She Was the Quiet One is a fast-read whodunit that was such great fun to read. Set at an expensive boarding school in the east, the story revolves around a murder of one of a set of twins...but which one? And who killed the twin? The story skillfully moves back and forth between events leading to the murder and interviews by the police. Both twins both have POVs as does one other character, a teacher and head of the dorm where the girls live. This book has drama, romance, seduction, scandal, and characters that you root for even when they frustrate you. Everything just works, and the ending was a fun surprise.

Thank you to Net Galley and St Martin's Press for giving me this book to me in exchange for my honest review. This one did start out slow, it really did not start to hold my interest until about 50%. Up until then I thought I had figured it out but realized I was wrong. The last 40% had me hooked and I didn't want to put it down. And the epilogue completely surprised me. All in all I give this one 4 stars, definitely worth the time.

This book was full of secrets, twists and turns......I read it in two days! I love it when a book draws me in and shocks me at the very end....read She Was the Quiet One....you won't regret it!
Thanks to Michele Campbell, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this fantastic book!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.
I could not put this book down. Interesting characters and a plot with lots of surprises. It dragged in the middle and became repetitious. Nonetheless, I kept reading. 3.5 rounded to 4 stars.

Rose and Bel are twins, but no one would ever confuse them. One is a plain jane, the other an exotic beauty. One is rebellious in style and spirit, the other studious and a rule-follower. One is alive, and the other is dead.

The recently orphaned twins are enrolled in a prominent New England boarding school by their grandmother. While a dream come true for Rose, this prestigious and pretentious establishment is everything Bel loathes. Odell Academy is the perfect setting for a murderous thriller – a facade of a perfectly balanced environment which proves to be nothing more than a community of deeply flawed and even dangerous people.

Often, the reader has more information than the characters in the book. I really enjoyed how Campbell flipped that script. We get witness testimony describing the dead twin but are left guessing which it is. I found this more intriguing than finding the killer, which many may feel obvious.

This book may be too YA for many readers. It frankly wasn’t what I was expecting, but even as a 29 year old male, I can appreciate an absurd, high school story. I may not frequent the CW, but Laguna Beach and the OC were the peak of my trashy-TV binging.

Overall, I felt this was a fast-moving high school drama centered on secrets, lies, and the deplorable things teens do to fit in.

She Was the Quiet One starts off with a bang. One girl is dead and her sister may have very well been responsible for the murder. Ruth and Bel were as different from each other as day and night, but they loved each other deeply, at least they did before they joined the Odell academy. Dark forces at play at the posh private school drive the girls apart and it’s not long before they find themselves in a bitter fight..
I loved the book, though the ending was not as powerful as I hoped it would be. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to other readers. I am definitely going to be on the lookout for the author’s next book. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance reader’s copy.

I was so blown away by this book I'm at a loss for words. I guess this what they all a book hangover.
This story is so well written that it grabs you from the start and holds you to the end. It kept me on the edge of my seat as the story unfolded. I didn't see the ending coming at all.
I very highly recommend this book. If you enjoy a good mystery thriller then this the book for you.

Thank you St.Martin's Press and Netgalley for approving my request for an ARC.

This book needs a trigger warning for abuse and rape.

I have to start this off by saying that I really had to spend some time after finishing this book to think about how to review this.

I absolutely love a sister story and I especially love when the majority of the book takes place in boarding school/colleges.

She Was The Quiet One focuses on 4 main characters: sisters, Rose and Bel Enright and their boarding school dorm advisors, Sarah and her husband Owen Donovan. Rose is the meek preppy sister while Bel is the beautiful rebel. Sarah,, the sweet mother willing to not only be there for her own children but also for motherless students and Owen, Sarah's narcissistic (because every book these days has to have one, right?) ladder climbing, depraved, emotionally unstable husband.

I was all about this book. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. The first probably 15% I was hooked and then came a huge part of the plot. THIS is the reason I can't give She Was The Quiet One any additional stars. I am very hesitant to even go with 1.5 rounded up. Had this taken place in a college, it would have easily been 4 stars. I couldn't get passed the lack of concern and dismissive attitude of all adults, including Sarah, school staff and police. That was not believable at all and I think only perpetuates an air of normalizing what should NOT be acceptable. Gross.

The other part was the ending. It made zero sense to me. The book could have lost that epilogue and done perfectly fine as is. I felt like the character was completely irrelevant at that point and I didn't care at all about the back story.

I would have loved to love this book as I thought I would but I found it quite disappointing.

Thank you to Netgalley and St Martins Press for providing a copy of She Was The Quiet One to read and review.

As a graduate of a prep school where I learned by the Harkness Method, I thought I would love this book, which focuses on twins at an exclusive boarding school.

However, I found the plot implausible and none of the characters likable.

I found the way the teenage girls in particular spoke was highly unrealistic. How many 16 year olds are peppering their conversations with the word "ought". I just didn't buy it.

Not a fan of this one.

Review: SHE WAS THE QUIET ONE by Micheledorn Campbell

From the beginning, we know of a murder; we know the victim is a sibling, and we realize that the remaining sibling, proclaiming innocence, is suspected and accused. What we don't discover until much later in the novel is the identity of the victim, and conversely, the identity of the survivor as well. I paged through the novel with the nagging thoughts in the forefront of my mind: "Who died? Who survived? Who is the killer? Could the murder have been circumvented?" So for me there was much continuing suspense and tension. What I didn't achieve a lot of was character empathy. I managed some for Rose, and for Bel' s roommate Emily, and some for dorm co-head Sarah Donovan. Most of the characters, including the school's administration and board, elicited either dislike or actual contempt. Perhaps it was {tongue in cheek} class envy.

