I really liked the premise of this book - domestic suspense meets We Need To Talk About Kevin.

The characters were well-written. I particularly liked and empathized with Dani. While I liked reading the mothers’ perspectives, I felt that for a long time in the beginning, in seeing the boys through their mothers eyes, I did not get enough hints about who each boy really was. I understand that was intended (because a theme of the book is how well we really know out children) but I would have liked some hints of the boys true selves earlier on because that’s when the book started to really engage me.

The book is very sad and somewhat scary in terms of the things the moms did not know about their kids (and in some cases, their husbands). I had an idea who did it and thought the ending of the book, as well as the psychology of the characters and the reason it all happened, was very good.

Though the book was interesting I felt it lacked some suspense at the start and tried to do too many things at once in the first half. Once it hit its stride in the second half I liked it very much. 3.5 stars rounded up to four.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Thomas and Mercer for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book started off really well with an interesting premise and the writing was decent. At about the half way point though I felt the story was starting to unravel a bit. It was losing some of its cohesiveness and wasn’t as tight as it should have been. There were several surprises and the extra little bit at the end was quite unexpected, almost a cliffhanger, but it seemed unrealistic and really wasn’t necessary. Other things bugged me as well including the doctor husband ( couple #2) who suddenly seems to lose all his medical knowledge or the author forgot she made him a doctor. That really bugged me to no end. The book could have been better with tighter editing. Otherwise it was a good story and really quite sobering.

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

4.5 stars

Another fantastic book by one of my favorite authors. I was hooked from the first chapter and read it in a day. I cannot recommend this author enough. I've read all her books except one, and out of all of them, all were fantastic except one that I have 3 stars to. Berry's newest book is more character driven, with all the characters (except a certain husband) likeable but with flaws. The only thing I didn't particularly like was the reveal. Not the actual reveal in general, but the timing of it. All together, I highly recommend this addition to Lucinda Berry's works and encourage everyone to pick up one of her books.

*Review copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Overall I really enjoyed this book. The book focuses on the lives of three lifelong friends after the unspeakable happens. Dani, Lindsay, and Kendra have known each other for almost all their lives and their sons have taken after them being best friends and inseparable. One night leaves one of the boys dead, one in a coma, and one too traumatized to speak. As the women try to piece together what happened and hold themselves and the rest of their families together they learn that everyone has secrets and sometimes we truly do not know those closest to us.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to review this book.

The Best Of Friends by Lucinda Berry was given to me in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.

I’ve never read Lucinda Berry before - and 😳 have to ask myself why not ? This book was absolutely the best kind of book! It was a thrilling domestic thriller, yet also so emotionally compelling. It touches on so many emotional levels. Friendship, deceit, domestic violence, loyalty and more. This book was a great surprise and will stay with for a long while.

The ending twist was also a surprise and I loved it . I loved every page of this book! The narrative was a bit difficult to keep up with at first due to many povs but that is my only negative and it was quickly resolved after a while! Read this book ! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 ! I’ll be back to read more!

LOVED this book. This author never disappoints, and she's done it again. A truly wonderful and riveting story that you really won't be able to put down. Highly recommend.

I absolutely loved this book!

The only thing I struggled with was that for the first twenty pages or so the perspectives alternate quickly and with four households with two parents and multiple children each it was a little difficult to keep the families straight. Longer passages before switching or more detailed physical descriptions might have helped with that.

That being said, this book jumps right in and holds your attention really well, I started it this morning and couldn’t put it down until I finished it. While it is a mystery, it also tackles a number of serious issues very well and the alternating perspectives are very interesting. Highly recommended for fans of Jodi Picoult.

Emotional, twisty drama with an surprise ending I didn't see coming!

Best friends Kendra, Lindsey, and Dani have sons who are also best friends - until a night of tragedy changes everything. With few clues, the mothers try to unpack the mystery of what happened that fateful night to leave one son dead, one in a coma, and one unable to speak. Of course, it shouldn't surprise you that the women and their husbands have secrets of their own just waiting to come out.

I enjoyed this book - each mother has her own issues to work through and Berry did a good job building up suspense. I rated this one 3 stars simply because the structure of the novel was a bit confusing - the POV switches with each chapter, and it can be hard to keep track of whose voice you're getting at any given time. But I'd still recommend if you're looking for a multi-family thriller like Big Little Lies - there's a lot of good suspense in these pages.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is domestic women's fiction done right; Lucinda Berry expertly weaves in an out of the lives of 3 different families, tied together by history and an inexplicable tragedy.

We find the families after the 'incident' that left one of their teenage sons dead; one in a coma; and one unable to speak. The perspectives come from each of the 3 mothers and although I could see their flaws, I found myself pulling for all of them. Berry made them human through the grief process.

I was so wrapped up in finding out what happened that night; it was not until after the mystery unraveled did I realize the deep sadness that would continue to follow the lives of the characters. I wished for some resolution that would absolve or give some relief to at least one family.

There was a final twist at the end that I thought was a little too unrealistic and unnecessary, but overall I would highly recommend this story of an extraordinary incident that touched the lives of 3 ordinary families.

Thank you to Netgalley for this preview!

Lindsey, Kendra, and Dani are best friends who grew up in a wealthy southern California town. Their sons follow in their footsteps and become the very best of friends. Practically from birth, the three boys are joined at the hip, until one night, during what was supposed to be an innocent sleepover, one boy is shot and killed, another lies in a coma and the third boy is literally scared speechless.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There were so many layers, not just of the boys and what happened that fateful night, but the story, told through the eyes of the mothers, also relies heavily upon the secrets and lies that families keep. It's a very heavy story that tells of love, loss, and friendship while it also pulls back the layers of what makes these things tick among these three women, sometimes brutally.

