Shay is traumatized after seeing a young woman kill herself by jumping in front of a subway train. She is determined to figure out more about the young woman and collects data everywhere she goes. In her quest, she discovers the woman's group of 6 friends and realizes with longing that she wishes she had friends like them.
What transpires is a thrill ride - however - the beginning of the book and all the characters had me bogged down for a while. Once I got through the first quarter or so, I was invested, but there were moments I did get tired trying to remember and keep up with them all. A solid thriller by a great pair of writers.

A special thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In this frenzied new thriller from the dynamic duo of Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, witnessing a woman jump in front of a subway train proves to be more than just being in the wrong place at the wrong time—it could cost Shay Miller her life.

If Shay hadn't missed her train by mere seconds, she wouldn't have witnessed a suicide that completely changes her life.

Shay is lonely, barely making ends meet, and isn't doing much better the in relationship department. When she meets the charismatic and confident Moore sisters at the memorial service for the victim, she can't believe her luck—not only do they befriend her, but her life start to click in all other areas. But Shay is a pedant, recording statistics in a "Data Book," and things aren't adding up. You see, numbers don't lie, but the Moore sisters do.

In this provocative game of cat and mouse, Hendricks and Pekkanen prove once again why they are queens of the thriller.

Can I tell you how much I loved An Anonymous Girl and The Wife Between Us? This book is equally as mesmerizing, and I was gobsmacked! And I mean that in the best way.

The writing is of course BRILLIANT! You can tell that Pekkanen is a seasoned author and by extension, Hendricks' previous editing experience also makes her a great writer. As a duo, they are ah-mazing.

You Are Not Alone is layered and complex. I love the way they set the table and then yank the table cloth right out from under the reader without disturbing the plot that they've so masterfully crafted (which in my analogy, would be the dishes). Their attention to detail and pace is what really sets them apart in this genre.

Themes of revenge and the allure of the unbreakable bond between sisters and friends propel the narrative and make for one of the most gripping thrillers I've read in a long time.

As an established fan of Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen I was thrilled to be approved for this title on NetGalley. Every time I see a hint toward a new book from this duo, I'm immediately excited, You Are Not Alone was not an exception.

I read this book in hyper-speed, seriously, it didn't even take two days because I just could NOT put it down. It's also become my favorite of their trio of books, and I already loved the first two so it was up against tough competition.

Shay Miller is such an interesting character. Since she's a professional researcher I'll give you the data on Shay.
She's 31. She's single. She's living with a male roommate. Her closest friend is Mel who just recently had a baby. She's unemployed. Those are the facts, but when you delve a little deeper you see things more clearly. For example, Shay's getting a little lonely. She's having a hard time with her employment search. Her friend has journeyed into parenthood which is a whole new ballgame. And she has a frustrating crush on her roommate whose very much in a relationship. It's not exactly how she saw her life panning out.

And then one morning, Shay witnesses a beautiful woman throw herself in front of an approaching subway car. As you can imagine, that's a traumatizing thing to witness. Shay is struggling with coping. She feels a connection to this woman and can't help but notice quite a few similarities in their lives. So she decides to attend a memorial service being held in her honor. Maybe, she can feel some closure and move forward.

Instead, something better happens. She meets Cassandra and Jane Moore. Two sisters who were good friends with Amanda, the suicide victim. They have their lives together. They're glamorous and elegant. They are business owners and entrepreneurs. They know all the right people. And they seem to have taken a liking to Shay. They're going to take her under their wings and Shay can't help but be swept up by the magic of it all.

Naturally, all isn't as it seems and there were some GREAT twists in this book. I flipped through Part 1, 2, and 3 so fast, my eyes devouring their words as fast as possible.

I loved the style of writing. I felt Shay's personality really came through with the excerpts from her data book. Plus, such interesting facts! Reading through the facts alone can really paint a picture of the story. I also loved that the reader is in on it a bit. We see into Cassandra and Jane's point of view along with Shay's. So as the story progresses you're cheering for Shay to figure things out and your heart is racing while you get snippets of the past that lead Amanda to the subway that day.

It's fast-paced and full of excellent and engaging writing. I highly recommend this one! Even if you weren't blown away by their other books, I hope you give this one a chance. It's a refreshing new story we haven't heard before.

You Are Not Alone is a psychological thriller with Shay Miller, a quiet and quirky loner type stuck in a life happening around her rather than actively living it, being the centerpiece of the story. After witnessing a stranger commit suicide, she becomes obsessed with the deceased and the life this woman left behind. After meeting sisters, Cassandra and Jane, Shay finds her life completely turned 180 with wonderful new friends, an awesome apartment in New York City, a fabulous new job, a new found confidence in her appearance, and even a prospective love interest on the horizon. But not everything in Shay’s new life is as is appears. Soon Shay finds herself in a nightmare that she can’t even begin to understand.

