Oh, man this was so good! I thoroughly enjoyed Campbell's previous book entitled "It's Always the Husband" so I was eager to get my hands on this one and it didn't disappoint! "She Was the Quiet One" follows the lives of twins Rose and Bel who are very different to one another. When their mother passes away, they move to New England to live with their grandmother and are both enrolled in Odell academy, a school attended by rich, privileged kids. Rose loves her new school and uses it to full advantage but Bel ends up falling in with the wrong crowd and the twins grow even further apart. Then tragedy strikes.

As in Campbell's previous novel, the characterisation is exquisite, the plot intriguing and the pace perfect. A masterfully crafted book that is full of suspense. There are plenty of dark secrets and twists and turns throughout, whilst the POV alternates between several different characters keeping the mystery under wraps until the very end.

Once I picked this up that was it, I was shut away reading until I finished it. The author knows how to engage you in the first few pages and is adept at holding your interest the whole way through.

Many thanks to St Martin's Press for an ARC. I was not required to post a review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I haven't read Michele Campbell's other book, but I am going to after this one. The short summary of She Was the Quiet One is that there is a murder on the campus of a private New England boarding school. We find that out in the first few pages. There is a set of twins and one of them is dead and the other is being blamed for the murder. The novel changes point of view throughout to get the backstory on the twins, the surrounding cast of characters, interviews with the police, etc.

The story is very compelling and hard to put down. However, it does venture a little on the YA fiction side, given the age of the characters (16) and the "drama" that happens with 16 year old girls at a boarding school. The teenagers were better developed characters than the adults.

The ending was very predictable, right down to cell phones being dead at inopportune times. I was hoping for a twist at the end, but nope, the ending was exactly according to script. Everything was wrapped up at the end (although reality had to be suspended a little bit - are the cops really that naive?).

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

What an intriguing whodunit this book is! Rose and Bel Enright go to live with their wealthy grandmother out east when their mother dies. They are just turning 16 and grandmother decides to send them to Odell Academy, a very prestigious New England boarding school. Rose is quiet and studious, a very obedient young lady while Bel is on the wild side and always looking for a good time. Sarah and Heath Donovan join the staff at Odell as teachers and dorm parents. Heath is very handsome and the female students all fall in love with him. This is a story of privilege, manipulation and seduction with dark secrets, twists and turn culminating in a shocking final twist. I highly recommend this page turner to anyone who is looking for a very suspenseful read.

A dark and twisted book about the complexities of sisterhood and the scandals that can rock a small community! This is my first book I’ve read by Michele Campbell, though I have been wanting to read her first book, It’s Always the Husband, and I really loved it! I read a Q&A with Campbell where she talks about the inspiration behind her first book being her fascination with the concept of frenemies and what the implications are for that type of relationship as they mature. In this book we see the concept of frenemies escalate, as the love and jealousy between two sisters compounds into a complex relationship that ultimately ends in tragedy and scandal.

What would the mash-up term for sister frenemies be?? I need to put some thought into this…
Sisterhood is a fantastic and terrifying relationship for a thriller. Sisters love more intensely and also fight more intensely than even best friends do. The bond of sisterhood can so easily be tainted by jealousy. The sisters in this book, Bel and Rose, are fascinating! They both admire and covet a quality in the other, and neglect to appreciate the things about themselves that are enviable.

About the Book

In the wake of their parents’ deaths, teenage twin sisters Bel and Rose are sent by their grandmother to the prestigious boarding school where their parents met, The Odell School. Though the school is full of opportunities, Bel and Rose are having trouble adjusting to the social pressures of boarding school. Rather than drawing the sisters closer together, the school intensifies their ongoing rivalry, ultimately ending in tragedy.

