I really enjoyed this book. Finished in 2 days. I couldn't set it down. It definitely didn't end the way I thought. I did wish Marin would have spent more time looking for her instead of focusing on her husband's mistress.

I received a complimentary egalley of LITTLE SECRETS by Jennifer Hillier for an honest review. Thank you to Netgalley and Minotaur Books!

LITTLE SECRETS begins with Marin, hair dresser to the rich and famous with her own chain of high end hair salons. She’s married to a husband she loves and together they have a son Sebastian Marin couldn’t love more. All seems to be perfect until Sebastian goes missing while doing some Christmas shopping at a very crowded Pike’s Place Market in Seattle.

Sixteen months later, Marin’s son is still missing and her life is very different. Marin is as determined as ever to find her son and bring him home, but the police are out of leads and even her private detective is hinting at giving up. In the course of her investigation, the P.I. finds something unexpected. Marin’s husband is involved in a long term relationship with a much younger woman, Kenzie. In a very fragile place, Marin takes some extreme steps to make sure she doesn’t lose anything more.

This story was wild and it didn’t entirely follow the path I expected and I was more than okay with that. This was the book apart form audio that was really able to grab my attention and hold on. I wound up blasting through this one in a little over a day after getting very little reading time in earlier in the week.

Told from Marin’s perspective and that of her husband’s other woman, we get two very different voices in this novel, though both are very dark. There are trigger warnings for suicide and violence.

Jennifer Hillier is an author that has been on my radar for a long time and I can see why she gets all the praise. She definitely threw some twists at me that I did not see coming and I loved the wildly dark ride she took me on with this novel! Reading this one makes me even more eager to get to JAR OF HEARTS which has been sitting on my shelf too long!

I absolutely recommend LITTLE SECRETS for those who love a good and dark twisty tale! This one will be out on 4/21/2020!

"There are so many lies, there's absolutely no way to know what exactly is happening."

Rating: 4.5 stars

Summary: Don’t you love a book that you binge until you’re finished?! LITTLE SECRETS was that book for me 🙌🏼👏🏼 I found it impossible to put down and couldn’t wait to figure out the ending. Thank you to Minotaur Books for the gifted copy 💖 this comes out April 21 and you are going to want to preorder it, trust me 🤓

This book grips you from the first page. Marin and Derek have it all—they’re wealthy, successful in their careers, in love and have a beautiful son, Sebastian. That’s until a few days before Christmas when Sebastian is taken from them and never to be seen again. My heart was already like 🥺 at this point and it was chapter 2!

Almost 1.5 years later, the FBI case has gone completely cold. However, Marin hired a PI on the side to investigate any lead she could, and one day she got a call that let her know that her husband is having an affair with a 24 year old.

This sparked a fire in Marin that she didn’t know she had. Suddenly, she’s alive again and determined to solve this problem. She lost her son—she’s not going to lose her husband, too.

I think I loved this book so much because of the main character. She was strong, independent, intelligent and so easy to connect to. She surprised me multiple times throughout the book and I loved it! And while I assumed the ending before it happened, it didn’t take away from the overall experience at all.

All that said, Jennifer Hillier has officially become an auto buy author for me. She is SO talented 🙌🏼 For more by her, check out Jar of Hearts.

This was really good and I was able to finish it in about two days. I really didn’t connect too much with any of the characters but I enjoyed the pacing and I wasn’t bored. I really didn’t see the ending coming and it will make you go “omg really, how could you?” Overall this was a good read and I highly recommend it.

Thanks to a NetGalley and the publisher for this arc.

Thank you to St. Martin's press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Jennifer Hillier takes us on a wild ride through the emotional tunnel that comes with losing a child. I am so impressed with her different perspectives on the subject throughout the book. They provide an honest look without judgement to this type of tragedy. I love the prose in this book, it was easy to read, straight forward and engaging. The story line kept me on the edge of my seat and always wanting to read more. I loved Marin's character and felt she was very true to life with regards to how people handle infidelity in their marriage. All in all this was a 5 star read for me, very satisfying and kept me guessing. Loved it!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I read Jar of Hearts by this author and I liked it a lot. So I was excited to read her new book Little Secrets.

