A woman’s disappearance exposes a life of secrets in a twisting novel of psychological suspense from the author of The Memory Watcher.
Meredith Price is the luckiest woman alive. Her husband, Andrew, is a charming and successful financial broker. She has two lovely stepchildren and is living in affluence in a mountain resort town. After three years of marriage, Meredith’s life has become … life has become predictable. Until the day she disappears.
Her car has been discovered in a grocery store parking lot—purse and phone undisturbed on the passenger seat, keys in the ignition, no sign of struggle, and no evidence of foul play. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.
It’s not like Meredith to simply abandon her loved ones. And no one in this town would have reason to harm her. When her desperate sister, Greer, arrives, she must face a disturbing question: What if no one really knows Meredith at all? For Greer, finding her sister isn’t going to be easy…because where she’s looking is going to get very, very dark.
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An enjoyable read, full of twists and surprises. Characters who really seem to be who they are…but they’re not. A good study of the near impossibility of really knowing anyone. Recommended!
This isn’t a long book, nut it seemed to be. Mer is kidnapped and her sister comes to Utah to look foe her. The entire thing ia implausible. None of this is going to happen.
None of these people are likable. And the book is written from both points of view, jumping back and forth.
Meh, it was ok. If I could have given it 2.5stars I would have making my 3star rating really generous. The storyline was unoriginal and old (rejected lover becomes revengeful) and tired plotline predictable (he kidnaps her).
Great use of the split timeline. Each twist and turn was masterfully revealed. Just when you think you know what is going on, something new turns your theory upside down. A great read!
My favorite author does not disappoint. Page turner, could not put it down. Suspensful
This wasn’t my favorite book that I’ve read by this author.
I really didn’t like anyone so I had a hard time sticking with this to the end. It did have a good last chapter.
I do like Minka Kent. She writes a smooth, typo free story that draws the reader in.
Absolutely awful
I recently found Minka Kent’s books, and cannot believe how much I was missing out! I’ve made it a point to read everything she has out, and to be first on the list for everything new. (I get obsessive, what can I say?)
The Thinnest Air may not be the most unpredictable thriller you’ll read, but it’s definitely a compelling one. You will like and then dislike each character. You will question each character’s motives, and then realize they’re doing exactly what they should be doing. You will think you have it figured out (and be disappointed because it couldn’t be that easy), and then you’ll realize you had it all wrong, twice, maybe even three times. It’s a fun ride, with all the who’s done it, the who’s helping and the who’s heroic questions bouncing around in your head while you blaze toward the end.
I selected this book because I enjoyed “The Stillwater Girls.” This is a story about a privileged but bored housewife in a deteriorating marriage who suddenly disappears. The story is told in alternating narration between protagonist and her sister. This is a fast paced suspense that kept my interest while unraveling the recent past of the protagonist and her sister’s search for answers.
4.75 stars
After reading “The Memory Keeper” I became a huge fan of Minka Kent. I had purchased her second novel “The Perfect Roommate” right as it was released and when this novel was released I knew I had to pick it up. It took me a while to read this as I have been busy reading a lot of ARCs. I finally purchased the audio version and listened to it all of last week. Once again I am very impressed.
We meet the lovely Meredith Price who considers herself to be such a lucky girl. We meet her on her honeymoon as she basks in the glow of complete happiness. She is married to handsome,successful Andrew Price. He also happens to be a lot older than her. Things continue to go well for her as the happy couple settles into their home in a wealthy town in Utah. Boredom begins to set in though as Meredith gets tired of being a wealthy housewife.
One day Meredith goes missing outside of a supermarket. Her sister Greer drops everything to leave New York and find her sister. She will not rest until she is found.
The story really picks up as we go back and forth in first person POV. As Greer continues to search for her sister she finds that not everything was as it seemed. Her sister’s perfect life was less than perfect. As with most of Minka Kent’s novels nothing is ever as it seems and you find yourself questioning everything.