If you’ve been a fan of Hendricks and Pekkanen’s other novels, you’ll find yourself right at home in this one. Many of the same narrative elements were present. The story unfolds through the perspective of different characters each chapter going back and forth between present and past events. I did find it a bit confusing with the number of characters when it came to remembering their backstories and how their stories were interwoven. However, the main plot kept me interested and wanting to see how the story played out. Although the plot was a bit far-fetched at times, it wasn’t so much so that it was completely unbelievable. The ending felt a little rushed, but that could’ve been due to reading the last half of the book in one go.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel to preview prior to release in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

As with Hendricks' and Pekkanen's other novels, You Are Not Alone is a twisty page-turner that will keep you wanting to read past your bedtime to find out what happens next. With short chapters told from multiple perspectives, along with surprise reveals, the reader will breeze through the book, alternately sympathizing with Shay and wanting to shake some sense into her. You Are Not Alone explores the human need for belonging and our ability to be influenced as well as strength and intensity of female friendships and, ultimately, the strength of a determined woman.

The best and worst thing about this book was the characters. The main character, Shay, desperately needs a good shake. I just wanted to scream at her to get a life. She is so much better than she thinks she is, and she lets other people treat her like crap. Meanwhile, the Moore sisters, her new "friends," both need a good slap. They are not as amazing as they (and everyone else) think they are. I often have a hard time with these psychological suspense-type novels because when all of the characters are so unlikable I struggle to like the book as a whole. However, in this case they were so well-written that as much as I hated them, it made the book engrossing. Very unusual experience for me.

Hmmm, what else is there to say? Hendricks and Pekkanen have definitely written a successful page-turner, although as with their previous books it takes considerable suspension of disbelief to appreciate the plot. In this case, it's the Moore sisters ability to use their magnetic personalities to assemble and manipulate a group of women (I struggle to call them "friends") to do their bidding without it becoming obvious that's what is happening. It was kind of strange reading this directly after The Holdout by Graham Moore, which features a woman wrongly accused of murder. Here, Shay is not just implicated in a murder (or more)—others are actively attempting to frame her. To me, that is terrifying enough on its own and was very well done. When the final twist came (view spoiler), it just seemed unnecessary. The mental anguish of a lonely woman losing her job, her potential romantic partner, her home, and her new "friends" while simultaneously dealing with the aftermath of witnessing something traumatic and being set up for murder was suspense enough.

In fact, I think I'll go ahead and bump my original 3 stars up to 4 because all of that character stuff was written so well. If that last plot twist had just been written into the plot all along instead of used as a surprise, I think it would have been much more effective. Anyway, that's enough from me.

Because I have really enjoyed every other book written by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, I didn’t need to know much before going into You Are Not Alone. Sometimes I just jump in, knowing very little about a book ahead of time.

This had me engaged from the very beginning when we first meet Shay. She doesn’t have a whole lot going for her so when she meets the glamorous sisters Jane and Cassandra, she is thrilled to be swept up into their lives. Shay is also big on numbers and statistics and writes these things down in her journal.

Are the sisters too good to be true? For Shay, who is lonely and in need of some friends, she is happy to be included in their world but soon, we the reader, get a vibe that maybe not all is great with the sisters. Could they be setting Shay up for something?

Here is the official synopsis:

You probably know someone like Shay Miller.
She wants to find love, but it eludes her.
She wants to be fulfilled, but her job is a dead end.
She wants to belong, but her life is so isolated.

You probably don’t know anyone like the Moore sisters.
They have an unbreakable circle of friends.
They live the most glamorous life.
They always get what they desire.

Shay thinks she wants their life.
But what they really want is hers.

This was a solid five-star read, it left me eager to get my hands on whatever these brilliant authors write next! This is a Book of the Month Club pick and if you belong to that subscription service, I highly recommend you grab You Are Not Alone.

Pre-Order it here, this book will be published on March 3!

I have to admit that <i>You Are Not Alone</i> took me a while to get into. Told from multiple perspectives and timelines, this novel gets <b>really</b> creepy around halfway through.

Shay is a loner, who lives in NYC and calculating data and statistics is her thing. She’d make a great actuary; though currently, she’s unemployed. Shay witnesses a woman committing suicide on the subway and thus starts a chain of events that (albeit) <u>very</u> slowly changes the course of Shay’s life.

