A wonderful and thrilling page-turner with an unexpected ending.

A terrible murder of a fifteen-year-old took place in a quiet English town. Two decades later the murder remains unsolved. The journalist, Sam, arrives into the town to shoot a documentary for Victoria's 20th murder anniversary. Sam is not the only visitor in Conley. Victoria's best friend Sylvie is back in town to sort some things out with her estranged mother's will. Since her return, Sylvia is being drowned in the memories of the last summer herself and Victoria spent together. Both girls were inseparable, as their parents have been friends since before the girls were born. However something more then just a friendship is connecting both girls' parents (bam bam bam)... and Victoria accidentally finds out!

Sylvia is the only person left who know's what really have happened that dreadful night 20 years ago. She can no longer stay in town as Victoria's parents, her old school friend Michelle and Sam are overwhelming her. However, right before her departure, Sylvia is being lured into unveiling her secret and... she learns one very significant detail about Victoria's death.

Exhilarating and engaging plot. I could not put the book down. Dear Sarah Wray - you just got yourself a new fan!

I received an ARC from NetGalley to read and review. The below is my honest, unbiased opinion. Thank you, Sarah Wray, the publisher, and NetGalley, for allowing me to review.

Two girls. A murder. And a secret that binds them forever.
As a teenager, Sylvie Armstrong’s life was shattered when her best friend, Victoria Bland, was murdered. The killer has never been caught – and Sylvie has never spoken about what happened that day.

Now, two decades have gone by and after the death of her mother, Sylvie is forced to return to her home town, along with her newborn daughter – only to be confronted by the secrets that she has been running from for twenty years.

But then Sylvie receives the locket Victoria was wearing on the night she died – and it becomes clear that somebody knows what really happened to Victoria.

As Sylvie struggles to discover the truth behind the lies, she finds herself in increasing danger from those who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets. Someone who threatens not only Sylvie, but everything she loves...

HER BEST FRIEND is a slow-building mystery thriller that's told in dual timelines. We see Sylvie today and the murder that happened in 1995. Though not quite as action-packed as most thrillers these days, HER BEST FRIENDS was still truly captivating in writing and description. Because we were given two sides of the story (today's version and the version that happened the night Victoria died), we were able to really connect with the main character, Sylvie. I read this is one sitting, and I can't recommend it enough.

Two decades after a 15 year old girl was murdered a journalist has taken up this unsolved mystery to see if any new leads can offer justice. I thought this book was just painstakingly slow and boring.

This book really draws you in and I was desperate to know what really happened by the end!
Sylvie goes back to the house she had grown up in after her Mum dies, and it soon becomes clear that something awful happened to her best friend when they were younger.
There is a journalist in town as well hoping to find out what happened to Victoria and her mum has all her hopes pinned on him.
This book centres around hiding the truth and all those involved are struggling in their own way.
This is a good read and one that will keep you gripped to the end.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for sending me an advance copy to read and review.

Love, love, love this book! I'm a sucker for murder mysteries, especially those that involve teens, long-buried secrets, and a return to the past that resolves things for the characters. When Sylvie returns to her hometown after the death of her mother, she must revisit the circumstances surrounding the horrific demise of her best friend, Victoria when they were just high-school students. Old friends, an investigative journalist, the parents of the dead girl, and the victim's old boyfriend all play a part in the suspense. But I guarantee you won't figure it out and the truth took my breath away! Shockingly good!

Prepare to start reading, only to look up hours later and wonder where your afternoon has gone. This is one gripping and utterly unputdownable psychological thriller!

Twenty years ago, Sylvie's best friend Victoria was found murdered in a lake. Shortly after that, Sylvie moved away and hasn't been back since. Until now. At the same time, Sam is interested in making a documentary about Victoria's murder, which is still unsolved. Sylvie will be forced to face the memories of that faithful summer in 1995. Will Victoria's murder finally be solved?

Halfway through the book, I had to stop reading due to this pesky thing called sleep. But even while in bed, I couldn't stop thinking about it as I tried to piece together what had happened. There were a few bits and bobs I figured out quite early on but I suspect that's because a) I have a suspicious nature and b) I read too much. Be that as it may, it didn't ruin the story for me at all and the ultimate reveal knocked me for six!

I thoroughly enjoyed the way the author tackled this story. The chapters switch back and forth between Sylvie in the present and the past but there are also chapters from Sam's point of view. So not only do we gain insight into Sylvie and Victoria's friendship back in the day but we also have an opportunity to follow Sam as he interviews various people for his documentary. It made me see connections where there weren't any, making me change my mind about who I thought the culprit was, only to ultimately reverse back to my original thought and still get it wrong. 