I did give this lower stars than the other two novels that I have read by Kent because this one did have a more predictable ending than her other novels had. It is still a strong mystery and a wonderful story of the love two sisters share. A solid 4.75 for me.
Up until the last 5th of the book, I would have given this book 2 stars. But the ending was well enough done, I decided to go with 3 stars. The biggest problem in this book is that all of the characters are unlikable. All of them, have personalities which are shallow, superficial, and selfish. The book alternates chapters from the point of view of 2 sisters, Meredith who has mysteriously disappeared, and Greer, who desperately wants to find her. Meredith’s chapters start a few years before her disappearance, and most of her chapters jump ahead by several months. Greer’s chapters, start with Day 1, when she learns Meredith is missing, and advances by 1 day each chapter. I found both characters very unlikable, and by the middle of the book, I really didn’t care if Meredith was dead or alive or if her sister ever found out what happened to her. The minor characters were just as bad, selfish and self-centered to the extreme. On top of that, the characters are down-right stupid. Greer and Meredith should be street smart, they mostly raised themselves because their narcissistic mother was too busy bringing home a new man every other month (other than the mother forcing them to watch the evening news every night,) yet they have zero street smarts. I won’t give specific examples from the book, as they would be spoilers, but the mistakes they made reminded me of horror movies where the protagonist who knows there is a killer on the loose, goes by himself to investigate a strange noise in the house. Another issue I had with the book, several times the characters would be conversing, and the author cuts away and there is no ending to the conversation. This made the conversations read unnatural, it might just be the author’s style, but I didn’t like it. There were also glaring inconsistencies in the book that should have been caught by an editor, such as when Meredith first meets Ronan, her friend suggests to Ronan that Meredith’s stalker could be someone hired by Meredith’s husband’s ex-wife……then a few days later when Ronan asks Meredith out and is surprised to find out she is married, Meredith remembers she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring when they first met. Apparently Ronan, an investigative police officer, missed the part where he was told that Meredith was married. Another was the length of time that Greer and Harris had been broken up, was it a year or several years, it changed from chapter to chapter. On the plus side, the author does write suspensefully, there were several valid ending possibilities to consider, and it wasn’t until the ending chapters that it became clear where the story was going. In spite of stupid moves by all the characters, the ending did come together nicely, and the way the characters were written at the end gave them more likability then they had throughout the rest of the book. An interesting side-note, when I was reading the ending chapters, I suddenly remembered a book I hadn’t thought about in years, a teeny-bopper book I had read as a teenager which could best be categorized as drivel. Reading the acknowledgements/thanks at the end of this book, it was clear that the author read the same teeny-bopper book I remembered, and had been influenced by it. And while her book was better than the 1980’s book….that isn’t saying much. Overall, while this book wasn’t a fun read, it was entertaining enough to merit reading when someone just needs something to pass the time.
WOW! This is my first book by this author and she had be from the very beginning. I could not put it down until the very last page. This is a book that you need to read in one sitting.
The story is told alternating between Meredith and Greer’s points of view, as well as going between past and present. It was easy to follow even with the changes between past and present.
The story begins with Meredith’s wedding day and then we flash back to the present and find out that she is missing. Greer is her older sister and she is determined to find her sister alive.
The story is gripping. So many secrets. I was reading as fast as I could just so I could find out the ending. It was worth the wait. I don’t want to give the story away. Many twists and turns on this suspenseful ride. You will being to question everyone. If you enjoy romantic suspense, a definite one-click.
Intricate and intriguing characters and plot!! Loved the audible ebook!
I enjoyed the book and found the characters interesting. The characters and the ending surprised me. I would definitely recommend the book
Meredith knows everyone looks at her like she is an airheaded beauty. She makes the perfect trophy wife for her millionaire husband. By all accounts, looking from outside the marriage, she is nothing but another bauble for Andrew Price to show off to his friends and associates. They have grossly underestimated her.