The book was very twisted and suspenseful. This author does not disappoint. She writes such great thrillers with so much complexity and lair upon lair of mystery.
It was a really good book. I love thrillers and lately thrillers have been lacking the OMG, jaw dropping aspects, but Little Secrets definitely had those factors. I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t read the description of this book before starting it because I had seen it recommended by an author I love, so I was surprised when one of the main focuses is a child kidnapping. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to finish it. But WOW. The way that the author weaves everything and everyone together is seamless, but somehow feels completely possible. It ends on a hopeful note, but not everything falls into place perfectly. A good thriller that really kept me turning the pages!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Marin Machado has it all.  She’s the owner of a chain of high-end hair salons, her husband, Derek, is wildly successful and their four-year-old son, Sebastian, is the light of their lives.  Until it is all snatched away.  In just 240 seconds.  The family is at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and Marin and Sebastian are on their way to the food trucks to meet Derek. Derek sends Marin a text asking for their ETA, and in the time it takes her to respond, Sebastian is gone.

Over a year later, Marin is barely holding on to her sanity.  Sebastian is still missing and the trail has gone cold. His disappearance and the aftermath have taken a toll on Marin and Derek’s marriage, and that is confirmed when Marin learns Derek is having an affair with Kenzie Li.  Kenzie is young, beautiful and deeply in debt. What will she do for money?

As for Marin, the thought of losing her husband too fills her with another kind of anger.  What will she do to keep what’s left of her family together?

The story is gripping, and there are a few plot twists you just won’t see coming.  Even though the premise is child abduction, it’s a page turner you can’t put down.  Marin bares her soul to the reader in such a way that you almost feel like you are conversing with Marin.  Stories with such a heavy subject are sometimes overwhelming and need to be taken in small doses.  I couldn’t put this one down!

The characters are petty, pretentious, jealous and self-serving, yet they are indeed well-developed.  Much as you might not like them, you keep reading to make sure they get their comeuppance. And it just keeps getting better and better.

That being said, let talk about the time it took for Sebastian to disappear.  The book blurb indicates 480 seconds, or 8 minutes, which is an awfully long time to have your eyes off a four-year-old child.  The book indicates 240 seconds, or 4 minutes, which I still have a hard time with.  Marin is walking through a crowd of people at the Pike Place Market, her son at her side, when she feels his hand slip out of hers.  She figures, it’s okay, I need my other hand to text, and continues across the street?! I have to say I started out with an intense dislike for Marin. Anyone else feel the same way?

https://candysplanet.wordpress.com/

This was my first Jennifer Hillier book and absolutely won't be my last!

The story opens with Marin and her young son Sebastian at a shopping center picking up some final Christmas gifts. One moment Sebastian is right beside her and the next he's gone. Sixteen months later, Marin's life barely resembles her previous life when there is still no trace of her son. She will never stop looking.

Filled with secrets, deception and so many twists and turns, this book kept me riveted! I's fast-paced and tension filled. It's crazy the lengths that Marin will go to in order to return to her previously happy life. So many secrets and lies that keep you on the edge of your seat.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely loved this book!!! I can't even imagine what Marin went through, loosing a child is one of the worst things that could happen to a parent. This book weaves an amazing, thrilling, suspenseful story of what her and her husband go through. The choices they make, lies told, mistakes made, it's all so good. The ending had me on the edge of my seat trying to put it all together. Another great book by Jennifer Hillier that I've read!!!!!

This freaking book!! Holy cow. It has definitely taken the spot of my favorite read in 2020 and it’s going to have some tough competition to be replaced! This is a book you forget to breathe during, you look at the time and bedtime was 3 hours ago but you can’t stop and won’t stop.


Thank you so much Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur books and author Jennifer Hillier for this ARC!

4.5 stars.

Now THAT’S how you do a thriller.

It was a crazy day shopping at Pike Place Market since it was just before the holidays. Marin’s young son Sebastian was whining that he wanted a fancy lollipop from their favorite candy store, and she’ll get it for him as soon as she buys one last gift.

One second he’s right next to her and when she goes to reply to a text, in a split second, he is gone. Someone has taken Sebastian, and the two essentially have disappeared into thin air.

More than a year later, after an exhaustive search and an enormous promised reward, there’s been no sign of him. Marin can still barely go through the motions of daily life. She and her husband Derek barely speak and he’s rarely home. This isn’t a life but it’s the only one she can handle, although she knows what she’ll do if she ever learns Sebastian is dead.

One day she gets a call from the PI she hired when the FBI’s search turned up nothing. The PI has news—but it’s about Derek: he’s been having an affair with a much-younger woman.

While this news shakes Marin to her core, this time she’s not going to fall apart. Now she has an enemy she can fight to save her family. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Little Secrets was so good!! I really was captivated by this new book by Jennifer Hillier. It was full of twists and turns and emotional poignancy. While I figured stuff out before the end, I really kept waiting for another shoe to drop, and I was totally hooked. I was a huge fan of Hillier’s last book, Jar of Hearts, and this was equally great.