Sarah and Heath seem like the perfect couple: attractive, married with two young kids, former students at The Odell School, and current teachers and dorm supervisors at the school. But all isn’t as perfect as it seems. A group of senior girls has a bet that one of them will seduce Heath by graduation. Heath would never cheat on Sarah, and yet Sarah can’t help but wonder if there is something Heath is keeping from her. Does she really know her husband?

And then scandal rocks The Odell School—one of the sisters has been murdered, and the list of suspects is as long as the school roster. Who had a grudge against the sisters??

Reflection

Given that Bel and Rose are teenagers and the setting is a boarding school, I did wonder if this would verge on a Young Adult novel. It didn’t at all though! While young adult readers may enjoy this book, this is definitely an adult fiction/suspense book. The settings were so fun to read about! Campbell herself lives in a New England college town, so she writes about the school and town very effectively.

Poor Bel and Rose! If these sisters could learn to support one another instead of fighting, what a difference it would make! Of course, in the wake of personal tragedy and the pressures of the social system in the boarding school, these sisters never had a chance. Their rivalry is quickly intensified by the opinions of those around them. The things that make them each unique, Bel’s beauty and Rose’s intelligence, become the weapons they throw at one another. Talk about frenemies!!

Sarah and Heath’s storyline was fascinating. The doubts that they harbor, unspoken in an effort to support one another, almost overwhelm them. Theirs is a marriage that has survived some major hurdles, but what they face this year at The Odell School is beyond anything they’ve experienced. Beware of teenagers with an agenda!!!

This book is not one filled with twists, though the epilogue has a nice little twist that left me smiling as I finished the book. This is a book that is driven by the darkness and suspense of a scandal and the unraveling of a fragile social system as secrets come to light.

I read this book with some of my book besties, Kendall and Holly. We had such a fun time reading and discussing this book! I am excited to see what other readers think. It is completely salacious fiction!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Michele Campbell for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a candid review.

Twin sisters Rose and Bel Enright are devastated by their mother’s death, and are a bit apprehensive when their grandmother arranges for the girls to attend Odell, a prestigious school the girls’ father also attended. Bel quickly finds friends within the wilder community of seniors, while Rose is content with her more studious sophomore classmates. All the dorm gossip is centered on the new dorm head, Heath Donovan, his wife Sarah, and their two lovely young children.

Heath and Sarah Donovan look upon their promotion to dorm heads as a step up in their careers, and that things are finally going their way after Heath’s publishing efforts and the fiasco that created. The slipper incident becomes a serious embarrassment to Odell, and Heath maneuvers his way into the headmaster’s position just as a student is murdered.

I enjoyed this mystery, but I did feel that it dragged in places. Though there was some closure in the story, I wondered about some of the other characters. Rose and Bel were so different in so many ways; it was sometimes hard to remember they were twins. Sarah’s dogged devotion to Heath bothered me; she was a well-educated woman with a good job, but instead, she stayed with a man who pretty much lied and cheated his way into the headmaster’s position.

After the Enright twins lose their mother, they move in with their grandmother and get sent to The Odell School, a prestigious boarding school. Rose and Bel are very different, and their relationship suffers as they run in different circles at Odell. When one of them ends up dead, the other is accused of murder.

The story itself was very good. It kept me reading through to the end. Unfortunately, the writing isn't very good. The dialogue isn't realistic. The characters aren't likable. I felt like I suffered through a bad book to find out what happened. If it weren't for the intriguing plot line, I would've given up early on.

This is a much more polished novel than her first, and the narrative carried tension right to the last page. A great beach read.
Thanks for the ereview edition, netgalley.

This book has twist and turns you do not see coming. While I did enjoy the book and it was a quick read. I felt some parts were really slow. Once you figured out who was killed and who the joker was the book just kind of went down hill. I will admit that the end of the book with the twist of who was blackmailing Mr. Donavon three me for a loop. I do love Michele Campbell and her writing can not wait till see has another book out.

