Waking up after a night filled with wine and conversation, Clara, Izzy, Rhoda, Randi, and Natalie are left with more than hangovers as they realize, Kristin, their sixth neighbor in attendance the previous night is missing. Questions aren’t answered and accusations begin to fly as Kristin and her children aren’t found as the weeks move forward. While Clara and Izzy must grapple with emotional issues from their pasts that cloud their judgement, Kristin’s husband Paul is at the center of the investigation. Choosing sides among neighbors can be difficult, but the women find it even harder as they try to figure out what happened with their friend.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and the reminder that we may not know our friends as well as we think. The hippie town of Yellow Springs, Ohio makes a lovely background for the intertwining stories of women who have abandoned a past and moved there for a fresh start. As layers of each character’s life and past are revealed, I found myself more unable to put the book down. I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a more honest and realistic version of Jessica Knoll or Megan Miranda.

This novel was one that I had high hopes for. Unfortunately the ending was predictable and the meat of the story was common in a lot of books. It did pull at your heartstrings and left you emotional but there was just too much predictability. I wanted more of a thrill from this book. What did stand out to me though was the way it was written and it's characters. The writing was top notch and I fell in love with each other characters. They came to life on the pages and that is something that instantly captures my attention. While there was not much suspense in this novel, there was a heartfelt message.

This is the first book I’ve read by Jessica Strawser and I loved it!!!
I was hooked from the beginning!
I loved the characters, I didn’t see the end coming! I really enjoyed her writing style, I am definitely looking forward to her next book......I will be introducing everyone of my fellow book lovers to this amazing author!

*I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

One Saturday night, the neighborhood women gather around a small bonfire, enjoying a night without kids and drinking a glass of wine. The next morning, everyone is feeling the effects of the wine so they all stay indoors on the cold rainy day. The next morning, the women notice that Kristen and her twins are gone. Vanished. Police come to investigate and the husband she was divorcing decides to move in. He is the most obvious suspect but he seems harmless. Soon Kristen’s secrets start to emerge from the investigation but there is still no sign of where she could be. Soon a month goes by and the case officially goes cold. The women in the neighborhood look at each other and realize they really don’t know each other as well as they thought they did.

This is a psychological novel so I will make sure the ending is not revealed. My one complaint is that there wasn’t a whole lot of suspense. I felt it was more the mystery of the disappearance and the realization of not knowing someone. This book involved lots of speculation and gossip which is probably realistic. Being a part of moms groups myself, I see how this could become out of control quickly and skepticism rises.

What I absolutely loved was the focus the story brings to domestic violence. In situations like domestic violence, the perpetrator does not usually show violent tendencies in public. Domestic violence is very much behind closed doors. I also loved how the story mentions that there aren’t options for women in these situations. This is something that needs to be fixed. I don’t want to give the story away but this aspect of the novel was right on point.

I also loved the friendship. To have someone look out for you like the women in the neighborhood do for each other is priceless. Overall, I really enjoyed the novel! I was expecting more suspense but was pleasantly surprised with the overall tone of the novel!

Not That I Could Tell is my first book from Strawser. It has a great set up for a good little mystery right from the start too. An upscale neighborhood, a backyard get-together, wine and a missing mother and her children.

A group of the women got together in the backyard at Clara’s house. They grabbed them some wine, the mothers carried their baby monitors, and they sat around the fire pit and relaxed and talked, well, gossiped of course. It was a great night for them, until the following Monday morning when they discover one them has gone missing with her children.

The story is told from three POV’s, Clara, Izzy and our missing mother, Kristen. Izzy is the newest to the neightborhood, she doesn’t have any children and isen’t married, but was welcome in all the same. Clara is a stay at home mom and the host of the get-together. With her friend missing, she is not only dealing with that, but it brings up memories from her past.

Kristen is the well put together mom, the go to mom. The party planner, attended school activities and organized festivities. From the outside she has this perfect life. But she is going through a divorce from her doctor husband, and so far it doesn’t seem to be a pleasant one. Most aren’t. But with the disappearance of Kristen and her children missing too, the rumors are flying as to what happened to her. And what could have happened to make her pack up her kids and leave without a word. Everyone had their own ideas, and speculations. Friends included.

As Clara Izzy and the rest of the group start to try to put it all together, the pieces just aren’t adding up. More questions are raised about Kristen, her husband and their lives. Did any of them really know Kristen at all? I’d like to say that I had everything all figured out, but Strawser did a great job fooling me and I was pleasantly surprised with the ending.

