Thank you so much to NetGalley and PenguinGroup Putnam for sending me an ARC copy of Little Threats by Emily Schultz in exchange for an honest review. Little Threats is out November 10, 2020- don't worry, I'll remind you on pub day! ;)

Summary:
Teen angst. We've all been there. Twin sisters Kennedy and Carter are no exception, especially considering they grew up in the '90s. But when Kennedy goes to jail for the murder of her best friend, Haley, after a night of partying, teen angst takes on a whole new meaning. Fast forward almost a decade and a half and Kennedy is released and desperate to prove her innocence. Her sister is convinced she did it. Her father has dedicated his life to protecting himself and his family. And Haley's family wants to see Kennedy and her family burn. Kennedy's return brings up memories for both families. When a popular crime show host comes into town to try and discover what really happened, no one is prepared for what secrets, and maybe even the truth, will finally be revealed.

Why I picked this book:
I was sent an ARC e-copy by NetGalley and PenguinGroup Putnam after reading the description of the book and really wanting to read an upcoming thriller!

Honest Review:
While not as fast-paced as I typically go for with a thriller, I ended up enjoying Little Threats. It is a short, quick read and easily done in one sitting.

This was an entertaining psychological thriller, albeit a slow burn. My biggest question: how was everyone seeing Haley in the present day? Was it simply a choice by the author to have everyone see her as she did the day she died? I was almost expecting some type of Pretty Little Liars twist where a twin was involved or she somehow wasn't really dead. I would also have loved to see more of the background of the crime show and how they gathered their evidence, since that kind of gets thrown at us.

My favorite thing about this book was how Schultz really made everyone a suspect. I can honestly say that I was convinced for most of the book that one character did it. I didn't really figure out who it was until just before it was revealed. There were quite a few twists and surprises, and the ending will having you scrolling back to check out some of the details you might have missed earlier.

Little Threats was an interesting commentary on being a teenager, youthful mistakes, family trust, and sacrifice. If you like thrillers, consider picking up a copy of this one when it becomes available on November 10, 2020!

Released after 15 years in prison for a murder that she cannot remember, Kennedy Wynn returns home to face the survivors: her father, her sister, and the victim's family. When the host of a true-crime show takes an interest in the case, tensions rise and secrets are revealed.

Despite an intriguing premise and the potential for an exciting and action-packed thriller, <i>Little Threats</i> fails to deliver on its promise.

To begin with, this is not a mystery or a psychological thriller. Rather it is an almost clinical documentation of the effects of tragedy on the community and environment of both the convicted killer and the victim. Unfortunately, the characters are underdeveloped and lack substance, which makes it difficult to connect or empathize with any of them.

Even the "who-dun-it" elements are mundane and uninspired. The pacing is slow and the eventual revelation of the truth behind the crime is anti-climactic.

The writing is also problematic. The sentence structure is awkward, and the vocabulary choices are often contextually inappropriate. In addition, there are several flashback scenes as well as shifts in narrative perspective from first to third person. This does not appearto serve any real purpose and actually results in a story that is disjointed and lacking cohesion.

While some readers may enjoy the slow burn and psychological drama of the book, those with a preference for gripping police procedurals or exciting thrillers may be disappointed.

Little Threats is a solid slow-burning thriller about what happens when a woman serves a fifteen year murder sentence in prison only for the media to care about finding out if she is really guilty after she already served her sentence. This is what happens to Kennedy Wynn. In 1993, her best friend is murdered and she is the main suspect. It doesn’t help that she remembers nothing. With damning testimony, Kennedy enters a guilty plea. Now Kennedy is struggling to get back to the real world that seems to have moved on without her. Her twin sister doesn’t even seem to believe Kennedy is innocent. So when a crime podcast host comes to town for a closer look at the murder case, Kennedy starts to remember. Alternating between present day and the time of the murder, the story goes places readers won’t expect. The character development is quite good. If you’re looking for a good psychological thriller to check out, Little Threats is the one!

When I chose this book I had very high expectationns. The description sounded so promising. However, it is hard to love a book when you can't love it's characters. I found nothing redeeming about any of the characters. Even the main character, Kennedy, who went through alot, was not someone I could feel for.
The author did very well in keeping us guessing as to who killed the victim. But, in the end, it was just not enough to make this book a great one, let alone a good one.

