I liked the premise of the story, but abandoned it after one too many examples of uncorrected poor grammar. I would expect better from the publishers of such an established author.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

This book was great. It was a quick read, but only because it sucked me in and demanded to be finished. Love!

This book was fast paced. Hard to put down. It flowed well and it was very well written. It caught hold of me and had me hooked from the start . I was literally on the edge of my seat reading this book.

A very good and gripping novel. Kept me on edge and was an intense page turner. I do love books with a good conclusion and this was nothing but. A must recommend with thriller enthusiats.

It's full of secrets... Mel got pregnant in college and had a son whom she raised alone until he was 6 and she met Ben. She then went on to marry Ben and have two girls with him. Together as a family of 5 they have a great life. Then along comes Abi, a girl Mel was friends with in college, before she got pregnant. They lost touch after the baby was born as Mel had dropped out of college, but now Abi is going through a divorce and Mel makes the mistake of giving her an open ended invite to come stay, despite not having been in touch for 17 years. As soon as Abi arrives you know something is up and she is not to be trusted!
This was a good suspenseful family drama set in London that had a good fast paced plot that kept me guessing till the end

Definitely a different kind of thriller. We've all got people from our pasts that we wish we'd stayed in touch with. What happens when your most famous class mate suddenly writes to you after years and years? What happens when she over stays her welcome and drags you into something? Most of us would have enough common sense to see this trouble coming a mile off, but not this time. Good story line, good develop of characters. All around good read.

I've been following Adele Parks career from her first book to her latest one. I read her when she wrote more in the women's fiction theme and now I am enjoying her mystery/thriller type of books. I don't read a lot of mystery but when the book is written by one of my favorite authors I have to give it a chance. I am so glad I did because I loved this book. It really kept my attention the whole time and I was biting my nails at the end I was so excited to find out how it was going to end!

Man, sadly I won’t be finishing this book. I got about 100 pages in and just feel like nothing is happening, and everything else is predictable.

"I Invited Her In" is a brilliant psychological thriller which was a pure delight for me as a lover of domestic dramas.

Adele Parks has written a superb story that cleverly included an abundance of suspense and thrills and a truly fantastic ending. The plot was interesting, complex and uniquely twisted. The character development in her story was beautifully diverse. The character-led story was full of anger, betrayal and jealousy as well as love, loyalty and family life. The witty humour scattered throughout the story had me both shocked and amused.

If this is one of your favourite genres, "I Invited Her In" should not be missed!

I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel, at my own request, from Harlequin via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

This book is about friendships and secrets. I went blind and it was such a treat. Yes I predicted some of the twists but for the most part I was surprised. I read this book in two sittings which is a sign of a good book for me.

The tag line for I Invited Her In is, “Imagine the worst thing a friend could ever do. This is worse.” A tale of a reunion between university pals gone horribly wrong, it’s a nice reminder that sometimes when we drift apart from people, it’s for good reason.

They had been best of friends. Till they weren’t. One big thing separated Mel (Melanie)Harrison and Abi (Abigail) Curtiz but it wasn’t a bad thing. Not really. There was no falling out. Mel had gotten pregnant by a one-night stand and had to drop her university courses to become a full-time mom. Abi had stayed in school, married well, moved to America and been a wonderful success. They’re Facebook friends but Mel never really posts anything on-line and Abi is a TV personality whose page is more about her public life than her private one. Mel is certain Abi pretty much accepts all friend requests and doesn’t really remember her and the fun times they had at uni.

Then she gets the email; the first direct contact they’ve had in seventeen years. Abi is getting a divorce from her cheating scoundrel of a husband and is taking a trip to London to get away from it all. She assumes Mel is still a single mom, living in the city but Mel has married, had two additional children and no longer lives in town. She invites Abi to her home instead of meeting for the proffered lunch. It’s an open-ended invitation although Mel is assuming that Abi will leave after the weekend. Those first days are fun and exhilarating as Mel is reminded of what it was to be young and carefree, and spend all her time with a gal pal. But then Abi stays on, for weeks, and Mel struggles to keep her family life on track. Her handsome husband Ben is growing short on patience, especially with regards to the gossipy late-night wine sessions Mel and Abi have and the fast food he and the kids are eating while Mel and Abi dine out. Mel knows she needs to send Abi away, that she needs to get back to her old life, but she is certain the situation will resolve itself with time and continued kindness. She’s right. Abi does have a resolution to the situation in mind, but it is one that Mel is definitely not planning on.

While the reader knows from the beginning, thanks to the information on the cover, that this will be a suspense novel, the start of the tale is actually quite jovial and cheerful. Abi and Mel really do compliment each other’s personalities and it’s easy to see why they were such good friends. Mel is a kind person who doesn’t mind being outshone, and she enjoys Abi’s larger than life persona, her joie de vivre and glamour. It would be easy to paint Abi as simply an attention hogging witch who needs a plainer friend as a foil, but the author wisely avoids that trope. Abi is selfish and entitled but she is also fun and invigorating. Mel’s life is richer for having Abi in it.

But as the book goes on, the façades start to wear away. Mel’s kindness also hides an almost unforgivable cluelessness; she takes action with no thought to consequences for herself and others. She does what she feels is the right thing and that can often mean something that doesn’t stand up to the cold light of reason. Mel has a secret throughout the story, something that is technically not that big a deal, but the way Mel has handled it turns the ordinary into the outrageous. I felt this was excellent writing since it was this wonderfully subtle thread connecting the Mel of her college years to adult Mel, and it was this small thing that just rubbed off the veneer and was so wonderfully telling.

