You Are Not Alone

This book is one of the most anticipated, welcomed-with-open-arms novels of 2020. Ho-hum. Robotic. Indistinct. Boring. Disappointing. But, when you have friends in high places, everyone
loves your work, regardless of the quality, or in this case, lack thereof. Sorry, Greer and Sarah, this book is not up to the standards set by your last sensational work The Wife Between Us. I’m sure one of your many well-positioned friends will option this for a movie as Steven Spielberg did for The Wife Between Us, two years before the book was even finished. How did Spielberg know it was worthy? This further proves my point: When you have powerful, influential friends, it doesn’t matter.

The plot? I figured out the punchline, so to speak, at the very beginning of the book. That’s how subtle the entire plot line was. (I’m being sarcastic.) The main character, mousy, insecure, doesn’t-have-a-clue Shay witnesses the suicide of the happy-go-lucky stranger, Amanda, who jumps in front of a train inside the 33Street subway station in Manhattan. The horrified Shay finds herself drawn to Amanda’s back story where she meets the gorgeous, manipulating, plotting, amoral sisters Cassandra and Jane, along with their cast of like-minded friends. Shay is flattered by the invitation to join this group of women who, very simply put, have an agenda. How do they accomplish their goals? By bugging and hacking cell phones and computers; installing surveillance cameras inside apartments; reading mail; bribing people to do their bidding; having their prey followed by one of these misfits who wears different disguises; leaving false messages with voice impersonations; lying every chance they get; and manipulating decisions and perceptions by gas lighting the hapless victim(s). Yada. Yada. Yada.

At the end, Shay, who generally doesn’t see the forest because she’s too busy analyzing details about the trees, starts to see something is wrong. With the help of a caring friend, Shay’s goose is not cooked.

The story is told in alternating voices: first person for Shay, and third person for the others. While this technique was effectively used in The Wife Between Us, it misses the mark in this book. The story concept has great possibilities. It’s the execution that is lacking.

You’ll probably read it because you don’t want to believe my review is valid. You’ve fallen for the hype, and will read it to form your own opinion. Please do.

What a ride! YOU ARE NOT ALONE is a well-written thriller by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. Full of twists and turns, this novel kept me on my toes as I raced through the pages.
Shay Miller’s life isn’t quite what she wants, but she isn’t sure how to change it. When she witnesses a tragedy, it’s lasting effects bring her into the orbit of the Moore sisters, two women who are everything that she wants to be and is excited when they take her under their wing. That’s when things get interesting.
Hendricks and Pekkanen work together to create a story that is wonderfully complex and alternates between Shay and the perspectives of other characters that provide essential information. This story will definitely make you wonder about making new friends.
This was a fun and complex story that is a perfect escape. This is my second read by the duo, and I can’t wait to see where their imaginations take them and their readers next!
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

#YouAreNotAloneBook #StMartinsPress #GreerHendricks #SarahPekkanen

Well that didn’t turn out at all as Shay expected. Shay sees something bad happen and wants to learn more about why it happened. During this time she meets some new people who befriends her. All are not as they seem. This book is a good psychological thriller with lots of twists. It will make you keep thinking and then rethinking about what is really going on.

*I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.*

Shay is returning from a run when she witnesses a woman jump in front of a subway train. She becomes obsessed with finding out who she is and why she would do such a thing. During this search she meets a group of the victim Amanda’s close friends. Despite the police telling her to let it go, Shay becomes friendlier with the women and more deeply involved in her search. The reader learns, or thinks she does, what is going on fairly early in the book but Shay doesn’t discover it until it is almost too late.
The book is written from the points of view of Shay, sisters Cassandra and Jane, the victim Amanda, and Valerie. It goes from the present to the past which can be a little confusing but this is how the characters are developed. There are several twists and turns, most of which I saw coming but Shay did not. I felt sorry for Shay, a quirky woman fascinated by statistics. She is lonely, having just lost her job and her boyfriend and is living with her best friend, to whom she is attracted but he has a new girlfriend, while she looks for another job. She is ripe for the picking by the group of friends, who are generally evil.
Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin’s press who gave me an advance copy in exchange for this honest review. I have read other books by the authors so I was anxious to read it. I enjoyed it even if I found it a bit unsettling.

You Are Not Alone is the third highly anticipated standalone novel from author duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, and I absolutely devoured it!

Shay Miller has never been more unhappy.