After the death of their mother, twins Bel and Rose are shipped off by their grandmother to an elite boarding school. Miles from anyone they know, faced with their grief, the two twins take different routes at coping with their new situation. Good girl Rose excels at the academic institution, while Bel finds friends amongst a bad crowd. Add in to the mix a schoolgirl competition relating to a male teacher, some badly executed pranks and things really are going south...

There was lots to love about this book. The contrast between the two sisters, while perhaps a little too big a difference, made for some great conflicts early on. I was totally on Rose's side, by the way. I couldn't find anything to redeem Bel's perspective on the pranks. But her rebel persona was part of the point as it was what allowed some of the big drama to happen. I really felt for Sarah, Mr. Donovan's husband, too. He was making ploys to become headteacher and all she really wanted was a happy life with her family. I could support that. At first she was a great dorm mother. She did have a tendency to deny the truth of a situation at times though!

The core mystery of this novel was which twin was murdered. There was a line in one of the police interviews (which I loved!) which gave a slight clue but really the murder victim could have been either of them. The mystery added a real buzz to the novel, keeping me reading on.

Sometimes the dialogue felt unrealistic. While reading on my Kindle i bookmarked quite a few different pages, almost all in the first half, where phrases were used that didn't feel at all like how a teenager would speak. Some of the dialogue felt too formal and then other lines made sixteen year olds use what seemed like slightly dated phrases. I have to admit at one point that I had got the impression that the characters were seventeen or eighteen - then to be reminded that they had just turned sixteen was quite jarring. This issue dropped off almost completely later in the book. By the end I was racing through the pages without paying attention to the words themselves, just the story they contained, if that makes sense.

Campbell dealt with some very difficult issues sensitively and her portrayal of boarding school life felt quite realistic (apart from the scandal and murder, of course). A great fast-paced read!

Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read She Was the Quiet One.

"Big Little Lies"-meets-"Prep". Absolutely loved "She Was the Quiet One", I devoured it in a day! After losing both of their parents, twins Bel and Rose move in with their estranged grandmother who ships them off to a fancy boarding school up north. While the twins are total opposites, they've always been friends. Rose is the ambitious bookwork, Bel is the beautiful wild child. But after Bel falls in with the wrong crowd of rich bad girls, the sisters' relationship shatters, and one ends up murdered, allegedly by the other's hand. Throughout the book, the reader wonders: which sister was murdered? WHY was she murdered? Who is the killer? Alternating between police transcripts and plot exposition, this psychological thriller is definitely a must-read!

Eeks! This book was a rollercoaster ride!

I haven't read Michele Campbell's first novel but after this one, I will definitely be reading it! This book had a lot of things I look for in a thriller and it was written so well. One of my favorite things in a novel is the different POV's and the author completely nailed this one! You are left wondering what in the world is going up until the very end!

In She Was The Quiet One female twins are left orphaned and live with their grandmother.. She sends them to an exclusive boarding school.where the tight relationship between the girls frays. Their troubles rapidly escalate. Another story about the dorm couple in charge intertwines with theirs. There are twists and turns, but not enough suspense for me since many clues are revealed.

She Was the Quiet One is the second thrilling novel by Michele Campbell and having read It’s Always the Husband last year I was rather curious about this one. You see, I was completely torn with It’s Always the Husband in the fact that I just didn’t care for the characters and a few details here and there but found the writing absolutely compelling anyway. Needless to say that I wanted to know if this new story would match up with her writing style that pulled me in.

She Was the Quiet One opens with a chapter showing the readers that there has been a murder but with only enough to pique the curiosity. After that we meet twins, Rose and Bel, who have just lost their mother and have been taken in by their grandmother who wants to send them to the Odell boarding school. Rose is excited about the opportunity, Bel not so much.

At the school Sarah and Heath are two teachers that are married with children and in charge of the dorm that the girls get assigned to with each mentoring one of the twins. The story changes the point of view between the characters building what had happened to lead to that opening chapter. There are also flashes back to the current time where the investigation is playing out with that murder we had the glimpse into.

