The Look Alike kept me guessing till the end. Sierra comes home after 10 years that changed her life forever. Her mother has a mental illness and she’s just waiting to inherit it. Years before Sierra stumbles upon a dead woman who was wearing the same jacket she was and can’t help but think the killer mistook her instead of Sierra. Her mother’s fears and delusions only make things worse. Was the killer really after Sierra? Could her family be behind this?

Such a good story. I loved the plot. Sienna has such an interesting back story and seeing where the story lead was awesome

Sienna moves back home to her mother with mental illness, a brother who has always protected her, and just in time for the anniversary of the murder she walked upon years ago. Her brother is currently taking care of their mother, and she moves in with her mother to help alleviate some of the burden. Then, the phone calls start, and Sienna isn’t sure who she can trust.

The story moves along at a decent pace, with a realistic glimpse of someone living with another person experiencing mental illness. Overall, 4 stars for me. Just wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing itself.

Special thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC in exchange for the honest review. All opinions are my own.

Erica Spindler does not disappoint in The Look-Alike. Sienna was the first to encounter a victim of a brutal murder and she suspects that she may have been the intended target. Fearful, she leaves home for 10 years to escape her mom's increasing paranoid delusions and her own growing fears. When she finally returns home, old fears are renewed and she begins to wonder if what she is experiencing is real or just her own delusions.

This was a fun book to read and I highly enjoyed it. It kept me guessing and I loved the relationship building between Sienna and her potential male suitors while I was wondering if one of them was guilty at the same time!

What a creepy read! This one really had me hooked from the first line. I'm not a fan of back and forth and flashbacks and mixed timelines, but this author handled it all so well. I was very impressed. The atmosphere of this book is why I would recommend it to others--it is cold and creepy and the perfect read under the bed covers in winter.

Sienna Scott nearly tripped over the body......this is the first line of the book and with it I was completely drawn into the story. Sienna has grown up under the shadow of her mother's paranoia. After she stumbles across the body on the college campus, her life is altered. She is sent away and has finally returned home to help with he mother as well as confront her past. If you like psychological thrillers, and mother daughter relationships, this is the book for you! I thought I had it all figured out but the author threw me several times. I plan to read more of this author and recommend this book! Thank you NetGalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

THE LOOK-ALIKE is a solid thriller/suspense that travels back and forth between the present and ten years ago in a logical manner. Sienna had found the body of a girl about her age, Madison, who was wearing the same coat during a snowstorm in the middle of the night. It was a path she was known to walk and a little uncommon because it was a bit of a spooky short-cut.

She questioned at the time whether she might have been the intended victim. Considering her mother has persecutory delusions that her husband's ex-wife and her family are out to get back at her through Sienna, she and her father feared that Sienna might be showing early signs of the same illness. Her father decided to send her away to London to live with her grandmother. Sienna enjoyed 10 years there, training as a chef, but now she is ready to come home and wants to start her own business.

Coincidentally, she learns that when she returns to town, the police have reopened the case of Madison's murder and are trying to solve it. Sienna can't help exploring the potential that she might have been the intended victim. As things get more complicated, time is running out to figure out who had killed Madison and whether they really had Sienna in their sights.

This book was a great page-turner. However, I felt like the outcome was a little more obvious than I would have liked. I had figured it out pretty early in the story, so I wasn't as surprised. On the flip side, all the evidence was there, so it was fun to trace through the process and figure it out on your first read. The addition of her mother's mental illness was interesting, and I felt that this was portrayed well and understood by her and others in a way that does not blame the victim or any of the other pitfalls it could have had. It also adds some complexity to the way that Sienna approaches any thoughts/ideas.

There is also a romance in the plot line that I had a hard time getting into, as it moved a little fast and was pretty secondary in terms of the build. However, it propels the plot in other ways that makes it more necessary. The best part was the support that it gives to help Sienna from being isolated.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this intense thriller/suspense and would highly recommend for anyone who likes complex characters, heavy suspense, and figuring out whodunnit. Please note that I received an ARC through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

The Look-Alike is a creepy read. After discovering a body on campus, Sienna is whisked away to London. Ten years later she returns to find her mother's mental disorder worse, her brother bitter, and an unctuous cop who seems to interested in her life. I immediately pinpointed who the muderer was after the first few chapters. The story was a decent read, although the momentum dragged a bit in the middle. I spent many of the chapters wondering when the action was going to pick up.

The Look-Alike was an enjoyable psychological thriller. And adding in the family history of mental illness, It gave the story that much more complexity. I wasn’t a huge fan of Sienna and some of the choices she made but really enjoyed her mother Vivienne Scott.

