The Good Twin. I’m not sure if there was a good twin! Very well written, every time I thought I had things figured out, there’d be another twist. Highly recommend!

** spoiler alert ** Is she Charly or is she Mallory? That's the question that guides this novel. While the story itself was fairly interesting, I found the characters very bland. Mallory: quintessential poor little good girl who always does the right thing. Ben: "oh poor me" man-child who isn't in love with his wife. Charly: rich girl who's so naive she basically forces Ben into marriage.

I'm not sure how the twins could eventually come to "love" each other, especially after murder-for-hire and mandatory jail time, but I guess that's why it's fiction?

A very good example of a psychological thriller with many good twists and turns. Mallory is raised by her young mother . When her mother got pregnant at age 15 she had twins and couldn't raise both so gave Mallory's sister away. Mallory and her mother struggled with poverty while the twin, Charlie was raised by a very wealthy family.
When Mallory becomes aware she has a twin she goes to Charlies' house to meet her, but the only person at the house is Charlie's husband Ben. Ben tries to talk Mallory into his plan to have Charlie killed and Mallory can take her place and become rich. The suspense begins to build now-will Mallory go through with this, while she try and warn Charlie, will Ben go through with the plan? The chapters go back and forth from the different point of views of CHarlie, Mallory and Ben also. A good satisfactory ending.

The Good Twin is what I call a cutesy thriller; it has all the elements of a gripping suspense, like a villainous husband, a grandiose plan of deception and a morally grey accomplice, but lacks the grit, suspense and darkness one would expect from a story like this.

No person is ultimately good or bad in life, so it's no wonder that Mallory and Ben make some questionable decisions every now and then. But if one cooks up a devious plan, one should not be dumb. Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of dumb people in reality and they usually get caught by the police pretty quickly, mainly because they fancy themselves really smart. Duh. But Ben was supposed to be this clever, aspiring lawyer, for crying out loud! Those aren't stupid!

Mallory's behavior changed with the weather, and her halfhearted attempt to convince herself she's in the right was quite frankly disturbing. Which is good. Disturbing is good. Disturbing is what we what we want in a thriller. But it's hard to believe a sweet young lady would turn into a ruthless conspirator overnight, at least without a very good reason.

The police gets involved at one point, but they are utterly incompetent and conveniently (for our bad guys) forgot how to police. The detective assigned to the case, whom we met first as a model in Mallory's drawing class, is quite a looker, but considering what he does for a living, he should be more than a brainless buff dude. If you ask me, I would wager it's probably not a good idea for a police officer to plan dangerous operations based on the opinions of a civilian, who basically just wants to do stuff because they just "want to see what would happen".

Marti Green can write well, I have no doubt about that. The whole book felt like a movie and had a nice flow to it, which is awesome! But! When it comes to thrillers, I need them to be realistic. I can suspend my disbelief, sure: for unicorns, futuristic societies with body mods, ghosts that help investigations, oppressive governments pitting teenagers against each other for entertainment... I think you see where I'm going with this.

So, do tell, how can two people claim to be the same person, and not one single police officer raise an eyebrow over this scenario. You could probably pull this off in a story set in the 19th century, but nowadays we have this thing called fingerprint analysis, and while it does take some effort with all the sample collecting and elimination process, it's surely a better way to decide who is who, and frankly, way more likely than "oh, sure, you are that person, 'cuz you said it first".

Or was I supposed to be under the impression that identical twins have identical fingerprints? Because again, that's really not how any of this works...

I can overlook many things, including plot holes, if I'm invested in the characters. But characters who change their whole personality, just to suit the plot? That grinds me the wrong way.

A mildly entertaining, light suspense, The Good Twin is and exploration into nature vs. nurture, a story of sibling rivalry gone wrong.

Thank you Netgalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I love the cover

BUT

this book is all over the place.
The writing doesn't stick to anything and the characters seem to lack empathy for life and each other and simply didn't make me feel for any of them at all. I know people like that exist out there, I just don't want to read about them in books as well.

Sorry, wasn't for me.

I received in advance reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review. This gets to stars – one for being set in Astoria, and one for being reminiscent of the Sweet Valley twins. There really is nothing else to say

The Good Twin was a quick read. I had trouble putting it down. Any time I thought I had it all figured out there would be another twist. Great book!