Even Meredith’s sister Greer, who she has always shared everything with, didn’t think it was good to be married to this man. In the beginning things were great. It wasn’t just the exotic vacations, fancy restaurants and posh parties. Andrew couldn’t get enough of her. Mer felt loved and adored.
Then the boredom set in. There are only so many places to shop in the little ski town they lived in. Most of the neighbors and friends of Andrew had relationships with Andrew’s ex-wife, judging every move Mer makes without even caring to get to know her. When she finds a note on her car by a strange man, she is terrified. More incidents occur, each one a bit more unsettling. Surprisingly, her husband brushes them off. The only one that takes her seriously is a Ronan, a young cop determined to keep her safe.
Then Meredith goes missing. Everyone’s secrets suddenly start surfacing. No one is as they seem to be on the surface and even the closest relationships are not what they seem. Will Meredith be found alive?
This is the perfect psychological thriller. The twists and turns don’t stop as the emotions and terror ramp up. Just when I began to trust a character, they would do something making me think they were not the person I thought they were. I seriously did not know who was good and who was terrifying until the last chapters. The Thinnest Air is one of the best books I have read this year. I read it from the Kindle app on my phone, and literally read it while riding in the car, waiting in line at the grocery store, at McDonald’s playground and during the Cub game.
Kent pulls you into the story making the characters real from the very first pages. She tells volumes with descriptive phases and dialog that stays with the reader long after the page has been turned. For example, when Mer thinks: “We’re powerless when it comes to our men. I’m just lucky I found a good one. The wrong one could easily be my undoing.” The author perfectly lays out the foreshadowing quickly and quietly. Once Mer goes missing, her sister Greer says to herself; I’m beginning to realize my sister was drowning in an ocean of secrets, and I was inland the entire time, clueless. These are just a few examples of this easy to read, page turning novel that will keep you breathless with every turn of the page.
This is the first novel I have read by Minka Kent. She has previously published two books, The Memory Watcher and The Perfect Roommate. She is a master of psychological thrillers, and I cannot wait to read her previous books and am looking forward to The Stillwater Girls scheduled for publication April 2019.
Copyright © 2018 Laura Hartman
A good whodunit!!
Meredith has it all. A rich and handsome husband. Stepchildren she doesn’t hate. A house in the best of neighborhoods.—-Okay, already we know where this story is going. Something is going to happen to make Meredith realize the value of the things she has over those things she doesn’t. But, Kent doesn’t stop there.
It’s the day Meredith disappears that changes not only her life but evolves the people she was closest to. Told from multiple points of view, two sisters, and set both in the past and present, this novel is well crafted to offer a thrilling ride while exposing a life of secrets. A good psychological thriller,
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of fiction featuring female protagonists. And I was delighted to learn that The Thinnest Air by Minka Kent has two. Meredith and Greer couldn’t be more different. The former is beautiful and, to be truthful, a little ditzy. She’s not sure what she wants to do in life and, by some stroke of cosmic luck, has managed to marry a wealthy investment banker. Greer, on the other hand, is practical and focused—even hard. She’s looked after her sister since they were little and apparently has zero sense of humor, not to mention a talent for winding people up. Each, however, is strong in her way.
The book is organized into chapters that alternate between Meredith and Greer, which I found to be compelling as a storytelling device. By the midpoint, I actually found myself preferring Greer’s story to Meredith’s. Maybe it’s because the older sister is a no-nonsense kind of gal. Overall, this novel works as a fun, taut thriller. But I have to say I was somewhat disappointed in the ending, which I won’t reveal here. Suffice it to say that the author set up a path that needed to lead to its logical conclusion but retreated at the end. Nevertheless, fans of the genre will find the story entertaining and the characters appealing.
Very reminiscent of Gone Girl, of which was actually referenced in the book. Story kept me reading to learn the ending differences. I still enjoyed the read.
The author did a wonderful job in having me suspect various characters as the “bad guy.” This novel was well written and edited. I have already gotten another of her books.