Sienna, a 27-year old who has been living in London, comes back to her childhood home in Wisconsin to care for her paranoid delusional mother. She had left because, as a teenager, she had stumbled across a body, and the experience was so traumatic, that her parents had persuaded her to move away.
Now ten years later she was back and the anguish she had experienced was all too real again. She reconnects with her brother who has been looking after their mother. She also meets up with the detectives who were previously involved in solving the murder.
Her mother has new outbursts and Sienna wonders if it really is just paranoia or if her mother knows much more. Her brother, who was also executor of her trust from her late father, also has secrets which he hoped his sister would never find out about.
This thriller has you guessing and each character raises suspicion. A very good read.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Publication date: January 28. 2020.
Sienna Scott has forever lived under the shadow of her mother’s mental illness; not only of the illness symptoms themselves but of the constant fear that she may one day suffer the same fate. After witnessing a murder, Sienna is sent away to live with a grandmother in London, to try and escape her past. After ten years living away from home, Sienna returns to redevelop her relationship with her mother and try and move past the painful memories she tried to leave behind. However, when the murder she witnessed is re-opened, and family members close to her are being examined as possible suspects, Sienna begins to wonder if there have been some truth to mother’s delusions after all.
This novel is unique and intriguing, depicting an honest yet horrible picture of living with mental illness, without being belittling or condescending. Both Sienna and her father live in a constant state of anxiety and worry, forever wary of when Sienna’s mother will have an episode, and tiptoeing around what they know to be triggers. That mixed with Sienna’s fear of the biological transference, and it is difficult to not sympathize with the Scott family, Vivienne (the mother) included.
None of the characters in this novel can be trusted, and it is no wonder Viv trusts no one. Absolutely everyone Sienna is in contact with in this novel is keeping secrets, and none of them are who they claim to be.
As the story unfolds, there are several characters throughout the novel who become a prime suspect to the reader; that being said, in the next chapter, a new character takes centre stage. Some are too obvious to be the culprit, some too vague, but the real ending of the novel is not completely unsurprising but still shocking enough to provide satisfaction.
Right on par with Spindler’s other novel, The Other Girl (the only other novel I’ve read of hers to date), “The Look-Alike” features suspense, intrigue, and paranoia (both mental illness related and legitimate) and will definitely keep readers engaged right to the end.

Sienna has grown up the daughter of a paranoid dysfunctional mother. Sienna has returned home to face her fears and the unsolved murder that followed her childhood.

Now getting suspicious calls (think of prank calls from sleepovers and ouji boards) Sienna thinks the killer is back to finish what he started years ago.

Sienna begins to question her mother’s paranoia and those who seem ‘normal’ around her.

Spindles was fabulously misleading. Many thriller elements, intriguing and I was clueless til the end. Kudos!

Thank you to Net Gallery for providing a free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Look-Alike took me some time to get into, I almost called it quits 25% in. It was slow to start and was not holding my interest. About halfway through, the book started to pick up pace and I was pretty sure I had figured out who killed Madison. I am used to my Psychological Thrillers being much more intense and harder to figure out.

Overall, the book was an okay read. For those of you who want an intense Psychological Thriller, this one is not for you.

Thank you so much for this ARC!

I love Erica Spindler and was so happy to receive an advanced copy of her newest book. HONESTLY, I tried to read it when I first downloaded it and I could not get into it. I recently picked it up again and DEVOURED it. I absolutely loved all aspects of this book. Mental illness, unsolved murder, hot/mysterious neighbor/love affair and suspense. Perfect.

The description for this book had a lot of promise. The first pages seemed to follow through on that promise. But then it just bogged down for me. There was this constant repetition about her mother's mental illness and what it was, what it was like, what it did, and her constant fears that she was like her mother.

It also seemed to move very slowly. It felt more like I was getting a play by play of every single second of her day rather than briskly moving through a story to find out who the killer was and what their motive was.

In total honesty, within just a few chapters, I began to feel more like this book was being used as a platform to educate people about this particular mental illness rather than being a novel written for entertainment. It was just too detailed about how this illness works, and trying to drive home just how bad her mother was.

I ended up not finishing the book because of that.

Oh man, this one was really good. It kept me guessing the entire time. My theories changed every few pages and I was never sure who to trust. The included details of mental illness were really unique and made for excellent twists.
I liked Sienna as a character, she was interesting and intelligent. I liked the little town and all the snowy scenery that kept me feeling chilled and freaked throughout the book. I liked the flashbacks and that the entire story comes from only Sienna’s viewpoint, which made it easier to connect with and root for her.
I’d recommend this to any thriller fan and anyone interested in mental illness, murder mysteries, or police investigations.

Overall pretty good

This was a enjoyable story, well plotted and paced. There were interesting characters and they had layers to them. It also had some decent twists and red herrings. After a while I did guess (correctly) the culprit though not the why (which was pretty good actually).

My one gripe? The dialogue was a bit strange and off putting. It actually took me out of the story a few times. I have an older brother and I don’t think I’ve ever called him bro or big brother in conversations with him during my 51 years on earth. Sienna used them in most sentences multiple times in every exchange she had with Brad and vice versa (half-pint? Seriously).

Other than that, this was entertaining and I would recommend/try more by this author. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and St. Martin’s Press for a copy in exchange for a review.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Look-Alike by Erica Spindler. This is my first time reading Spndler. I have seen her books on the shelf but never had the chance to read one of her novels. I am glad that I got the chance to on this one!
Sienna survived a hard childhood. Her mother suffered from mental illness and she almost ruined Sienna's life. But she survived a murder and although she escaped, she is haunted by the memories. Sienna returns to her old house and she is convinced that someone is after her after all these years. But who and why or is she just a product of her family's illness and none of this s real.
Good read. 3 stars.

I've read other books by this author, a few i liked quite a bit and one that just ok, this one was more just ok for me, easy reading, interesting enough but nothing to make it really stand out, despite the interesting premise

I received this book "The Look-Alike" from NetGalley and all opinions expressed are my own. This book was okay. I figured out "who done it" early in the book. So really was not that exciting. I became bored and really questioned if I wanted to read to the end. Sienna was actually annoying. I made it to the end of the book - barely.