Awesome! Very suspenseful with lots of surprises. I would love to read more by this author.

The Good Twin as an okay read. I like the way it was written, I usually dislike books that have different point-of-views. This clearly was an exemption. My only trouble was I find it hard to find sympathy and to relate to the character, Mallory. And finding sympathy for a character is important to me. I was in the middle yet nothing. Not until like seven chapters before the ending. I feel that there should have been more of the character(s) background story to build it more up.
It was not entirely a chore to finish up. It has a not-so really unique plot but it flows on naturally. The writing is good, details in the novel were good. I felt like I was really in the room about the financial meeting quite taxing indeed. The amount of suspense going on was enough. I anticipated through; so that I could have my mind more messed up as it was. Pondering on the twist that had happened was still a surprise I thought it’ll be a basic twist that a reader would have easily foreshadowed. It wasn’t.

The Good Twin is a twisted psychological thriller written by author Marti Green. Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for the advance copy.

Twins, separated at birth. One is a successful and wealthy gallery owner with a charming husband. The other is a failed actress living in a boardinghouse. When Mallory discovers that her sister Charly has everything she ever wanted but doesn’t have, she becomes jealous. Then Charly’s husband, Ben approaches Mallory with an idea that, if successful, will allow her to have everything she ever dreamed of. Just how far will Mallory go to get what she wants, and will the truth she learns about her sister make a difference? A twisted and insidious plot will hold readers rapt

While the story is interesting, it is not entirely unique. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, even though the author did try to get me to sympathise with her. It is not a bad story, but the story telling skill was not great. I will be honest in saying that I struggled to finish the book, mainly because the style was boring and couldn't trigger any of my emotions. I tried to like it, but in the end it wasn't for me.

Oh. My. God. The Good Twin is all kinds of twisty. Things that I thought would happen didn't. Some of the things I had hoped would happen did. Honestly, I was shocked throughout the book, and right up until the very end, this novel was absolutely insane.

I will admit, most of this book is entirely too far-fetched to be realistic, but that was okay, because I was enthralled. Reminiscent of The Girl on the Train or Gone Girl (I know everyone uses those, but this one really did remind me of both of those domestic thrillers), this novel is nearly impossible to put down. I actually read it in a day.

My biggest complaint is the ending really irked me - specifically, the epilogue. I would have been happier if the whole epilogue was left out. Without the epilogue, everything was left with a bit of mystery - just enough to get you really thinking. The epilogue wrapped everything up to perfectly in a pretty little bow that was a little too pretty to be believable - but at the same time they satisfied my emotions in the way a pretty little chick lit novel does. I needed the ending to be a bit more twisty, the way the rest of the book was.

The characters - ooh - they are despicable. Some more so than the rest. But they're all pretty bad. The main ones anyways. I think there are some side characters who are ultimately good people and could use the credit where it's due.

Anyways, this is one of those novels I can see becoming a big deal in world of thriller fans everywhere.

I always love a good psychological thriller and I was immediately intrigued when I read the blurb of The Good Twin. Deception, twists, suspense... Always consider me signed up for that! I want to say before I start my review that it is preferable to go into this psychological thriller completely blind and don't pay too much attention to the blurb. Thankfully I didn't remember the details myself when I started reading The Good Twin, but the blurb does give some spoilers that might ruin some of the surprises and twists. Of course I have adapted my own summary to avoid those spoilers. Ok, what that out of the way, it's time to talk about this story. Because boy, it was one heck of a ride... I found myself hooked from the moment I started reading, and this had a lot to do with the writing style. There is just something about the way Marti Green writes that makes me fly through the pages and I literally finished it in less than a day. The Good Twin kind of has that The Kind Worth Killing air, and only in the best possible way. The plot development and the order in which the story is told, from different POVs, are both simply brilliant and only add to the overall suspense. I don't want to give away too much of the plot to avoid spoilers, but there will be twists that will mislead you and you won't be able to get the full picture until the very end. Always a good sign of a successful psychological thriller right? The main characters are very important in this story and have been very well developed, each identical twin with her own background story. They were easy to relate to and it was interesting to see the events unfold and find out how they reacted to it all. In short a highly entertaining, fascinating and well developed little masterpiece of psychological suspense.