I initially put this off to read and I should have read sooner! Fast paced and so clearly written. Lots of suspense, enjoyment and a few little twists along the way.
Ending was jaw dropping and will definitely keep Margot on my authors to follow list

Thank you for the opportunities to read this book. I have attempted it on a number of occasions but unfortunately I haven’t been able to get into it.

Great story, thrilling plot that I could not put down. Well worth a read, and would recommend to others.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin (Australia) for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.* 'Best Friends Forever' is a delicious thriller where no one and nothing is quite what it seems. It centres around an unlikely pair of best friends, Kat and Alice who live in idyllic Florida. Everything starts to unravel when Kat's less than lovely husband Howard is found to have fallen off a balcony and plunged to his death. A fast-paced read that is full of twists and turns. It is hard to write too much more without spoiling and plot twists.

Book blurb...
How well do you really know your best friend?
Kat Grant and Alice Campbell have a friendship forged in shared confidences and long lunches lubricated by expensive wine. Though they're very different women - the artsy socialite and the struggling suburbanite - they're each other's rocks. But even rocks crumble under pressure. Like when Kat's financier husband Howard plunges to his death from the second-floor balcony of their South Florida mansion.

Howard was a jerk, a drunk, a bully and, police say, a murder victim. The questions begin piling up. Like why Kat has suddenly gone dark: no calls, no texts and no chance her wealthy family will let Alice see her. Why investigators are looking so hard in Alice's direction. Who stands to get hurt next. And who is the cool liar - the masterful manipulator behind it all.

My thoughts…
I really enjoyed Best Friends Forever and was so drawn by the story I didn't realise until the end of the book that I'd neglected to do what I always do when reading this genre - I try to guess 'who dunnit'.
Cleverly plotted and well told, this is a real page turner. I think I read it in only two sittings.
I love it when I can highly recommend a book to my best friends-who I will now be looking at with fresh eyes!!
Excellent reading.

Twisted female friendships usually make the perfect basis for a thriller, so I was instantly drawn to the premise of Best Friends Forever. Kat and Alice are polar opposites: Kat, the impulsive and slightly spoiled socialite from a rich family background, living in a big mansion with her successful financier husband; and Alice, the introverted brainiac who approaches life’s problems much like she would solve one of her logic puzzles. As they say, opposites attract, and somehow the two women’s different personality traits complement each other, making the friendship work – until one day it doesn’t, and Alice is left out in the cold, without a word of explanation from her former best friend.

In her novel, Hunt introduced the concept of “ghosting” to me, the practice of ending a personal relationship without explanation by suddenly withdrawing from all communication and freezing them out, despite the other person’s attempts to reach out or communicate. Strange that I have never heard that term before (I mentioned in a previous post that I do live under a rock sometimes), but it is the perfect word for this terrible way to end a friendship. I felt for Alice as she is initially pondering why her friend won’t answer her calls, which soon turns into panic as she finds that not only has Kat frozen her out, but has also implicated her as a potential suspect in a murder case. Since the reader only has Alice’s narration to go by, I too was puzzled as to why Kat would leave her friend in this situation, coming up with all kinds of scenarios that would explain her behaviour. Some of these proved to be correct. However, as is the gift of a clever thriller writer, the author managed to throw in an extra twist at the end I absolutely did not see coming!

There was one point in the book where I thought the author had created the perfect opportunity to create some extra tension and intrigue to what had been a slow-burning story of friendship so far, which would justify its label as “psychological thriller”. Unfortunately this did not fully materialise, which was perhaps my biggest quibble with the book and left me feeling slightly let down at the time, as it did not mess with my mind as much as I had hoped. However, if you are a fan of chick-lit inspired slow-burning mysteries with that extra twist that leaves you slightly open mouthed with a WTF!?!?! expression stamped on your face, then this one might be just the book for you. I admit I had to flick back and re-read an earlier chapter to see what I had missed!

Whilst I have to admit that Best Friends Forever was a bit slow for me at times, and didn’t mess with my mind enough to stand out from other very similar books I have read in the past, it provided a quick, entertaining read with a surprise twist at the end faintly reminiscent of The Kind Worth Killing. It was the perfect beach read for a lazy summer afternoon, and I look forward to reading more from this author to see what she will come up with next.

EXCERPT: Suddenly it all became clear. Kat wasn’t just wealthy. She came from capital M money. The sort of money that doesn't just last a lifetime, but through multiple generations thereafter. It would be nothing to a multimillionaire to set up his daughter in a Palm Beach art gallery. Just a carrot to tempt his headstrong daughter to return home to South Florida.

I had never thought of myself as a covetous person and firmly believed jealousy was wasted energy. There would always be someone with more than you, any way you chose to measure it - intelligence, beauty, wealth, happiness. Even so, it was hard not to look around the beautiful home of the woman who was quickly becoming one of my closest confidantes, remember the pile of unpaid bills on my desk at home and not whine silently, 'It's not fair.' Of course, life wasn't fair. But sometimes the sheer magnitude of the unfairness could stick in your throat like a bitter pill.

THE BLURB: How well do you really know your best friend?

Kat Grant and Alice Campbell have a friendship forged in shared confidences and long lunches lubricated by expensive wine. Though they’re very different women—the artsy socialite and the struggling suburbanite—they’re each other’s rocks. But even rocks crumble under pressure. Like when Kat’s financier husband, Howard, plunges to his death from the second-floor balcony of their South Florida mansion.

Howard was a jerk, a drunk, a bully and, police say, a murder victim. The questions begin piling up. Like why Kat has suddenly gone dark: no calls, no texts and no chance her wealthy family will let Alice see her. Why investigators are looking so hard in Alice’s direction. Who stands to get hurt next. And who is the cool liar—the masterful manipulator behind it all.

MY THOUGHTS: There are a lot of books currently out there claiming to be psychological thrillers, but don't even come close. Best Friends Forever by Margot Hunt is the real deal. It is a superb read. Don't be fooled, as I was, by the chick-lit like start to the book. This book has depth and character.

The story is told from Alice’s point of view, over two converging time lines - the current time from when Alice is first interviewed about Howard's murder, and from three years earlier when Kat and Alice first meet.

Best Friends Forever is based on two premises-

'Everyone lies about something.' The trick being to pick out the truth from the lies; and

'Everything looks better from a distance.' Especially other people's lives. Unless you are living it, you only know what they want you to know.

I read this overnight because I simply could not bear to stop reading. 4.5 very bright stars

Thank you to Harlequin Australia via Netgalley for providing a digital copy of Best Friends Forever by Margot Hunt for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions. Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

Alice, staid mother of two living in suburban Florida, is making breakfast for her family when police officers suddenly arrive to take her in for questioning over the recent death of her best friend's husband. The story alternates between flashbacks of how Alice met Kat, a wealthy art gallery owner, and their friendship developed over boozy lunches, despite having little in common. Alice has financial difficulties from she and her spendthrift husband Todd living beyond their means (I didn't understand why a supposedly logical person wouldn't just get a job when they can't pay the bills, given her kids are in school, rather than waiting for someone to find one for her) whereas Kat's husband Howard is a philandering alcoholic bully. No one is too upset that he's dead, but Alice can't understand why Kat is now avoiding her, and sending a lawyer to pressure her to stay away. As Alice looks back of their friendship, she begins to question everything about it...

This was a clever psychological thriller with elements of Big Little Lies, and The Kind Worth Killing. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, although with this kind of book there is always a twist. The relationship between the women felt completely believable as Alice, bored and easily flattered, is sucked into Kat's glamorous life, and led astray by too many cocktails. I enjoyed this and would read more from this author.