NetGalley and Minotaur Books provided me with an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

This book publishes April 21.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

Marin's son was taken from her right before her very eyes 2 years ago and she's still simultaneously dealing with the grief of losing her only child and the hope that he's still out there somewhere. To add to her cocktail of emotions, she's just discovered her husband has been having an affair with a 24 year old art student. At her emotional wit's end, she hires a professional hit man to solve her problems. However, her biggest problem is that someone keeps taking her family from her and she isn't sure who that someone is.

As Marin bounces around the many emotions that come with child loss and spousal betrayal, she also bounces her finger around who is guilty for it all. She jumps from blaming herself, to blaming the kidnapper, to blaming her husband, to blaming the young woman he's having an affair with. For this reason, I gave it 3.5 stars. I found it hard to focus on her motivations and relate to her feelings through-out the story. Otherwise, it was a great suspenseful thriller! I was so hooked into the story that I read until my bath water turned cold!

Listen up thriller fans because I have a must read book for you guys! I don’t say that lightly because I’ve been very picky about thrillers for the past year or so and it takes a really amazing book for me to call it a must read. This one sucks you in from page one and doesn’t let you go until you’ve turned the last page, it’s a nonstop, fast paced read with killer twists and top notch writing, what more do you need?! Maybe a few plot details to convince you? Marin is living every parents worst nightmare, her son goes missing on her watch when she gets distracted for seconds by a text. Jump to over a year later and her marriage to Derek is in shambles and then she finds out he’s been cheating on her. The other woman is younger and Instagram famous, does it get any juicier? Yes, but that’s all I’ll say. This one is out next month and while you wait if you haven’t read Jar of Hearts go download it now!

Thank you to NetGalley, Jennifer Hillier and St Martin’s Press for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

All I’ve been reading this month is thrillers, so why not read one by the queen of thrilling! I was super interested in the storyline to this one and I really felt for the characters in this novel. I really enjoyed the dark and dismal atmosphere of this novel and I found myself reading as quick as I could to find out what happens to everyone! I was so confused on how this novel was going to wrap up, but man the twist was good! I was shocked and totally thrown off balance by the twist! I actually really liked most of the characters and was completely flabbergasted at which one was guilty! Definitely a must read!

Out April 21st!

Right from the first page, I was hooked. After a little boy is taken, a woman's life is changed permanently. We wonder along with her what happened to her son and what will happen next. Then, a while later, a PI finds out this woman's husband is cheating on her. So the woman finds the adulteress, and from there....it gets a little crazy. And of course, I loved all the moments. You know, because the drama. There were plenty of thins I wasn't expecting and twists and turns are my favorite. I can't wait for this book to be released so I can hear others' perspective. For me, it's pretty solid.

Little Secrets publishes 4.21.2020.

5/5 Stars

Another great book by Jennifer Hillier! It's a pager turner, you will not want to put it down! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

Thanks to @netgalley and @minotaur_books for a copy to read and review! I’ve heard great things about this book and it did not disappoint! I loved it. I read this book in like 12 hours throughout the day and couldn’t put it down. One day Marin is at the Seattle fish market. She let’s go of her sons hand to text her husband and seconds later her 4 year old is gone. Now over a year later, Marin is in a deep depression, has a PI looking into her sons kidnapping with no leads and learns her husband is having an affair. This was a 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 read for me. Comes out April 21!

Marin and Derek’s little boy was kidnapped, the case has grown cold and 16 months on they’ve grown apart and their marriage is on the rocks. Marin hires a private investigator to look for their son but instead she finds that Derek is having an affair and Marin decides to take some extreme action to ensure she keeps her man. I was really looking forward to this one after hearing a lot of buzz about it and I wasn’t disappointed! I found the characters to be really well developed and I felt very invested in Marin’s story from early on. This is the first book I’ve read by this author but it definitely won’t be the last! Thanks so much to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the advanced copy!

3.5-4 stars

I enjoyed this book for the most part. It was definitely suspenseful and kept my attention throughout the entire story, but at times there were parts that just got on my nerves.

I really felt for Marin. Between losing her son and finding out her husband was having an affair, it came as no surprise that she had been experiencing a slew of emotions, from sadness to jealousy to rage. Her whole world was crumbling around her, but through it all, she refused to lose her husband.

Now that’s where the story got on my nerves. I liked Marin in the beginning of this book and understood that she loved her husband, but after he cheated on her (twice), it just didn’t sit well with me that she was more upset with her husband’s mistress. And the secrets that he kept from her...that would have been the breaking point for me. I know everyone reacts differently in these situations, but it made me like her a lot less by the end of the story.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3243271225