This book had a very different writing style, in that you didn't know who was telling the truth or who was in a fantasy world. I wasn't sure I liked it. Thought it would be too predictable but the ending was a little different than I expected. Anyhow, I did actually like it and would recommend. Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read pre release in exchange for honest review.

As a big fan of Michele Campbell's work, I was looking forward to her latest book to be released, A STRANGER ON THE BEACH. My high expectations were surpassed! This book was a WILD ride and I had no idea of the huge twists coming chapter after chapter.
The story follows the beautiful, rich character of Caroline who had a husband she loves, a gorgeous home and a loving daughter. Rebounding after discovering her husband is having an affair, she spends the might with a local ex-con and exchanges a night of passion for endless chaos to follow.
This journey is told from several POV's which keeps you guessing...who is lying and who is really the victim?
Michele Campbell has done it again with her incredible plot twists and this is a must-read for all thriller fans!
Thank you, NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and Michele Campbell for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Caroline is living the dream life ~ a mansion on the ocean, a loving husband, a daughter - and a stranger on the beach seemingly watching her house, and quite an attractive stranger at that! But is everything all it seems to be? It seems Caroline and hubby Jason are not really doing all that well, and he may have a mistress on the side, and Caroline is feeling rather lonely and upset. She decides to find the young man who watches her house and enters his world. Aiden is his name, a local bartender with a past, but she's just in it for the fling. But what is Aiden in it for? Lots of twists and turns in this one, some believable, some not so much! Thank you to NetGally for letting me preview this tale.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Michele Campbell for this eARC of A Stranger on the Beach in exchange for an honest review.

I almost didn’t finish this story, but I’m so glad I did! This book is about a “power” couple who appears to have everything. A beach house, apartment in the city, and the perfect marriage of nearly 20 years. Jason has a high paying Wall Street job and Caroline is wanting to jump start her interior decorating career after her daughter goes off to college. She decorates her beach house and invites a slew of people to show off her skills only to be surprised by her husband and his mistress! She falls apart and ends up at a local bar a few days later where she meets the bartender Aiden and has an affair of her own. However, it seems Aiden has a criminal past and Caroline may be in danger now.

I had a hard time getting into the story because Caroline was just too stupid for her own good and Aiden was a psycho. At times their behaviors were questionable or a bit far fetched, but I hung in there. It all paid off in the second part of the book! Just when I thought I’d figured it out, Ms. Campbell surprised me again. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys twisted plots, thrillers, suspense, or mysteries.

#AStrangerOntheBeach #StMartinsPress

My FAVORITE thriller I've read in awhile. Once you start this book, you will NOT be able to put it down. The story pulled me in from the first page and I read late in to the night to finish. Has all the elements a good thriller should have and will keep you guessing from the start who is telling the truth. Highly recommend. Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

WOW just WOW!!! A Stranger on the Beach was fabulous!! This book takes you on a twisty thrill ride until the mind blowing conclusion that I did not see coming. I lost sleep because this book was simply too hard to put down. I would definitely recommend putting this on your summer reading list.

Thank you to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

When I started this book, I couldn't understand and didn't enjoy the alternate viewpoints. I love Michele Campbell and thoroughly enjoyed both of her previous books, and the writing in this one felt choppy and the sentences seemed fumbled. However, I did push through, and ended up really enjoying the ending, when all the strings were pulled together. I will be posting my full review on my blog when I receive the copy arc in a couple of weeks.

A Stranger on the Beach by Michele Campbell was SO AMAZING. I loved it from the beginning and didn’t want to put it down until the very last page. This is her best book yet, in my opinion.

This is what I said on Goodreads:

I was riveted by the book from page one! I loved it and didn’t expect the twists and turns. A Stranger on the Beach will keep you glued to the pages until the very end. 2019 is starting out to be a very good year for books. If you enjoy fast-paced thrillers, you will want to scoot this up to the top of your MUST READ list.

Here is the synopsis:

There is a stranger outside Caroline’s house. Her spectacular new beach house, built for hosting expensive parties and vacationing with the family she thought she’d have. But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aiden, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.

As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she’s built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aiden for comfort…and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aiden’s obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline’s husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband’s murder.

First of all, I cannot let any details about this book slip because I don’t want to ruin it for you. Second, its a story that will have you reading well into the night so plan accordingly. And lastly, prepare yourself for twists and turns.

Due out in July.

The lead in to the story is an interesting start that sets up what is to come. The characters are well written..There is a lot to keep track of in this book. I actually re-read a significant amount of the book because I thought I had missed some information that would help me understand the story arcs better. The reveal explained all my lingering doubts but it seemed it was a long time coming.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy from St Martin's Press through NetGalley
#AStrangerOnTheBeach #NetGalley

Review of advance reader eBook

In the middle of a party thrown by wealthy socialite Caroline Stark, her husband, Jason, arrives at their posh beach house with another woman. Although he denies being involved in an affair with the woman, he leaves with her following a verbal altercation with his wife.

Hurt and angry over the apparent collapse of her twenty-year marriage and convinced that two can play at the marriage-cheating game, Caroline picks up a local bartender for a one night stand. But unbelievably obsessive Aidan Callahan seems to have no sense of reality and begins stalking Caroline who, hoping to reconcile with her husband, seeks to end the affair. As Caroline desperately tries to avoid further entanglements with Aidan, an unplanned encounter between the three leads to unforeseen tragedy.

