel ‘When We Were Worthy’. Quite a few little secrets were thrown in that I felt were never truly developed, and characters were introduced but didn’t go anywhere, Just dying out.
If you are looking for a fast-paced mystery…good for a weekend getaway, plane trip or beach read, this will foot the bill.
Thanks yo the Author, Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is my own.