Working as a data analyst at a temp. job, she hates her work.
Every day, she becomes more isolated, choosing to stay in rather than make friends.
Secretly infatuated with her roommate Sean (but he’s happily dating someone else), she can’t seem to find love.
When Sean informs Shay that his girlfriend Jody is going to move in, she suddenly finds herself homeless.

Jobless, friendless, loveless, homeless, and now she’s a witness to a brutal suicide? Shay just can’t catch a break. Until she meets the alluring and successful Moore sisters, Cassandra and Jane, who take Shay under their wing, showering her with gifts, praise, friendship, love… The sisters seem to have resources to alleviate all of Shay’s problems, and suddenly, Shay is happy. Forever seen as the smart chick, she now feels confident and sexy. She feels welcomed and loved, realizing all she ever wanted was to belong.

Unfortunately, the Moore sisters aren’t Shay’s saving grace, and soon, Shay finds herself tangled in a web of lies and deceit. Piece by piece, Shay must sift through the threads, freeing herself from one disturbingly sinister plot. Along the way, Shay learns very important lessons, the toughest one being: no one betrays the Moore sisters.

I am an avid reader of this author duo, having become a fan after their stellar debut novel, The Wife Between Us. With each book, I know I will encounter a well-crafted story that’s smartly written with strong writing, vivid characters, and expertly placed clues which lead to a final, grand twist. They have yet to disappoint. I absolutely recommend this book if you enjoy suspense novels.

I was super excited when I saw that Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen had another book out. I had loved their previous books. When I got the email from the publisher asking me to review, I downloaded that book so fast that I think I got whiplash on my pointer finger.

When I started to read You Are Not Alone, I was a bit suspicious, though. I had built this book up in my head that I was afraid it was going to flop and disappoint me. Well, happily, it didn’t. It lived up to my internal hype and then some.

You Are Not Alone is the story about Shay. Shay is a shy 30 something living in New York City. She has no friends, other than her roommate. She keeps a book of statistics. She has done this since she was a child, living with an emotionally and verbally abusive stepfather. Then one day, her life changed for the worse. She witnessed a woman commit suicide by throwing herself in front of a train. Going to Amanda’s (the woman who died) memorial, she meets Cassandra and Jane, Amanda’s best friends. After meeting them, Shay’s life seems to get better. A new apartment, new friends, a new job, a new haircut, and self-confidence. But, Shay starts to notice that things aren’t all that they seem with Cassandra and Jane. A series of events have Shay questioning everything that happened to her after Amanda’s suicide. What do Cassandra and Jane want? And why do they have Shay in their crosshairs?

You Are Not Alone had a fast-moving plotline. Shay’s portion of the book was well written and fast. I believe that all of the events took place within a couple of months of Amanda’s suicide. There was no lag, and there no dropped storylines. But, I did have issues with the book going back in time with several characters. Cassandra, Jane, Amanda, Daphne, Beth, and Stacey all had their backstories told in flashback. The only characters whose backstory was vital to the book were Amanda, Daphne, and Valerie (but only at the end of the book). I didn’t need to read about Cassandra, Jane, Beth, and Stacey’s backstories. They dragged down the main plotline.

I liked Shay. I did have my doubts about her at the beginning of the book. But, as the author revealed the different layers of her character, I started to form a connection with her. She was desperately lonely and awkward. She always felt like she was on the outside looking in. So, I didn’t blame her for connecting with Cassandra and Jane or taking up their offers of friendship. When things went sideways for her, though, I was surprised at her strength. I admired her.

The mystery angle of the book (why Amanda jumped) was well written. There is a twist in that angle that did surprise me. I didn’t see it coming, but it made sense once revealed.

The suspense/thriller angle was well written also. I loved seeing how Shay was built up, and then everything was yanked out from underneath her. I loved how Shay’s mental state was portrayed in the last half of the book. I honestly was wondering if she was going to go off the deep end.

The end of the book was unbelievable. It was one of the best endings that I have read in a physiological thriller to date. And the twist at the very end. I said, “Holy crap,” out loud a few times. I wasn’t expecting Shay to admit what she admitted!!

I do want to throw in a trigger warning. There is a scene where a woman is raped, and there is a scene where a teenager is sexually assaulted.

What can I say except that You Are Not Alone is another riveting story from the fabulous writing team of Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen? Just as with The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl, the story twists and turns and picks up speed until you can’t stop flipping pages to see what happens next. And yes, you will be surprised!