Where do I even begin? This book was full of drama, crime, heartache, heartbreak, loss, love, and everything in between. I did find the book predictable as I had figured out who had killed Haley early on. You could tell that the author tried to throw you off track but it still remained obvious. I wish there had been more dialogue but I really did enjoy the book overall.

I have mixed feelings on this novel. I was hoping for more of a murder mystery and this felt like a super slow burn. It took me to get to about 75/80% to really peak my interest. There was too much that was unresolved and I didn’t really care who the murderer was by the end.

In the summer of 1993, sixteen year old twins, Kennedy and Carter, and their best friend Haley spend the 4th of July dropping LSD with another friend. The morning of July 5, Kennedy wakes up in the woods, with no memory of the night before, to find dead Haley’s body in front of her.

After spending 15 years in prison, Kennedy is released, at 31 years old, to live with her father in the same affluent neighborhood she grew up in. Carter is a completely different person, as is their father Gerry. Kennedy still doesn’t remember what happened to Haley that night, but is hoping being at home will jog her memories.

<i>Little Threats</i> is a slooowwww burn novel and a little bit too predictable. I enjoyed exploring Kennedy’s past through her writing during her time in prison, which I felt expanded on her character. But I feel like the set-up “spooky” scenarios in the novel were never resolved, which was frustrating, as was the ending itself.

Emily Schultz' Little Threats is a murder mystery that will keep you guessing until the shocking end. As twins Kennedy and Carter try to restore their friendship that has been severed over the years, unbelievable clues and evidence are revealed that leave you breathless. Emily has done a remarkable writing with this title.

This book was a slow start but did eventually pick up. It is dark and disturbing book with lots of twists. and surprises with a great ending.

𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙃𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙮’𝙨 𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡, 𝙄 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙙, 𝙨𝙤 𝙄 𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙬𝙞𝙜𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙮 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙’𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙, 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙍𝙚𝙣𝙖𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤.

𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘴 is the waking nightmare of teenage rebellion gone wrong. What happens when your youthful bravado blows up in your face? Kennedy Wynn is all about Manic Panic hair dye (the most wild colors on offer in the 90’s), grunge music, older boys and pushing the limits. One night is her ruin after she drops acid and can’t remember clearly everything that follows, particularly the death of her best friend Haley Kimberson. She is the prime suspect, and the horror of it all is that she doesn’t know if she is guilty. Then there is the older, college boy Berk Butler and all the secrets and lies that are between the three of them. At twenty-one, from a wealthy family, handsome with a football player’s physique and bad boy charm he is irresistible to Kennedy but has eyes only for Haley. It doesn’t stop Kennedy from ‘trying to get him to love her’ nor him from teasing her, flaming her hunger for him. Desire and foolishness ties them together, but it is Kennedy the evidence sticks to, being the last one seen with Haley. In testifying against her, he saves himself, but how innocent is he?

Carter is Kennedy’s twin, left reeling after Haley’s death (she was her friend too) and even after years have passed, and Kennedy’s done her time, she isn’t sure that her sister is innocent. Sometimes she dreams she is Kennedy, and therein lies the rub- the dream of Haley’s body being dragged and Kennedy’s story in direct conflict. Worse, Carter is involved with a man who is as damaged as her, whose hatred for Kennedy burns bright. A man who can’t stomach the bond between them, frayed as it is. This is the part of the novel that makes for an emotional read and yet would be a psychiatrist’s gold mine. Carter resents everything Kennedy has set in motion, and despite the gulf between them aches for her twin but she has secrets too, and is learning all about forbidden desire. Choices she has made as an adult that she has kept from her father Gerry have her tangled up and she isn’t ready to be there to support Kennedy.

Gerry wants nothing more than to glue his family back together, for his twin daughters to restore the love they once had for each other. He remains the protector, ashamed by his own guilt for failing to prevent everything that befell his girls. He was always their rock, available to them through any kind of mess or trouble, a lawyer himself, he would never fail to defend his girl. What did he miss? How could he have been so distracted, though he had good reason at the time with his own marriage falling apart. He never once doubted Kennedy’s innocence, but Carter can’t say the same, not even after fourteen years have passed and her sister is free. Her own life has been on hold, it may as well have been her who received a prison sentence too, despite using her mother’s last name, the past is a brand she can’t ever escape.