<i>You Are Not Alone</i> had some good plot twists at the end that I definitely didn’t see coming, which I think ultimately saved this book for me. The first half was a bit confusing and I had a hard time seeing where it was all leading up to with regards to the other characters. Once it hit its rhythm, the wheels started turning rapidly. Definitely creepy!

One simple lie can snowball into an absolute mess especially when dealing with strangers.
Shay is in a rut. She just lost her job and her roommate is asking her to move out. These events are stressful enough without adding trauma. Shay is standing at the subway the same moment a woman throws herself in front of the train. The dead woman haunts her and she begins to research the woman. Why did she jump? Shay comes across the woman's friends who welcome her into the circle after Shay lies about how she knows the dead woman. It will take some time to realize that the lie will be what puts her life in danger.
This book moves quickly switching between the various characters. The authors include the history of each woman as well as where they are now in their life. This fleshes, out each character making them complex and rounded. This also lets readers see how miscommunication and misinformation can cause major trouble.
The twist isn't mind-altering but it’s solid and makes you look at the characters a different light.
This book doesn’t quite reach the perfection of The Wife Between Us but it’s much better than An Anonymous Girl. You Are Not Alone keep the taught tension the authors are so good at. Taking women's normal everyday issues and blowing them up into a story that is twisting, exciting and downright creepy.

This book is gonna be huge. Hendricks and Pekkanen seem to have hit their stride. Their first two books got a lot of buzz but this one is better than both of them. Shay Miller is in the wrong place and the wrong time and gets wrapped up in the glamorous/sinister lives of the Moore sisters and their friends. I wasn't expecting much going in because I thought An Anonymous Girl was just so-so, but I am happy to be wrong. You Are Not Alone is one of the best psychological thrillers I've read in a while.

This book had me hooked from the very first page. I didn't know too much about this book but I have read Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's other books and thought this one would be just as good! This book really kept me guessing until the very end. I found Shay to be a very likable character, someone I felt myself connecting to. She is somewhat lost in trying to figure out herself and how she fits in. She gets caught up with two sisters that seem very mesmerizing and then she suddenly realizes maybe these new friends are not who she thought they were. Very captivating, tense and twisty thriller. I want to give a huge thank you to NetGalley and St. Martain's Press for this opportunity!

I have to admit, I didn't even read the description of "You are Not Alone" before reading it. I saw "Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen" and I knew that I would love it. If you have read their previous hits, "The Wife Between Us" and/or "An Anonymous Girl," you will likely enjoy this one.

That being said, at about 30 pages in I gave in and decided to read the publishers summary to see if that would give a little more insight about the story. It didn't really tell me much- in fact, the publisher's summary doesn't really say anything.

... And that's great! I recommend that people go into this book 'blind'- it makes it so much more fun and interesting. Hendricks and Pekkanen do an excellent job of telling a mystery, even if you don't realize what the mystery is until you are partway through the story. They leave small hints throughout the story and the final 'reveal' is surprising, but also believable.

I don't want to give away too much of the story (or really any of it, haha). I do want to add that there are themes of loneliness and finding a connection in the modern world that really made the story- it made the characters feel more real, as if the crazy things going on in their lives could actually happen. I recommend this book for people that enjoy modern mystery/suspense thrillers. This one was a fast read for me! :)
Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Book for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I loved it!

I am such a super fan of these ladies and was super excited to be able to read an advanced copy of their new book. Having loved their previous two An Anonymous Girl and The Wife Between Us, I was ready for a super thrilling ride for these ladies do not disappoint.

While this book was certainly thrilling, providing much exciting reading time, it was not a five star read for me unfortunately. Perhaps it as the amount of characters that sometimes overwhelmed me or the fact that some of the events seemed a bit unrealistic. However, the writing was excellent and kept the reader truly interested in the outcome of a lonely girl looking for acceptance, warmth and friendship.

Thank you to Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen, St Martin's Press, and NetGalley for a copy of this book due out March 3,2020.

I thoroughly enjoyed this writing duo's past books (The Wife Between Us, An Anonymous Girl) - fast-paced, intriguing thrillers. Their latest is a bit of a miss for me. The premise itself is a rather implausible - girl witnesses subway suicide, gets drawn into influential friend group, things go south. There's just too many characters to keep track of + they're one-dimensional women, with little reason for me to feel invested in their lives. Even the main character, Shay, who is the suicide witness, is unappealing and rather flat. I did turn pages quickly, wanting a satisfactory ending that just did not come. Thanks to Net Galley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Yep, these ladies have done it again. It's not like I doubted, but still. So here we go: Shay has seen a woman commit suicide and then makes the mistake of trying to learn everything she can about her. She becomes friends with her friends. She lives in her apartment. All stuff that a normal person would see as complete bananas. And honestly, it is. Several times in the book, I just wanted people to have a genuine conversation where they were honest with each other, and then maybe nothing bad would have happened. But that doesn't always make for great reading.