Plot twists and unexpected reveals help build the tension in this disturbing tale rife with secrets and lies. The story spins out in alternating viewpoints between Caroline and Aidan; this often-used device here creates an unnecessarily-convoluted tale that tends to leave the reader confused as to what is actually happening in the unfolding story.

The unlikable main characters consistently fall victim to “too-dumb-to-live” decisions, giving the narrative a growing sense of ludicrousness. Unfortunately, the unexpected twist that heralds the denouement in the telling of this tale comes from so far out of left field it is likely to leave readers feeling dumbfounded. By definition, unreliable narrators habitually subvert the truth; here the purposeful strategy of misrepresentation hides an essential truth; it may preserve the startling final revelations, but it also intentionally deceives readers who are likely to feel cheated by the deliberate omission.

I received a free copy of this digital galley from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley
#AStrangerOnTheBeach #NetGalley

Edge of your seat story!! I couldn’t put it down because I had to know who did what!!! Great book! Thank you net galley!!

This book should have been a fast paced page turner but it dragged! It was twisty and very unreliable to the reader but maybe it went too far and just seem long.

I received a copy for my honest opinion from Netgalley.

My original judgements of Aiden and Caroline were that Aiden was delusional and creepy while Caroline was making the most frustrating mistakes but wow! There was so much more to it than first impressions! A Stranger on the Beach gave me total “You” vibes from the start and I couldn’t put it down. A cat and mouse thriller that will have you wondering who to believe throughout the entire story with such contradicting narrators... who is telling the truth?

Thank you for the opportunity to preview A Stranger on the Beach by Michele Campbell.
A rich woman has everything she wants and she just got a brand new beach house. Caroline Stark is a socialite with a businessman husband, Jason, and a college student, Hannah. Caroline is in charge of setting up her new beach house and is going to have a big gala, which will also be a party for her husband's birthday. Things start to fall apart, and when her husband shows up at the party with a Russian woman, Caroline is beyond out of control. Her husband leaves her, takes the money out of the bank accounts, and she is truly alone in the world. She decides to go to the local bar where she meets a young bartender, Aiden. She is 10 years older than him, but decides to embark on a fiesty affair with him. Aiden falls in love, but he has his own issues - he's a felon with a murder charge, he has no money, and he has fallen in love with Caroline. Caroline realizes that Aiden is smitten and she's feeling something toward him as well - but what about Jason - would Aiden kill him to get him out of the picture? Has Caroline gone crazy and fallen for this young man?
It's a roller coaster ride when a storm hits and someone is shot - and Aiden gets busted because he's got the murder weapon, the motive and all that blood all over him.. But where are the bodies?
A crime thriller that will engage you all the way thru. Good read. 3.5 stars.

Sorry to say I will not be finishing this book. I am almost at the halfway point and the whole storyline is just ridiculous. Definitely not for me.

Wow. Fatal attraction. This was a gripping novel that had so many twists and turns, leading up to a volatile ending. Caroline has it all: career, husband, beach house...One night with a handsome bartender changes her world. Who do you believe? Who is manipulating whom? Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

30% into the book and this one's just not clicking for me. Going by the description I decided to give this one a try, but the characters, both Aiden & Caroline are so damn inscrutable with Caroline's behavior becoming more and more weird. This was not my cup of tea.
Thanks Netgalley, Michele Campbell and the publishers for an arc.

A Stranger on The Beach will literally have you questioning your own sanity. I had to go back and read sections because I though I had read them incorrectly or misunderstood what was going on. It is crazy and I LOVED IT! It’s so difficult to figure out what really happened and who is crazy in this situation.

I did figure out what was going on around the middle of the book. I wouldn’t say it was apparent at all, I’m just really good at figuring these things out.

This book has a great plot, unreliable characters, a great back story, shocking moments, and a whole lot of insanity. Highly recommend!

This book was .. not good. Many people I know are fans of "It's Always the Husband" and so I'm sure that they'll enjoy the writer's next book but this book didn't do it for me. For large chunks of the book, I wasn't sure what I was reading. From the muddled point-of-views, the unreliable narration, and just the overall cohesiveness of the book, I couldn't get into it.

"A Stranger on the Beach" is about Caroline and how quickly her life turns upside-down. Her marriage of 20 years is on the rocks, leading her to seek out the warmth and comfort of a mysterious stranger named Aidan. Her lavish lifestyle, including a beautiful, brand-new beach house, may go down the drain. A series of events and Aidan's growing obsession with her lead to her husband's disappearance and her being accused of his murder. Can she clear her name? Or is Caroline really responsible for the murder?

I was intrigued by the plot, willing to go along with what I thought would be a fun beach read in the middle of winter., but I became disappointed a few chapters in. Not to be prudish but all the references to "I want the sex" in the beginning turned me off. It seemed so cheaply written. Other things that didn't work for me: the unreliable narration, the characters, Aidan's outlandishness, the writing.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced reading copy. The book will be published on 07/23/2019.

Well written domestic thriller. Told by different characters point of view. Plenty of twists and turns that kept my curiosity piqued to the end.
This is the first novel by this author that I have read and I am looking forward to reading her present and future books.