Berk may be older, but he seems exactly the same. The difference between them is he got to have a life while Kennedy’s stood still behind bars. Now with Dee Nash, the host of the show Crime After Crime, kicking up dust and hoping to get answers to questions police failed to ask in the past, what he thought was behind him is surfacing. Haley’s brother Everett was young when his sister was brutally murdered, destroying his mother in the process and any semblance of a normal family life. Coming of age in the shadow of such senseless tragedy, there isn’t a day his mother has been fully present in his life. It is his hope that Dee Nash and her search for the whole story could help them heal, if she could just fill in the blanks of Kennedy’s ‘memory lapses’. He knows all about the tricks the mind can play on you, so young when she died, he can’t always corral the memories he has of his big sister and it is devastating. He does remember the twins though, and Kennedy’s influence on his sister in particular.

When the full story is revealed there will be more devastation. Is the new suspect in the woods that night just speculation or was there someone else who had a hand in the murder?

Little Threats is an engaging novel about assumptions, mistakes, poor choices, family loyalty and shame. It is about the lengths people will go to protect the life they want, even if it means sacrifice. Everyone is broken and by the end life is still in tatters but the truth will out. Yes, read it!

Publication Date: November 10, 2010

Penguin Group

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Little Threats is a slower-paced mystery/thriller that's part mystery, part character study, and part ode to the 1990s. I won't lie; the book is much slower paced than books usually are in this genre, but if you like a leisurely read that captures some extremely complicated and messed up family dynmics along with a look back at what the 1990s really were like*, then you, like me, will find Little Threats to be a good, almost throwback read.

I loved how Emily Schultz writes about twins, and her Kennedy and Carter were fascinating. Kennedy, who went to jail before she was eighteen and has spent almost half her life there before she's released. Kennedy, I might add, is the most well adjusted character. (She's got problems but she's honest to herself and about herself, rate traits, imo) Anyway, I loved Kennedy! I felt bad for Carter sometimes and wanted to shake her at others, but as a portrait of malaise pre the 2008 economic bust, she's excellent. Then there's Gerry, Kennedy and Carter's dad. He's a pov narrator for about a third of the book and it's a choice that pays off not just in terms of plot but of character development, because being in Gerry's head is-- well, I can't remember the last time I reacted so strongly to a fictional character! There are, of course, other characters, but aside from Everett, most of them are pretty generic as#holes or lost souls, which I was surprised by given the careful work done on Kennedy, Carter, and Gerry.

And then there's the 1990s which is practically a character itself in Little Threats, so well is the mess that was that time portrayed. *Lately I've seen and read so many things that look back at the "grunge" era with nostalgia, but it was also another period of socioeconomic turmoil (the recession that started in 1990 lasted about a decade) and a period where the objectification of teenage girls was extremely mother*ucking creepy, and Schultz captures that darkness very well and to great effect.

Little Threats was a surprise; it's a thriller that moves at its own pace and it's an honest look back at a time whose problems have been glossed over in current pop culture. If you enjoy a great character and period (yes, the 1990s are a period now) study and don't mind a leisurely read, you'll definitely enjoy this like I did!

The pacing was far too slow (especially for a thriller) so I was only able to work through the first few chapters. Perhaps I should be more forgiving with my time in these books, but I feel like thrillers should really grab me and fast. Unfortunately, this one just did not do that.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Little Threats.

The premise was intriguing so I was pleased when my request was approved.

After 13 years of incarceration, Kennedy Wynn has returned home to her small town. But, the death of her best friend has never been forgotten.

Not by Kennedy's twin, Carter, who is having a secret relationship with the dead girl's younger brother, Everett; not Everett's still grieving mother, and not the Wynns' father, Gerry.

When the host of a popular crime show begins to probe into the murder, fear and tensions arise as the main players in the drama are drawn back in.

Little Threats is less about whodunit and more about how a tragedy affects not just the victim, but the survivors; the victim's family, the victim's social circle, armchair detectives, wannabes, and the weirdos and posers.

The writing was good, but I had a tough time relating to or liking anyone, not even the Wynns.

I never felt like I knew the sisters well; character development was decent, but I never connected to them.

I did love the 90s time period when the Wynns came of age, the nostalgia, the music, the trends. I grew up in the 90s and it brought back mostly warm, angst-y memories that, for the most part, I enjoyed recalling during the Wynns' flashbacks.

