Natasha Preston

A dare that leads to friendships being tested with dire consequences.

Marley and her friends participate in pranks considered to be harmless. These pranks escalate with Rhett Wilder who instigates them. Rhett dares Marley and her friends to complete a blind driving challenge at night. The consequences of that night changes their friendship dynamic tremendously. Marley begins to be excluded as she realizes that maybe this friendship isn't as strong as it once was.

Natasha Preston is an author I always enjoy reading. She delivers another gripping novel that you won't be able to put down. I love the twist and turns that keep you guessing as to who may be committing crimes as a result of the dare that's gone horribly wrong. A highly recommended title for Preston fans and those wanting a gripping read on who is the murderer.… (mere)

Is this one going to be open ended?

I haven't read a book by this author in a while. I read two of her books back in 2019 and I think they were both books published early in her career (2014-2015). They were ok, but didn't wow me, so I'm interested to see how she's grown as a writer since them. This premise of this one sounds interesting & makes me think of You're So Dead by Ash Parson (that one has a similar plot line to this, but it was way more campy than I expected it to be) and also, Hide by Kirsten White (because of the amusement park setting). I hate open ended stories (which is one of the reasons Hide was a let down for me), and I've seen a couple reviewers on here say the ending for this book is abrupt, so I'm wondering if this is an open ended type of story? If anyone sees this review and has already read this book, could you please let me know if it's open ended or not? If it is, I'll just take it off my TBR cause I know it's not a book for me. Otherwise, I think I'll go into this one with low expectations and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.

Merged review:

Is this one going to be open ended?

I haven't read a book by this author in a while. I read two of her books back in 2019 and I think they were both books published early in her career (2014-2015). They were ok, but didn't wow me, so I'm interested to see how she's grown as a writer since them. This premise of this one sounds interesting & makes me think of You're So Dead by Ash Parson (that one has a similar plot line to this, but it was way more campy than I expected it to be) and also, Hide by Kirsten White (because of the amusement park setting). I hate open ended stories (which is one of the reasons Hide was a let down for me), and I've seen a couple reviewers on here say the ending for this book is abrupt, so I'm wondering if this is an open ended type of story? If anyone sees this review and has already read this book, could you please let me know if it's open ended or not? If it is, I'll just take it off my TBR cause I know it's not a book for me. Otherwise, I think I'll go into this one with low expectations and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.… (mere)

2.5 stars

This one definitely reads like a lifetime movie, but requires you to suspend too much belief. It's not realistic for her to obsess so much over memories she lost before the age of 4. Most people don't remember their childhood before the age of 4. That's about the age we are when we start to retain our memories.

This book is fast-paced and normally for mystery/thrillers that's a good thing, but a lot of this book focused on the romance between Scarlett and Noah, so having it be fast-paced did not work in this case. It turns the romance into instalove and again we have to suspend our belief and buy the fact that Noah fell so deeply in love, he turned his back on his family, community, and all the beliefs he's held onto for 17 years, because of his love for Scarlett (who he's only known for a few weeks/months).

The plot is very predictable, none of the "twists" in here are surprising. The writing, however, is very easy to get into, and despite the predictability, something about Preston's writing kept me wanting to turn the pages.

The characters do need some work though, especially Noah. He was too "perfect" in the beginning, at least from Scarlett's POV, once we get to Noah's POV we see him in a completely different way and we can immediately tell how much of a creep he is.

Overall, it was OK, but I thought The Cellar was a little bit better than this one.… (mere)

At times this reminded me of Criminal Minds, which I love, and at other times it reads like a Lifetime movie. We get 3 main POVs in here; Summer/Lily (who was kidnapped), Collin/Clover (the kidnapper), and Lewis (Summer's boyfriend). For the most part the book was engaging and kept me wanting to turn the pages. There were a couple times (Lewis or Collin's chapters) when I wanted to skip ahead, but overall I didn't want to put this down. This book is pretty cliché and uses a lot of familiar tropes, but what kept me reading was wanting to find out how Summer was going to escape. Like I said it's cliché and predictable and reads like a Lifetime movie, so I knew she'd eventually escape that's not a surprise, but I wanted to know HOW she'd do it. That being said, the climax and ending were very underwhelming. It felt like it ended way too quick and it wasn't even clear how it happened. Also, I wanted to see more of the investigative side of this case and less trips down the characters memory lanes. I feel like it might have been better if we could have had the POV of a detective working this case. They could have replaced Lewis' POV with the detective's; I honestly don't think his POV adds much to the story anyway. Overall, it was OK, kept me engaged, but underwhelmed where it actually matters.… (mere)