Shay is clever and competent, but she doesn’t know it. Both her personal and professional lives are going nowhere. She’s in a rut, unsure what choices to make so not really making any. And then she witnesses a horrible tragedy. Which makes her feel terrible. But then almost immediately after she meets some people who draw her into their circle, seem to care about her and care for her. Which makes her feel wonderful.

Because her life had nothing and now has something she needed, Shay is swept along, not questioning or looking too closely at her sudden amazing good fortune. Until the mathematician in her, the person obsessed with statistics and journaling facts and numbers begins to quietly, slowly, ask why, why me?

The story moves along at a rapid pace, pulling you along with it. Secrets are revealed one by one and as she realizes things may not be what they seem, Shay puts herself in danger. Layer after layer is peeled back, leading to a surprise ending I did not see coming. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of You Are Not Alone for my reading pleasure and honest review. Thoroughly satisfying, enjoyable read!

Shay’s life is a bit of a mess when she witnesses a stranger’s suicide one Saturday morning. Always interested in statistics, Shay begins to obsess about Amanda and what led to her death, and this shepherds her to Amanda’s tight knit group of friends, specifically sister’s Jane and Cassandra Moore. The sisters quickly draw the lonely Shay into their world, and everything seems to be on the upswing in Shay’s life – new job, new apartment, new friends, new look – until it’s not.

Authors Hendricks and Pekkenan take readers through an intense, twisty mind game where nothing is as it seems. Are there too many coincidences to be absolutely believable? Yes, but the tale is so juicy that you cannot help but fall under its spell. Told primarily from Shay’s point of view, but with revelatory bits from other characters, too, readers rarely know who to trust. The pace of the book is steady, the story compelling, and the final twist unexpected.

You are not Alone is a smart and compelling book of suspense.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. The opinions expressed here are my own.

The duo of Hendricks and Pekkanen has done it again! They have created a psychological thriller that is chilling and an absolute mind game of twists, in the plot and in the characters. Shay Miller is the main character, a lonely young woman who lives by statistics and math and has yet to find a job or a male friend that she likes. When she is the witness to Amanda jumping onto the subway track and getting killed, Shay suffers from PTSD and can barely leave her apartment, much less get near a subway track. Two sisters, Cassandra and Jane Moore, recognize that Shay has some kind of connection to Amanda and at first are obsessed with discovering this connection. This exploration quickly turns to something else, something almost evil and certainly vindictive and unexpected. These sisters seem to want to include Shay in their exclusive group and Shay’s neediness leads her into their web of deceit. This is where the book’s plot got very complicated and even more enjoyable for me. The novel was fast-paced, with short chapters and a lot of action and twists. There is a big twisted surprise at the end, but since I have read the authors’ other books, I was prepared for it, but I was not able to guess what it would be. I loved how the authors kept me guessing what the Moore sisters were up to and what Shay’s final destiny would be. I enjoyed every interaction between these very complex and multi-layered characters and applaud the authors for their ability to create such a mesmerizing tale. Fans of psychological and domestic thrillers will enjoy this book and want more from these authors. Absolutely, I highly recommend this book!
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

Shay’s life is spiraling out of control. She’s isolated and alone. One Sunday as she escapes from her roommate and his girlfriend, she watches a young woman so like herself, jump in front of a subway train. Shay can’t believe the look of despair and defeat in the woman’s eyes. Why did she end her life? Shay can’t escape what she’s seen. She’s paralyzed with uncertainty. She’s obsessed with this woman named Amanda. She needs to understand. When she meets two close friends of Amanda, her life changes drastically. Cassandra and Jane are successful and powerful women. They are loving and supportive. Shay becomes their friend and her problems disappear. She’s in control and is living the life she has dreamed of. This is too good to be true. At first Shay feels a vague sense of unease. Suddenly she’s the prime suspect in the murder of a man she’s never heard of and her new friends have turned against her. Why has this happened? Shay is a surprise. She’s a fighter. She uses her love of facts to help her ferret out the truth. Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen created an atmosphere of paranoia. I kept asking could this really happen? This book is stunning and suspenseful. I learned to expect the unexpected. It frightened me that our trust can be used against us. If you enjoy an exciting psychological thriller, you need to read You Are Not Alone.
I received a copy of this book which I voluntarily read and reviewed. My comments are my honest opinion.