This was just the gripping story I needed to break my recent reading slump! A fast paced story about a couple whose son is kidnapped and the husband’s affair a year later. One can only imagine the horror of losing their child in this way and how you would (or wouldn’t) cope. I highly recommend this thriller!

"Contrary to popular opinion..." seems to be my epithet.

This book is being praised by almost all early reviewers. I didn't like it.

Maybe I'm just contrarian by nature. I feel those rotten tomatoes you're all virtually hurling at me.

From the synopsis, we know Marin's young son was kidnapped and never found, her husband is now having an affair, and she fixates on that affair as something to which she can direct her rage. I wanted to empathize with Marin's situation. I wanted to care about her. But I found her to be unlikable and, worse, the kind of woman I want to slap upside the head.

Here's the thing: When a woman finds out her already-distant, also unlikable husband is having an affair, I absolutely can't empathize when she rages about the [insert all vulgar words here] other woman, while vowing to do whatever it takes to keep said cheating husband. Please. Have some self-respect.

Then we take a huge leap into crazyland, as Marin crosses way beyond a place where I can feel even minimal compassion.

This book is drama times ten. We have plot holes and large leaps in plausibility. None of the characters have much in the way of redeemable personality traits, much less likability. They all deserve to live in one big commune, annoying each other for eternity.

Then again, if you love revenge fiction, regardless of whether the revenge is directed to the most deserving, you might be with the many readers who loved this book.

I'm now off to join Witness Protection, where I'll be safe from rotten tomatoes and angry readers.

Little Secrets is a mystery/thriller. It is my first book by this author.

I went into this book completely blind. So I was probably much more unsettled when the events at the start of the book happened (than people knowing what this book was going to be about). That said, after I read a book I always look at the book blurb. This one made me mad. The last paragraph is full of spoilers from the end. And the first paragraph ends with a line that is not really true.

This was a very difficult book for me to rate. The beginning was upsetting/disturbing/shocking. The middle was not that great for me (the main narrator was doing something that I did not care for at all). But the end was thrilling/riveting and had some things that completely shocked me. The ending was so strong that I decided to give this book 4 stars.

The book is divided into 4 parts. The story takes place in Seattle and has two 3rd person female POVs. The first narrator is Marin. She owns some salons, is married to Derek and has a 4 year old son. The second narrator is 24 year old Kenzie. She is a struggling art student and a barista. These two women could not be anymore different.

The book starts with a frightening and upsetting beginning. This made me so anxious. My stomach was in knots. I wasn't sure if this was the right book for me to be reading at this time. But I was very intrigued. So I definitely kept reading. Part one and chapter two move to 16 months later. And we see the aftermath of what occurred in the first chapter.

This book was sexier than I was expecting. So at times it seemed like a romantic thriller.

The premise was good. And I was very invested in the story. There were some very interesting characters, although many of them were quite unlikable.

Overall, this book had some great reveals that I maybe should have seen coming. The last part of the book was extremely strong. And I honestly could not put it down.

I would give this 10 ⭐ if i could! There is no slow build up with this one. It starts off with a bang in chapter one and will leave you holding your breath until the end. This was my first book by Jennifer Hiller, but I'm now intrigued and would for sure read more by her. I've always been fascinated by missing person stories. My brain cannot comprehend how someone goes missing. This book dlves in to different aspects of missing persons, kidnap, sex slavery, drug abuse, etc. It touches a lot of heavy story lines, i.e. infidelity, suicide, grief. But at the end, it was one of the best psychological thrillers I've read in awhile. Thank you to netgalley, st Martin's press and minotaur books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Marin was doing some shopping with her son Sebastian at Pike Place Market when she loses track of him and he goes missing. Over a year later she is struggling to forgive herself and her private investigator reveals that her husband is now stepping out on their marriage. She can't imagine losing her husband too. All of the little secrets she finds out about leaves her willing to go as far as it takes to save what family she has left. ⁣
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Wow! I did not see that coming. Each little secret really came together to create a great story. My emotions were touched. This is a must-read.⁣

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?

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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!

So for the first 3/4 of this book I wasn't sure what I thought of this. It wasn't bad nor was it particularly good. It was just enough to keep me interested and entertained. I found It to be predictable. Which isn't actually bad, makes me feel smart. There were parts where I was confused and the way it was written wasn't always smooth to read. But the last 1/4 was where this book shined! I was glued to the pages. And I even cried at moments in this book. Overall it took me only 2 days to finish and so my final rating is 3.75 ⭐ if you like drama, domestic thrillers, with twists and turns and a somewhat happy ending for a thriller then you may enjoy this!