My main caveat is I had a difficult time believing in the identity of the murderer.

I mean, seriously, how many sleazy old men are there in this town? Yuck.

I was hoping for a traditional mystery; interviewing suspects and/or leads, looking for clues, but this is more about how people continue to live after losing a loved one.

This wasn't for me, but some people would enjoy it as a character study of a person learning to pick up the pieces of her life and starting over.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2 stars

This book was an extremely slow start but just intriguing enough for my curiosity to get the best of me so I kept reading. The book was very disjointed and difficult to read at times. I hit the 80% mark in the book before I couldn't put it down. And honestly, it's not worth it. I was hopeful at times but even with the ending, there were no huge reveals that you weren't already expecting and the author adds a ghost element to the book that didn't really make sense and felt like it was thrown in there just because. Overall, I didn't enjoy this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the advanced e-arc of Little Threats by Emily Schultz. This book was sitting on my NetGalley shelf for months and I am so mad at myself for not having read it sooner! A slow-burning mystery executed with incredible pacing and detail, Emily Schultz knocked it out of the park with this one. This is my first book by her but I am very excited to read more by her in the future. The setting and timing of this book play a huge role in my liking from the get-go. The amount of grunge era punk nostalgia thrown into this book made me love it from the very beginning and I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves that era in music and life.

Little Threats by Emily Schultz is a great thriller! If you pick up this book better make sure you have lots of time as you won't be able to put it down!

Convinced she murdered her friend while high, in 1993 a young woman goes to prison. After 15 years, she is released and must find her way in a world that is drastically changed. The mystery starts with her prison release and moves quickly into thriller territory when her memories of the crime are triggered by the familiar surroundings. With no support from her twin sister or the community, this young woman finds herself facing the trauma of that night while now sure that what she knows is not complete. Add in a reality show's digging into the 1990's lifestyle of the well to do and the story ramps up into a very well built story with many clues that will leave you shocked when the end comes.

This is really disturbing, dark, depressing, claustrophobic, slow-burn whodunit with surprisingly promising story-line embellished with lots of twists, surprises and you didn’t see it coming kind of brilliant ending.

Only thing I didn’t like was the slowness which also makes you think this is mostly psychological thriller more than action packed murder mystery and of course I easily got fooled at the end. I couldn’t guess who did it and
I kept changing my mind till the last chapter and made wrong guesses for the identity of the murderer.

So let’s get a closer look at the plot: Kennedy and Carter are identical twins ( and thankfully there is no evil triplet named “Nixon” who is the murderer of the story. If I wrote this book, that would be my choice of ending but you may guess its genre would be dark comedy) benefited with wealthy, privileged life till one night drug induced Kennedy finds herself as murder suspect of her best friend Haley. She doesn’t remember anything about that night: she asks herself if she could do such a violent thing: taking her best friend’s life. Is she scapegoat or does she have dark side that she haven’t shared with anyone before?

Naturally she accepts plea bargain and after 15 years later, she is released from the prison. But there is not a great future waiting ahead of her. She doesn’t have any chance to make a fresh beginning when her own sister thinks she is a killer and she is dating with Haley’s brother. And of course a true crime podcast about her case named “Crime after crime” starts digging more about the murder, showing her as a real evil culprit.

The story is told by three POVS: sisters and Haley’s brother. It was interesting to read how a trauma shaped their lives differently. Both of the sisters would be successful business woman, having bright futures. Kennedy started studying law in the prison but when she is still accused as a cold blooded killer. And Carter’s life also ruined, dropped out from the school, depressed, is scrutinized by prying eyes because she is killer’s sister who is identically looking like her.

The book pushes your buttons, makes you keep asking: did Kennedy really do it or any of the other POVS could involve with the crime? Could the boys Haley flirted do such a thing?
Overall: Ending is mind blowing and dazzling! It was unique, high tensioned, intense story and I mostly enjoyed it. But I wish the pace would be a little faster.

Special thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP/ G. P. Putnam’s Sons for sharing this exciting ARC with me in exchange my honest review.

Little Threats is an engaging thriller, which kept me on my toes. I didn't especially connect to any of the characters, but it was entertaining and a good read if you're stuck inside.

Fast paced and engaging. Little Threats is an excellent addition to collections where thrillers are popular.