First I would say that yes, I still found the author’s writing style to be completely compelling and quickly pulled me into the story. You just know the rich boarding school is going to spell out trouble any way as it’s an often used creepy story setting too. And thankfully in this book the characters weren’t necessarily “likable” but ones that I did find myself interested in knowing more and anxious to find the outcome to everything. If the book would have had a bigger “twist” to the overall story I may have even given five stars, the epilogue however was a nice touch. When finished I will definitely be back to try another from this author in the future since my rating did rise with this second novel.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I enjoyed this book so much.Read it in three day's.Kept me guessing till the very end.
I read the author's last book and highly enjoyed that one too..

Just finished this today. Held my interest, but somewhat predictable.. I liked the prep school setting, but some characters lacked depth.

Loved this book, even when I was not reading it I kept thinking about it and couldn’t wait to pick it up again and I finished it in a day. Would definitely recommend to others and can’t wait to read other titles from this author.

Highly recommend!!

Bel and Rose are orphaned twins and rivals, one is wild, one is quiet, but is one a murderer?

The twins wealthy Grandmother sends them off to The Odell elite boarding school for their high dollar education. Bel seeks to "fit in" and be accepted by the cool group on day one, while Rose is studious and interested in her education. (OK, they are pretty much opposites). Family is family though, and these two sisters do care about each other beneath all the cattiness.

It doesn't take Bel long to start hanging with the wrong crowd known as the "it" group (oh the drama and the many bad and brainless decisions these teenagers make). Secrets begin to surface, and when someone is murdered, fingers are all pointing in one direction. I had a few different theories which kept me engaged in the mystery and I changed my mind more than once.

I enjoyed the suspenseful fast pace of this one. It had a bit of a YA feel (which I enjoyed). The conclusion was shocking, but perhaps a bit predictable.

I found the story to be quite intriguing. I think this was my first psychological murder/thriller that involves twins and an elite boarding school. The cast of characters include Rose and Bel, the twins; husband and wife team Heath and Sarah, dorm heads of Moreland Hall; and of course, the mean girls' ringleader Darcy, who befriends Bel.

Ms. Campbell kept the story interesting with slight twists and turns that were very unexpected. I also enjoyed reading the different points of view. Pretty much through the entire story, I wondered which one really was the good twin and who was the "bad" one. At times I didn't like Bel, and then I felt sorry for her, and vice versa with Rose. I also couldn't quite figure out whether I liked Heath or despised him.

And on that note, I will not give anymore of the story away. I hope you find my review piquing your interest in reading this story. But be forewarned, it is a long read. Usually I finish a book in a couple of days. This book took me a few weeks. I will definitely read another Michele Campbell.

Thank you to Michele Campbell and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to read. My review is my own opinion.

Wishing you all Happy Reading!!

Anyone who has grown up with a bit of sibling rivalry can relate to parts of this chilling book. Twins Bel and Rose are very different, Rose is the good girl and Bel is the more naughty one.

The twins move to New Hampshire after the death of their mother to live with their rich grandmother who they don’t know very well . She packs them off to boarding school and that is when the drama begins.

Sarah and Heath Donavan are new teachers at the school drafted in to overhaul it and with Heath being young, ambitious and handsome they seem like the perfect couple to transform Odell school.

The plot thickens with the murder of a student. One twin is dead , but which one?? As the evidence points to the other twin being responsible, can it be true or is someone else the murderer?? Secrets, lies and betrayal are all intertwined to add twists and turns throughout the book.

I enjoyed the suspense of Michele Campbell’s writing style. She had me questioning my assumptions throughout. Some of the chapters were tense and the characters very well written. A fantastic thriller I found it easy to read and look forward to more books from this author.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read and review this advanced copy.

This is my first book by this author and I went into it not knowing what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised. I could not turn the pages fast enough! An absolute must read!