Her Best Friend is a truly compelling and engrossing read. It's well-paced throughout, has some brilliant twists and turns, a fabulous cast of characters and builds up to quite the shocking ending. You will not be able to put this one down as it's one fantastic page-turner!

This one actually surprised me ,with how much I enjoyed it, loved out it was told as a story and as a podcast, never read a book done like that before. Can't wait to see what else this author comes up with.With that said I want to think NetGalley for giving me the chance to read it and finding a new author that I want to keep checking out.

Sylvie’s life falls apart in a matter of weeks. First her best friend, Victoria, is found dead in a nearby lake. Soon after that, her Dad dies after a long illness, and she’s forced to move away as her mum struggles to work through her own grief. Twenty years later, she’s back in her hometown, clearing out a house full of memories after her mum passes away. Avoiding her past is harder than she thinks though, and when someone leaves her a gift, the locket Victoria wore the night she died, decades old secrets start to push their way through to the surface.

There’s a quality to Sarah Wray’s writing that draws you into the heart of every scene. We spend a lot of time in Sylvie’s head, seeing and feeling everything she does, and in a first person narrative that’s a powerful tool. It’s put to good use here, building the suspense as hints of what happened twenty years ago are drip-fed through. As with her debut, I like the small town setting, and the amount of secrets that can be buried within such a small space rather than a plot whose setting sprawls too widely. A good follow up to her debut earlier this year.

When Sylvie Armstrong was a teenager her life was shattered when her best friend, Victoria Bland, was murdered. The killer was never caught and Sylvie has never spoken about what happened. Twenty years have passed and Sylvie has to return to her hometown after the death of her mother. Sylvie receives the locket Victoria was wearing on the night she died - somebody knows what really happened to Victoria the night she died!!

The pace of this book is very slow. It seemed to take an age for the story to unfold. Tthe main characters I did not like at all. There also was not very much suspense but there was something that made me want to keep turning the pages. Whether it was to see if my predictions were right (which they were) , I'm not quite sure as this is not a bad read, it's just not a great read. I'm sure there will be lots of readers who will really enjoy this book.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Bookouture and the author Sarah Wray for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3* review for Her Best Friend by Sarah Wray. The tag line is "Two girls. A murder. And a secret that binds them forever" and advertised as an unputdownable psychological thriller.

Sylvie Armstrong's best friend Victoria was murdered one night after a party, and shortly after she leaves town. But she has been running from her past 20 years, and her mother’s death forces her to return to her childhood home with her daughter to sort things out.

She has blocked out what happened that night, but a reporter wants to re-open the case then someone leaves a gift on her doorstep: a gold necklace with a heart-shaped locket that her friend Victoria was wearing the night she drowned. Someone else apart from her knows the truth, so is she in danger?

The book is well written by Sarah Wray with plenty of suspicion and intrigue falling on all the members of the family and friends of Victoria and it does have a pull to keep reading one more chapter. However, maybe i have read too many psychological thrillers lately and was not as scared as i could have been and in fact guessed some of the details of the ending about half way through, but the ending itself was quite abrupt and left me hanging.

Nevertheless i enjoyed it and would certainly read another of Sarah's books.

Sarah Wray her best friend review

This is a story about Sylvie who has a past she wants to forget. When her mother passes away suddenly and leaves her the house in which she grew up in she brings her daughter to clean out the house and get ready to sell.

Her daughter is Victoria who is named after the best friend who was murdered so many years ago.

Syvlie cut off contact with her mother after the terrible events and only wanted to move on with her life as best she could. After returning home she meets up with Michelle a schoolmate who decides to assist her.

Michelle has a little bit of the stalker in her and I feel sorry for her as she doesn't seem to have any friends and always gravitated towards Sylvie and Victoria. She shows that she is a good person though and helps Sylvie with newborn Victoria.

Peter is the father of her best friend who was murdered and while i felt sorry for him as he lost his daughter he seemed too much against Sylvie and held a thinly veiled contempt of her.

This story was very interesting and shows about secrets and betrayals. It also shows the worst of humankind as the lies keep adding up. You never know what could happen.

Loved seeing the story unfold and finding out not just what happened to Victoria but also the why and what it did to the people who loved her.

I am very much looking forward to what this author comes up with next. A wonderful read thathad me guessing the whole way through.