Not That I Could Tell had a lot going for it, a easliy relatable cast of characters and a mysterious disappearance. But is also touched on flawed friendships and forgiveness. Fans of domestic thriller/mysteries will enjoy this one for sure.

Jessica Strawser is a new author for me, so I started reading with the thought that always comes to mind when trying a new author "Oh - I really hope I like this author". It didn't take long at all to find that I enjoy Strawser's writing style as she pulled me into the Yellow Springs, Ohio setting where a group of neighborhood women are enjoying a Saturday night get together around a fire pit. By Monday morning one of the women has disappeared and no one knows where she is. Were she and her twins taken? Did she just decide to leave of her own free will? What happened to Kristin? The police investigation doesn't seem to be turning up any clues and everyone could be considered a suspect. Definitely a mystery.

My favorite characters were Clara, Kristin's closest neighbor, and Hallie, a precocious preteen who decides she's going to publish a neighborhood newspaper. The story was absorbing and I wasn't certain what exactly had happened to Kristin until near the end. I'm really glad I didn't figure it out because that just ruins the story for me. The secret was well-kept.

Thanks to Jessica Strawser and St. Martin's Press through Netgalley for an advance copy of this book.

fun read, lots of chilly moments, good characters who react in the most human of ways, each bringing their pasts to bear on the situation at hand. i enjoyed the changing perspectives, too. interesting to consider the notion of how well do we really know our friends and neighbors?

P. S. Thanks to St. Martin's and Netgalley for the advance read.

Small town, upscale neighborhood, stay-at-home moms and a mysterious disappearance. Not That I Could Tell is one of those great twisty-turny stories that never quite lets you see the full picture until the very end. I was hooked on this one by the end of the first chapter.

The story centers around a neighborhood rocked by the disappearance of a well-liked member of the community. Karen and her twins vanished overnight and someone knows more than they are letting on.

Fans of gone Girl and The Girl on the Train will eat this one up. The only thing that keeps me from giving it 5 stars instead of 4 is the ending. It's all a little too neat and tidy for my taste, but overall - I highly recommend this excellent novel.

Not That I Could Tell is a standalone suspense/mystery novel.

The story takes place in the small Ohio town of Yellow Springs.

The story focuses on three women who live on the same street: Kristin, Clara, and Izzy. They are the three narrators of this story. Kristin's chapters are told in 1st person POV. Clara and Izzy's chapters are told in 3rd person POVs.

Kristin and her twins disappear. The police become involved. This is the main mystery in the book. Kristin's closest friend and next door neighbor is Clara. Clara is a stay at home mom with two kids. Then there is Paul, the doctor who is married to Kristin (they were in the middle of a divorce). There is also the new neighbor, Izzy, who is the producer of a radio show.

I liked this book. I really enjoyed the street that Izzy and Clara lived on. I loved all of their neighbors. I liked learning about Izzy and Clara's backstories. This added a lot to the story.

I enjoyed all three of the narrators. And the story was interesting. I was positive that the story was going in a certain direction. But I was completely wrong. The strongest part of the book was definitely the ending. The last chapter was so strong. And the author did something that shocked me and surprised me, which is always amazing for a suspense story. This was an intriguing mystery!

I absolutely loved Not That I Could Tell! I was drawn into the story from the first page and felt like these women were MY friends. Not That I Could Tell is a captivating story of domestic manipulation and friendship with a twist of suspense and hope.

I enjoyed this book and it's well-developed cast of characters! The story centers around the disappearance of a woman and her twins in a normal neighborhood. It is really gripping, and though I have to admit, I judged this book by its cover and thought it was maybe more like a chick-lit novel, it was actually very suspenseful. Recommended!

I enjoyed this novel. I have to say, it definitely had me guessing until just about the end. I do wish the characters were a bit more pulled together, and that a couple of them could have been explained more in-depth (such as Isobel). But all in all, this was a decent book.

Just about a year ago, I read and reviewed Almost Missed You, the debut novel by Jessica Strawser (whose day job is Editorial Director for Writer’s Digest magazine, so expectations were high) . I liked it.  A LOT. Five stars, although noting it was more a beach read than “literature.” I hadn’t quite decided whether Jessica was a one-hit-wonder, but I had high hopes when I received her latest, Not That I Could Tell (thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley).

This one is set in the small town of Yellow Springs, Ohio. The basic plotline is that a group of neighborhood women have a semi-spontaneous get-together one Saturday evening, gathering around Clara’s backyard firepit (all of them happy to learn their baby monitors get reception at that distance!)

