I love a story with a great villain! The best sort of villain is one you see a speck of humanity in--the part of us that lives in the dark as we know it is unsuitable for fostering human connection and happiness. All humans feel envy, jealous, and are sensitive to perceived injustices.

Our protagonist, Betty, is relatable in this way--she thinks the awful things we all think but don't admit and harbors envy to an extent no one would ever confess. Beyond that, she's ready to go to extraordinary lengths to remedy any perceived slights and injustices. Spending time in her mind is an absolutely fascinating glimpse of a very disturbed, but compelling, individual.

I recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a superbly written deep dive into the dark side of the human psyche.

Family drama is alive and kicking in every family you encounter. What isn't in every family is the desire to kill your sibling because your family house is telling you it should be rightfully yours. Here we have two sisters who lose their mother. A mother who clearly favors one over the other. And although it is widely known the house would be most loved by one, the mother, in her will, leaves it to the other sister. In most families, you would hold a grudge and move on with your life. Here, Maureen Lindley has warped the family dynamic to the point of thoughts of poison and murder. Does she actually accomplish it is a quite wild journey where the reader's emotions will be sent up and down.

Overall I enjoyed this book. I'm glad that writers are starting to turn their attention to different types of personality disordered individuals and bringing their issues to light. This was an interesting read from the viewpoint of one of those types of people. It was interesting and disturbing to see things through her eyes and watch how she justified the things she did. I would recommend this book overall as it had an interesting storyline and people need to be more aware of these types of people and the way they think through things and rationalize their behaviors. I was provided an ARC by NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

There aren’t many books that give me chills right from the start. This is one of them. The dynamics between Betty and Gloria are tense as only sisters will understand, but Lindley takes the tension to new levels of crazy by immersing the reader completely into Betty’s psyche. The skill with which Lindley envelops the reader in that crazy desperation is laudable and puts this book on the same level as Rebecca. So much fodder for book discussions here, as well as a totally gripping story. Well-recommended.

Elizabeth/Betty/Lizzie Stash is crazy. Really psychotic. She is in love with the house she grew up in, Pipits. When her mother dies, Pipits is left to her sister, a “beloved.” Betty sets out to take back what she feels is rightfully hers. The first half of the book, Betty is annoying. She is narcissistic. She feels bad for herself and feels nothing is ever given to her or works out for her as it does all Beloveds. And yes, I kept wanting her to get help. I mean, she thinks the house speaks to her! The last half of the book was more intense. Betty went all out insane. I definitely enjoyed the last half of the book more than the first half.

I had a hard time rating this book. I just couldn’t stand Betty. Ultimately, I had to go with 4 stars. The author is too good- I was thrown into the head of this deranged woman and couldn’t resist seeing what happened to her and all of the Beloveds.

Thanks to Netgalley and Gallery Books for the digital advanced copy to read and review!

Review goes live on the blog on March 30 and will show up on Goodreads sometime later.

In a Flutter: Soooo twisted!
Fluttering Thoughts:
Worldbuilding: Cold-Upton and London, UK setting.
Characters: Elizabeth seems to be a psychopath, imo. I was horrified of the thing about Gloria’s kitten, in the beginning. Yet she exerts a creeping sort of charm, a magnetism I can’t explain and don’t like – charismatic psychopath. As the story goes on I found her less and less charismatic, and more and more insane. I guess that’s the thing with psychos: they seem interesting and mysterious from some distance, but horrifying if you’re privy to their real thoughts.
Plot: The story follow Elizabeth through a descent into homicidal madness. It’s very tense and there’s a sense of disjointed reality as we experience it through her filter. The ending was very fun and full of possibilities though at the same time it left me with a clear sense of what is going to happen from there on.
Writing: First person, past tense narrative, Elizabeth’s POV. I enjoyed her cruel and spiteful voice with dry and dark sprinkles of humor in the beginning of the story, though it got darker and less enjoyable as the story progresses. I didn’t like the jumping about of the timeline – I’m never a fan of flashbacks.
Curb Appeal: Cool cover, hooking blurb – impulsive buy material for my psychological thriller moods (of which I have more and more, lately, lol).