Abi’s exterior is, from the beginning, far more superficial. We know she is all glitz and glamour, hiding something dark and perhaps even dangerous beneath the surface. She is a fun, emboldening, enlivening presence in the household but in no way helpful. She pays for nothing and does nothing but party, which in turn creates trouble. It’s not a surprise, really, to find she had an ulterior motive for the visit. Here again, the author does excellent work of uniting the past and present, tying the current nasty behavior back to an obsession Abi had in college so perfectly, so frighteningly that it is eerie.

Part of why we have such keen insights into the characters is that the tale is told from multiple perspectives. We get the inside scoop, so to speak, on what many of them – Mel, Ben, Abi – are thinking so that we understand in detail what each character believes about themselves and the other characters.

The book does have a few flaws, one being that a great deal of the story hinges on a relationship that I found more fantasy than reality. I can’t go into depth because that pairing is crucial to the suspense, but I will say that I found the idea that a genuine attraction would exist between the characters rather unbelievable. I also felt that one of them was written as almost perfect, so that it felt implausible they would have the vulnerability to make the foolish decisions they made under the influence of the other. Additionally, the ending was a bit too sunny for the way the tale had developed. I also guessed Mel’s big secret right away. These things are small, and most don’t happen till the end, so their impact is minimal; it’s enough to be felt, not enough to overtly detract from a stellar story.

I Invited Her In is an excellent psychological thriller which will be a delight for readers of domestic dramas. I can wholeheartedly recommend it to fans of that genre.

I Invited Her In is a decent thriller, but it has some slow moments throughout the book. The author has a lot of promise.

This was an extremely readable book despite being quite long and I powered through it. Basically Melanie hears from an old friend Abi who has had a prominent television career in the US and although it's twenty years since they had contact, Abi wants to come and stay. Mel feels thrilled to hear from her old friend and invites her to stay. But Abi turns Mel's life upside down as she stays, and stays despite Mel's husband being unimpressed. There are a few twists and turns, some of them quite unexpected.
However this is more like a soap opera than a psychological thriller with the characters of Mel and
Abi being one dimensional. Neither character grows or changes throughout the course of the book. Mel is rather pathetic and Abi is a bitch with no regard for anyone but herself. I wasn't able to picture what each one looked like and there was a distinct lack of nuance. But it did keep me reading right to the end.

Mel and Abi met freshman year of college and become fast best friends. But when Mel discovers she is pregnant, she leaves university to raise her son on her own. Seventeen years later, Mel is happily married with two daughters in addition to her son, and Abi is embroiled in a highly public divorce in the US. Coming back to the UK to get her life back on track, Abi contacts Mel to restart their friendship. Mel invites her to stay with her family for a visit, but once there Abi shows no signs of moving on.

I enjoyed I Invited Her In, but I did feel it dragged a lot in the middle. The author did a good job of character development, even though Abi was a bit over the top. It was well written and I would definitely read more from Adele Parks. I'd give this one 3 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.

I will admit that I have a hard time reading books about girlfriend friendships gone wrong. I think it's personal PTSD of being burned by friends in the past, that it's just so frustrating to read about the same. With that being said, it was a well thought-out revenge plot with a great twist.

After seeing some buzz of this book, I thought it would be a thrilling read. However, after reading 22% of the book, I still hadn't reached a place where it was grabbing me. So for me, this was a DNF.

Thank you to NetGalley and Adele Parks for allowing me to read and review I Invited Her In. I adore Adele's writing, and own all of her novels. As expected, this novel is fantastic and I will absolutely be recommending it to friends and clients!

So much lies, deception, and back-stabbing. This book had me hooked! There is so much drama going on and I absolutely loved it!

Old friends Mel and Abi were close in their carefree University days. They would hand out, party together, and seemed inseparable. Fast forward many years later and they reconnect when Mel receives an email from her long ago friend Abi.

They meet up and suddenly it is like time hasn’t separated them. Old memories of their friendship years ago come flooding back and Mel cannot believe that Abi is in her life again.

Can Abi and Mel regain their old friendship they once had and be friends again? Or is something more dark and sinister at play?

Without giving too much away, this book was a real page turner for me. I loved reading the dynamics of Mel and Abi’s friendship, and seeing how it has changed and evolved over time to the present, as they try to rekindle that friendship. Abi seems keen on getting that friendship back with Mel that she once had, but Mel seems hesitant. Is Mel being overly cautious and paranoid now that Abi is back into her life?

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin-Mira publishers for the ARC of this book for my honest review

I highly recommend this book to everyone.

When you think someone is your friend you better think again. Mel and Abi were friends at University and shared everything. When Abi seeks help from Mel she will find out the extent of their friendship.

This book kept me turning pages and wanting more. Definitely had me questioning who you can or can not trust. I have to say that sometimes people you believe are your friends sometimes are your worst enemies. Sometimes it’s best to walk away and do the best you can.

Great characters, except for Abi. Abi was horrible and I did not like her through this whole book. She was just horrible.

I highly recommend this book. It’s full of drama to keep you wanting more and turning pages until the very end.

I gave it a 4.5 star rating.

Another Brillaint book from Adele parks . Mel & Abi are best friends from university . Mel finds herself pregnant . Abi is there for her but Mel leaves her coarse to bring up her baby son . Seventeen years later Mel gets a call from her friend Abi who had split up with her husband so she invites her to stay . Abi starts off all nice but it doesn’t take long for the true abi to come out . All I can say is if this is your friend I wouldn’t like her to be my enemy .