She Was The Quiet One is a twisty tale of sibling rivalry, manipulation and suspense! This book is a page turner!

Definitely a page turner although quite early in the novel you already know who did it. Far from It’s always the husband but yet I made me keep on reading. Predictable but enjoyable at the same time. I loved It’s always the husband and it is still above this one for me. I have to say Heath character was somewhat confusing, I feel like we didn’t have all the facts to understand why he was the way he was. Maybe I was expecting that major plot twist or a “shut the front door” ending but never came. So overall this novel was just okay. More a 3.5 than a 4 star.

Rose and Bel Enright are very different twin sisters who, after the death of their mother, end up at a prestigious New Hampshire boarding school. Bel mysteriously ends up dead one night and Rose is the obvious suspect. The story starts with the murder and then goes back several months with the story leading up to the murder with lots of twists and turns.

I love Michele Campbell’s writing and this had me captivated right up to the last page. The character development was exceptional and I felt drawn right into the boarding school setting. The relationship between the two sisters is both tragic and heartbreaking and the revelations at the end bring light onto both sisterly bonds and the foibles of human nature in general.

Many thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press and Michele Campbell for providing me with a complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a compulsively readable thriller, about teenagers but aimed at adults, set in a posh boarding school in Connecticut. Written with multiple viewpoints interspersed with police interviews from the investigation, it reminded me of Big Little Lies - where you know someone has been killed, but not who, why, or by whom. This was an effective way of maintaining suspense but didn’t go on so long as to get annoying.

Twins Rose and Bel, fifteen, who grew up in California, are sent to prestigious Odell Academy by their wealthy grandmother - their only surviving relatives when their mother dies. As far from identical as you can get, Rose is conventional, kind, studious and compliant, and somewhat envious of rebellious, beautiful, edgy romantic dreamer Bel. Rose is thrilled by the educational opportunities on offer, but struggles to make friends, while Bel is soon adopted by the cool but mean older girls from their dorm.

Teachers Heath and Sarah Donovan have been promoted to house leaders in an attempt to curb some of the bad behaviour that was affecting the schools reputation. They are both ex-pupils, and see the job as a path to redemption for Heath, whose literary career was derailed by a scandal. Too handsome for his own good, he’s a magnet for the immature strumpets who have made seducing him their goal.

Within six months, one of the twins is dead, the other is accused of her murder. Both are portrayed sympathetically and this really upped the tension for me as I raced through it to find out who. I mostly related to Good Girl Rose, and remember how hard it was to navigate through school cliques, wanting to belong amongst the cool cliques, but still get through exams. I’ve always been glad I grew up in England though, as American school bullying (hazing) sounds horrendous.

The denouement here was not a complete surprise, but satisfyingly done, and I liked the little twist in the epilogue. This would make a fantastic TV series too.
There was not too much swearing, sex or violence, and the dog survives!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If I had reviewed this book based on the first third of it I would have given it two stars. It seemed to be simplistic writing and a boring story. I had enjoyed Michele Campbell's last book, though, so I knew she was capable of an intriguing story - - and I got that as I read on.. The last half of the book had me turning the pages in anticipation of what would come next. Just when it seems everything has been revealed, Campbell has another surprise for the reader - - right up to the last page.

This turned out to be an enjoyable thriller!

What I Liked:
The atmosphere - something is clearly not okay but it's hard to pinpoint if it's just teenagers misbehaving or something far more sinister.

The changes in character POV - I really felt like I was seeing through each characters eyes and really got their perspective which added a lot of depth to the book.

The beginning - Campbell does a good job of putting out enough information at the beginning to really hook me but still obscures it enough that I can't be quite sure what's going on.

What I Didn't Like:
I'm not sure exactly what didn't work for me. It could have been that most of the characters were teenagers who really felt like teenagers which meant they were really caught up in all the insecurities and drama that accompanies being a teenager. It could have been the boarding school setting which did appeal to me but the Ruth Ware book set at a boarding school didn't really work for me either. Maybe the progress just wasn't quite quick enough? I don't really know but I did end up wanting the book to hurry up or skip ahead even though I was enjoying it which kept this from being a 4 star book for me.

Overall, I think this is a case of it's not you it's me. I think the mystery and the pacing were well done and the atmosphere was splendid. However, I do find that books that feature a lot of teenagers in the cast seem to frustrate me so I'm thinking I'll pass on that subject as a whole from now on. However, I enjoyed the writing enough that I will be looking for more books from Michele Campbell.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. This was a great mystery. The story has multiple layers that kept me engaged and determined to finish it quickly! I enjoyed the storyline and characters although the ending was frustrating! You don't always get to choose your ending however and if you enjoy a good dramatic mystery you will enjoy this book. This was my first book by Michelle Campbell and I look forward to reading more of her work!

Suspense galore!!! You don't find out who was murdered until halfway through the book. I had everyone as a suspect and victim. I couldnt wait to turn pages. Read this book!!! You will not regret it.

Interesting Story. I really enjoyed the characters and the overall book. Flowed well and kept me intrigued. I'm looking forward to more books by this author.

Great thriller! Not many books hook me from the very start; this book did just that! From start to the literal finish! I loved the flow of the unfolding events, the well-developed characters, the excitement and the suspense. And..….well of course, the twists and turns. Just when you think it’s all figured out you are so wrong; then you think oh I know now, nope wrong again!. The ending was WHOA! I really didn’t see that coming. I enjoyed this book soooo much that I read it twice in a row. I read my advanced review copy then purchased it to listen to it because it’s narrated by one of my favorite narrators/actors January LaVoy and she did NOT disappoint. This is going on my FAV list!

I received an advanced review copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.