So in addition to Shay being weirdly obsessed with the dead woman (whose name is Amanda), two of Amanda's friends, who are also sisters, sort of become obsessed with Shay. It's almost like this sick, little circle of what the hell is going on here?

And I couldn't get enough. Since I did have an ARC and it doesn't come out until next month, I had plenty of time to read and still be ahead of the curve. But I swallowed this book. It's inventive and creepy and even a bit fun. Hendricks and Pekkanen always seem to know exactly what to do to get someone hooked.

I'm in love with this book.

You Are Not Alone publishes 3.3.2020.

5/5 Stars

Yikes! This book had my heart pumping and my head screaming "Run!" Great psychological thriller. Very clever. I found the lack of clues at the beginning a bit frustrating and started to lose interest. But I knew something big was coming so kept going. About mid-way through, it took off!! Don't want to give away any spoilers but if you like edge of your seat suspense and an intricate plot, definitely read this book.

This book was pretty good. A little hard to keep all of the characters straight, and not really sure why the lawyer or the shop owner would be a part of all this. Or the nurse really. The protagonist was weird even to me, not relatable at all. I did enjoy the statistics since I am a New Yorker, some of them were interesting. Overall a fair story. Not their best.

First, I have to say that this was the second book in a row that I read with strong women characters and a subway that plays a major event in the storyline. Right off the bat, I was feeling a sense of deja vu and a little let down with the originality of it all. But that was where the similarities ended. This story was in a league of its own and I was left wondering where this story was going to take me.

Told in multiple POVs with a group of powerful women set in NYC, these women had set out to ruin those around them that may have wronged them in one way or another. But as you're reading it, you're not sure if you want to feel for them or believe them. I felt as if I could totally get behind them and their reasonings for everything that they were doing. It made sense. But when they happen upon a woman named Shay, I wasn't sure what to believe. Shay was just a woman that was in the wrong place at the wrong time and a bit of an odd loner. But then her oddities made it seem like I shouldn't root for her. Maybe she was the person they were making her out to be. Who was I to believe?

After being introduced to a majority of the characters, we as the reader are taken back in time and given a little background on each character. While there is more POVs than I would've liked, I enjoyed getting into the minds of each of them. They all played their roles and these women played them well. Successful women, liars, players, friends and a game of manipulation that ended up being a total page turner. This story was well thought out, fast paced and never let up. It is a book that will consume you and you'll want to stay up all night to find out how it's all going to end (or was that just me)?

I've read all 3 books by this astounding writing duo and they never cease to amaze me. The way they write so seamlessly, it seems like they are one person. This book was no different. They are a step above their peers in the psychological/domestic thriller genre and every book I read of theirs places me right in their story and the unbelievable becomes believable. 4.5 stars!

Because I had read and really enjoyed both The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl when I requested this 3rd collaboration of Hendricks/Pekkanen on NetGalley, and I'm sure glad I did.

This bizarre psychological thriller revolves around loner/lonely Shay after she witnesses a suicide on the subway platform, and how her seemingly natural obsession with this random event draws her into a friendship with twisted sisters Cassandra and Jane that is both satisfying and terrifying for poor Shay as the story unfolds. Everything hinges on Shay just being in the wrong place at the wrong time at every turn.

Without revealing too much more about the plot, I'll just say that these ladies really seem to have nailed it again. I was curious about how they teamed up for their first novel and was really interested to discover that their first collaboration was actually as editor (Hendricks) and author (Pekkanen), and after 7 years and 7 books, a great friendship, and a lot of other coincidences, their partnership evolved into the idea of writing a book together. After reading this article (https://www.writermag.com/writing-ins...) I'm rooting for these ladies and look forward to seeing/reading what will come next.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Shay is at the wrong place at the wrong time, But, she meets some supportive women who invite her into their inner circle. She's always wanted a group of girlfriends. She never imagined they'd be as glamorous as Cassandra and Jane Moore. But, the Moore sisters aren't what they seem.
You Are Not Alone is my first Greer Hendricks novel. I have several in my TBR, which I will definitely keep there. You Are Not Alone is a well written thriller, and it's quite action packed. I was reminded of those movies where the bumbling non heroic person gets caught up in some international intrigue because of a case of mistaken identity.
Though I didn't really like any of the characters, I identified with Shay's loneliness and desire for the friendship of the Moore sisters and their group of friends.

*I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my review.