I recommend The Beloveds to fans of chilling stories about killers from their POVs. It’s a cozy sort of thriller that will make you think twice about how you behave with your relatives and neighbors, lol.

I liked this book. I read it in one sitting, caught up in Elizabeth's story. I liked her character. Her character was very well developed, and her feelings were clear. I felt like I was in her head. I know she is not the good girl in this story, but I found myself rooting for her plans to work. From her point of view, they all made sense. The relationship between her and her sister and brother-in-law was well written. I did not like the very end of the book. Sometimes I think a book needs a clean ending, and I wanted that here. My final thought was, "what? come on!"

The Beloved start out as a sibling rivalry gone overboard. When Betty’s mom passes, and her sister is left the house, she will do anything to get it back. This book is a fast read, but went on a little too long.

I tried. I really did. The blurb intrigued me and I enjoy a "dark side of family" story as much as the next girl, but I just could NOT get into this one... There was just nothing to grab me. The family drama didn't feel so much like drama as like whining sibling rivalry. The "sinister" elements alluded to in the description never quite materialized as such - again, it mostly felt like whining. Betty was certainly not a good or nice sister/wife/person; but she never quite made it into full-on evil mode either (at least not by the point that I gave up). She didn't do much of anything. Mostly she just seemed to expend a tremendous amount of energy hating - people, situations, cooking, renovations, life... And after dozens and dozens of pages of that hatred - which never truly erupted but rather just simmered heavily - I just couldn't keep reading.

Did not care for this book, I love a crazy narrator but Betty was just not sympathetic in the least, just boring, mean and not very interesting. And the ending was like"what, that's it"? No real resolution your just left with huh.

Wow! This was even more menacing than a Du Maurier tale. And felt just as real as the lifelong sibling rivalry of my evil sister and myslef. I couldn't put it down until the last word, and then I was afraid to fall asleep.

'The loathing I experienced at the sight of her pulsed in that part of me, somewhere middle chest, a dark liverish thing that’s still there after all these years.'

Betty Stash knows she isn’t a beloved, no one is making her world spin with all things lovely and delightful nor breaking their backs to make her happy. She isn’t like her blessed, younger, golden sister Gloria that charms her way into everyone’s bones at first meeting. Nothing is easily won for Betty, she has had to fight for every crumb of love and attention since Gloria came into the world. She has the husband who was meant to be Betty’s, even her best friend Alice was Betty’s first but this time, when their mother shocks everyone by leaving Gloria the family mansion, Betty isn’t going to go down without a fight. If it requires feeding the evil rot inside her soul, so be it. This time it will require extreme measures! The mansion doesn’t talk to Gloria and Henry as it does to Betty, despite the way they insinuated themselves within its crumbling walls during their mother’s lifetime. It’s a sacrilege the plans they have made to ‘renovate it’. She can’t bide her time much longer, each change to the home gutting her, enraging her! This is meant to be her inheritance!

The cracks in Betty’s marriage are no longer a thing she can patch up, especially now that an interloper has wielded her way in, usurped her position with the business and in the marriage bed while she has been away. Doesn’t it just figure Bert too has turned against her, isn’t that the way her entire life has been? Maybe she doesn’t love Bert any longer, but no way in hell is she going to cave in, give up yet another thing that is meant to be hers, and certainly not to so pathetic an adversary. Despite her schemes, fate has other plans. Is Betty is losing her mind, or simply coming home to herself?

This is a disturbingly dark book and it’s perfect in its rottenness. There is no redemption here, don’t look for it! Betty is always the victim, and nothing infuriates her more than goodness because for someone so gnarled and twisted up inside, light and purity in others is fraudulent, it’s make-believe! Don’t say it, but oh I felt bad for Betty, trapped in the wretchedness of her own mind. Just when you think she is redeemable the books laughs at your earnestness with the ending! The house will always be calling to her, old and crumbling or reborn, it needs her!