Clara lives next door to Paul ad his wife Kristin, a young mother of twins. The Saturday gathering turns out to be the last time anyone saw Kristin, who has disappeared along with her twins.

It turns into a media circus, making me wonder if it was another Gone Girl ripoff…but this one is different. There is an investigation into the disappearannce, complete with suspected husband, but this is much more than a police procedural. The story focuses on several characters, with Clara and the newest addition to the neighborhood, Izzy, at the center. The stories of these two women are spooled out while we look at the events leading up to the fateful Saturday night.

Yellow Springs is a small town, and that means everyone is up in everyone else’s business. Speculation is rampant as to whether Kristin and the kids left willingly, or whether Paul could have been involved. I loved the way the womens’ characters were developed, and the depth of knowledge that is revealed about them both. Izzy was the stronger character for me, and I enjoyed the way the message of the importance of speaking up and never assuming another person really knows your true feelings was presented (it was revealed gradually, rather than being dumped in the reader’s lap).

Hard to say more without spoiling it (which I NEVER do, but I recommend it highly as an entertaining, well-written example of (women’s fiction (a term I hate, and not to be confused with “chick lit,” which I hate even more.

Five stars. I am definitely now a Jessica Strawser fan.

Not That I Could Tell has suspense, intrigue, and an interesting cast of characters. Watch out--you will find yourself holding your breath as you encounter "oh, no!" moments! Love the way Jessica Strawser writes and eagerly await her next book!

I received an arc courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

With a lot of characters to learn right away, it took me a bit of time to keep it all straight. Once I did, i was hooked. Trying to decipher meaning and secrets through veiled words and innuendo, I couldn’t wait to figure out what really happened and how it all went down. I’d classify this as a cross between Gone Girl and Big Little Lies, with just the right amount of each to make this a book I am happy I read.

Suspenseful and absorbing.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-galley in exchange for an honest review!

Strawser's second novel continues her near-vertical growth in powerful storytelling. When a neighbor disappears, each of her neighbors and erstwhile friends examine their own relationships, marriages, families, and what we owe to the ones with whom we make community. This is women's fiction at its finest, starting with an unthinkable event and reverberating through each of her closest friends, bringing them to rethink what home, family, work, a good life and solid relationships truly are. My one complaint is that the book's marketing and advertising are focused entirely on the shocking incident, completely missing the light, deft touch of a writer hitting her stride in depicting everyday lives including some of the best-written children I have ever read. Kudos to her -- a book that I will recommend far and wide and gift mightily...

Yes, I have been on a thriller/suspense kick for the last several months and I can’t help it. I love the feeling of looking forward to sitting down with a good book at the end of a long day and slipping back into the pages of a gripping story. Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser is another mystery that promises to have the reader staying up past their bedtimes. You know a book is good when you stay up to keep reading even though you know you’ll be tired the next day.

Check it out:

When a group of neighborhood women gathers, wine in hand, around a fire pit where their backyards meet one Saturday night, most of them are just ecstatic to have discovered that their baby monitors reach that far. It’s a rare kid-free night, and they’re giddy with it. They drink too much, and the conversation turns personal.

By Monday morning, one of them is gone.

Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs, but no one can make sense of the disappearance. Kristin was a sociable twin mom, college administrator, and doctor’s wife who didn’t seem all that bothered by her impending divorce—and the investigation turns up more questions than answers, with her husband, Paul, at the center. For her closest neighbor, Clara, the incident triggers memories she thought she’d put behind her—and when she’s unable to extract herself from the widening circle of scrutiny, her own suspicions quickly grow. But the neighborhood’s newest addition, Izzy, is determined not to jump to any conclusions—especially since she’s dealing with a crisis of her own.

As the police investigation goes from a media circus to a cold case, the neighbors are forced to reexamine what’s going on behind their own closed doors—and to ask how well anyone really knows anyone else.

I was sent this book through Netgalley. My ratings and reviews will be my own personal opinions and are in no way influenced by publishers or authors who may have sent me books to review.

First off, this cover totally pulled me in and was the first thing that caught my interest. I was lucky enough to read and review the debut novel from Jessica Strawser through Netgalley , Almost Missed You, and I loved it. I bought the finished copy to have in my collection. So when I saw she is releasing her second novel, I knew I wanted to read it. She did not disappoint.

I loved the characters in this story. The author did a great job with character development. I also love how both books I have read were unique from the traditional twists and turns you are expecting. This did have a slower start for me, but I promise you need to stay until the end. Overall, another amazing read from the author.