Firstly, I want to say thank you to you for letting me have an ARC of this book. I would also like to come clean and let you know that I didn't finish this book and for this reason, I haven't published a review online. I left the story at 31% and I was so bored, despite being over a quarter of the way into the book. I would normally have felt invested enough to want to at least find out what happens.
I feel the book was just too slow for my liking. There were also too many characters being introduced and their inclusion happened to be so fleeting that they were instantly forgotten as soon as we moved onto another chapter.
I am really disappointed, as I had been looking forward to reading this story based on the synopsis. However, the reviews for this book so far seem positive, so perhaps it's just not to MY taste.

3.5 Stars

I was reading this book with mixed feeling all along. I liked the story but i did not really like the main characters. I definitely did not expect the twist at the end but i was not convinced by the ending.
It is not as if i didn't enjoy it but i was not really engaged in the story. I just kept going because i was curious about what happened.

20 years ago, 15years old Victoria was found drowned in the lake after being missed for a day. Her Family and her best friend Sylvie were completely devastated. Now, Sylvie, a new mother, went back to her home town to sort out the house her mother left her. And their, she was faced again by the mystery of what happened to Victoria that night.

i liked how the story was told, the alternation in chapters between the present and that fatal summer 20 years ago, building up to get us to the point where everything is finally explained. The story itself was interesting, and i enjoyed it, although i did not like the characters of Sylvie nor Victoria or the parents of both girls, basically all the main characters. Still that did not stop me from going on with the story.
My issue was with the end. The final twist was really good and for me it was unexpected. But somehow its effect was spoiled by the events after it. I can't really explain without giving away spoilers, so i'll just say again that it did not convince me and it did not feel right, as if something was missing in it or it was hastly made!
Other than that it was a good story.

Great book with an intriguing topic. Solving her best friend’s murder is foremost on her fr’a mind. Nothing will stop her. Highly recommend

Her Best Friend was ok, started out a little slow, then by the middle it picked up. The part about the documentary was boring, but the ending had a lot of twists and turns.

Two girls, one murder and a secret that binds them together. Sylvie and Victoria were best friends but tragically Victoria is murdered and the killer has never been caught. Sylvie hasn’t spoken about that night in over two decades but then her mother dies. After returning to her mum’s house along with her baby daughter, Sylvie must start to confront the secrets of her past.

This book is a brilliant thriller with a shocking end. It’s set between the past leading up to Victoria’s death and present day and will bleep you gripped to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture and the author for the chance to review.

Good thriller, with a strong storyline. I would recommend this book.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Sarah Wray for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

When Sylvie Armstrong was a teenager her best friend, Victoria Bland, was found murdered and things have not been the same for Sylvie since that day. After Victoria’s body was found and her funeral took place Sylvie’s parents sent Sylvie away to school thinking that it would be too hard on their daughter. Shortly after Sylvie’s father also died and Sylvie relationship with her mother became non-existent leaving her to not return to her hometown.

Now, twenty years after Victoria’s death Sylvie finds herself returning to her childhood home after her mother’s passing when her home is left to Sylvie in the will. Returning with her baby Sylvie finds all those memories of her best friend returning to the surface and now with the killer never being found there is a reporter looking into the long buried secrets of the past.

Her Best Friend by Sarah Wray to me was an extremely slow build mystery/thriller read. While I’d like to say I loved this one the pacing really had it a struggle to become engaged as it slowly unfolded. There was a decent story within the pages but not one that truly gripped me to rate this one any higher.

I think also that for myself with as many books that I read this one was also a tad predictable. It seemed to lack the twists and red herrings that I normally love and in my mind seemed to be taking me on a journey to a certain outcome which in the end was pretty spot on. So while the writing is nice enough and the story will be one that engages a lot of readers in the end this one turned out to just be one of those OK reads in my opinion.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Having not previously read any books by author Sarah Wray, I was drawn to this book by the description which left me wanting to know more. I found this book an excellent read and fully intend to read more of this author in the future.
Two 15 year old girls Sylvie and Victoria were the very best of friends but when Victoria was murdered the killer was never found. Sylvie went to live at her aunt's and never returned to her parents house. Now 20 years later she has returned following the death of her mother and to the secrets she has hidden from surrounding Victoria''s death.
As Sylvie struggles to discover the truth she finds herself in increasing danger from those who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets.
I would like to thank Net Galley and Bookouture for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book that I have read by this author. The story line did grab me from the start and kept me guessing till the end. I had a lot of questions through out the book. Why did the parents not stay up and wait for their daughter to come home late at night as they usually did? Why had Sylvie left home and never returned until her mother died? Who was Michelle, her story did not make sense? Where is Sylvie's husband? Who killed Victoria? I kept reading this book as I needed to know the answers to these questions. But at the same time, I never really liked the characters