Leave all hope at the door… errr… first page. It’s so evil I love it, here is a character you can despise. Listen, this is a mind that is crumbling as much as the house. She manipulates, she is poisonous and as she is family, Gloria feels sisterly affection because that’s how it is with family, it’s love and hope. Gloria has too forgiving a nature to even imagine the horrors that spin in her sister’s monstrous mind and she feels sorry for her. Love gravitates to Gloria, she cannot face that the cursed luck comes with her older sister, it isn’t a reality she could ever understand. Henry is a little wiser, as is Alice. But Alice hasn’t enough time, even her plan to put distance between her dear friend Gloria and her former tormentor Betty isn’t cunning enough to outwit her.

Betty is the spider, the rest of the world is her meal.

Yes, yes, read it but make sure you aren’t in a dark head space already!

Publication Date: April 3, 2018

Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books

Betty Stash has never much cared for anyone or anything other than her parents house, which she expected to inherit on her mother's death. She appears to have been in a state of quiet jealous rage ever since her beautiful and "beloved" sister was born. Much of the action in this story takes place in Betty's mind for at least the first half of the book, which made it a little slow and draggy in my opinion, until at last Betty seemed to make the switch from petty, whining, narcissist to full on evil psycho.

A real edge of you seat thriller could not put it down

This book was so good, I couldn't stop reading it. It is by all means a true psychological thriller. My only issue with this book was the ending. I felt like everything was flowing wonderfully and then all of a sudden, the book just ended. There were so. many loose ends and things left unresolved, I was left feeling somewhat unsatisfied with the ending.

Elizabeth has only cared for one thing in her whole life her home Pipits. But when her sister Gloria inherit the mansion along with her husband Henry thus begins our tale . Elizabeth begins to plot and plan how she will make the house that speaks to her hers. This is a gothic tale with a very unsympathetic narrator. However this is what keeps you turning the pages just to see what she will do next .

According to Betty Stash if you are a beloved you are lucky in life. You get all the breaks, people are attracted to you. Her little sister, Gloria is a beloved. She, is not. Betty knows her mother favors Gloria. Betty literally hated her with every cell in.her body. What makes it worse is when the family home and land is given to Gloria. She is the rightful heir of the home because she is the oldest.
Following her sociopathic tendencies, she becomes obsessed with owning the place, no matter what.
This character, Betty in this book go way beyond sibling rivalry.
Nothing and no one will stop her once she is determined to accomplish what she wants.
Murder, attempted murder, stalking, stealing, and much more is what she has made herself believe had to happen. If anyone is hurt or dies, well, it's their fault not hers.
Fascinating, entertaining, clever. One great story.
5 Stars

I received this in exchange for an honest review. This was a good and fast passed, disturbing read. It held my interest and is a true page turner. The tone was kept through out, and while it was not what I expected at the end, I was thinking things would be resolved/ended. I kept thinking it must be hard to keep up such hate.
It does leave room for a second novel just to see where the author could take this.
Betty does seem to get away with more than her fair share.

I still haven't decided whether I enjoyed this book or not. Told in the first person, the main character, Elizabeth, is an extremely unpleasant woman who suffers from a personality disorder. You get a glimpse of her sociopathic tendencies early on in the book, and you keep reading wanting to know what will happen to her. It's almost like watching one of those Housewives of (name of city) series that are so perversely fascinating because you wonder when everything will explode in their faces. I continued to read because I wanted to know whether Elizabeth would somehow end badly or whether she just goes on her merry and wicked way. The ending felt right and very realistic. The book was well-written with beautiful descriptions of her former home's gardens. It actually made me want to invest my time to learn more about plants. Good pacing and realistic dialogue.

The tale is told strictly from Betty's point of view. And this chick is nuttier than a fruitcake! From the beginning to the end, I kept picking my jaw up off the floor!

The more she tries to get what she feels belongs to her, the more it just blows up in her face.

I think the problem I have with the story is there was no real back story to give us a frame of reference for any of the characters odd behavior. We dive right into Crazy Town with page one. And there was quite a bit I could have done with out, the story devolved during the last quarter and left me wondering what the heck I had just read! I didn't care about any of them. Something was missing.

Netgalley/Gallery  April 3, 2018