The only reason I didn't give it a 5-star rating is that for me, the ending felt a little incomplete and left me wondering if there would be more in a later book, though this seems to almost wrap (not quite) wrap things up.

I love this author and I really enjoyed this book! Lucinda Berry is such a breath of fresh air in the thriller/suspense genre, her plots are always unique and keep you guessing. I was really invested in finding out what happened the night the boys were shot and I really liked the short chapters jumping between Dani, Kendra & Lindsey. The ending was also devastating, which I wasn't really expecting. Another great book by Lucinda Berry, I can't wait for her next one.

Another fantastic and compelling book by Ms. Berry. Heartbreaking story of the journey of three families in the aftermath of an unthinkable tragedy. Lindsay, Kendra, and Dani have been friends since elementary school and years later when they each have sons who become best friends they are thrilled. But when a night of substance abuse and drinking ends in gunfire the boys and their parents lives are forever changed. I have become a huge fan of Ms. Berry’s books and I believe this is her best one yet. This is difficult subject matter that is written about with honesty and compassion and was impossible to put down. Highly recommended.

Whoa, the first chapter grabbed my attention right off the bat. This was my first book to read by Lucinda Berry, and after reading the description, I knew I needed to add this to my TBR.

How the author describes the story about a teenager who dies tragically while connecting his death to family secrets was fascinating. She would drop subtle hints throughout the book that left me wondering what happened until the ending when she made everything clear, and it was not something I saw coming!

I would recommend this book - it was suspenseful and gripping and certainly kept my attention. This novel is expected to be released August 2020.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I absolutely LOVED this book! As in, I read it in a day and a half. Families are rocked after a group of life long friends experience a horrible tragedy involving their 3 teenage sons. It is a heavy and hard read for me, being a mother myself, but I couldn't put the book down. From the first page I was captivated and wanted to dive deep into the secrets of each of the families involved. One thing that makes a good thriller/mystery is how the author keeps you guessing. If I can figure out or easily predict whats to come- it becomes boring. However, that is not the case for Lucinda Berry. She would drop little hints here and there, release just enough information to second guess anything I thought or suspected previously. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from Berry!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy in return for my honest opinion and book review!

Unbelievably stirring and compelling straight out of the gates! Such a page turner of a read.

The lives of three best friends -- Kendra, Lindsey, and Dani are disrupted when a tragedy strikes. What takes place is the unraveling of each of their marriages, and the revealing of secrets that were kept hidden for years.

As each woman struggles with their own loss, you are swept up in all the emotion, trauma, and psychological dilemmas that each of them faces.

Difficult to put down. An excellent novel and will be sure to keep the author, Lucinda Berry on my radar. Five star read!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this book in exchange from my honest review.

This was such an emotional book. The plot is from 3 POVs, which I mixed up at first but eventually managed to keep straight. These women have been friends since grade school. They stayed in the same town, live in the same neighborhood, and even had children around the same time who grew to be best friends as well. With this tight-knit group of friends, there shouldn’t be a lot of secrets. And yet, after a tragic accident, the secrets just keep coming to the surface.
I found myself on the brink of tears multiple times. The author is so skilled at showing how each woman is dealing with the tragedy in their own way but all of them still felt so much pain. I wish that we had learned more about the detective, he seemed interesting, but that is such a minor quibble that did not detract from my enjoyment of this book at all.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Best of Friends by Lucinda Berry.

Kendra, Dani, and Lindsey have been best friends forever. So long in fact that now their three sons, all on the cusp of adulthood, are also best friends. So is beyond understanding when, after a night of hanging out, one turns up dead, one in a coma, and one traumatized.

What happened that night? Who was responsible? And how will this affect the friendships that have withstood the test of time.

I feel like this almost could have been a really quick stage script rather than an entire novel. There were a lot of chapters that seemed ancillary and "space fillers" in order to get to the main story. There was very little about the story that was believable, especially the idea of these moms even trying to maintain a relationship after what their boys had gone through. The premise was interesting, and the story was readable, but overall, this didn't quite hit home.

Secrets abound in Lucinda Berry's upcoming thriller, The Best of Friends.

So many secrets, in fact, that my head is spiraling a bit -- and not in a good way. Aye, aye, aye . . .

Kendra, Dani, and Lindsey, best friends since childhood and mothers to three teenage boys, experience a tragedy that is every parent's worst nightmare. After a hard night of partying, a terrible accident involving the young boys occurs. In a matter of moments, one boy is dead, another is in a coma, and the third is unable to communicate, having withdrawn inside himself.

It's a horrible nightmare -- one that I, personally, cannot contemplate too deeply as a mother of two young boys. And I would be remiss if I did not forewarn readers that the subject matter of this novel is very disturbing at times and may make for a difficult read, particularly for those who are parents.

So, what happened that night? Well . . . you will have to read the novel to find out.

The Best of Friends opens with a prologue that is dramatic and intense. The reader is immediately inserted into the panic that Kendra experiences the night of the accident, feels her fear. One is very quickly absorbed into the narrative --

-- and then it all, unfortunately, turns into one big mess.

And all the messiness, my friends, is a result of the writing.

First off, Berry’s writing is simple and pedestrian. The novel does not require much thought from the reader, as Berry's writing style lacks any sort of real nuance or complexity.

Secondly, the novel is in serious need of character development and voice distinction. The story is told from the points of view of the three mothers, through alternating chapters, and in all honesty, I struggled to keep the characters' names straight and to remember whose viewpoint I was reading. Juggling three viewpoints and voices should not be this tough to do. But in this case, it is tricky because Kendra, Dani, and Lindsey are basically the same woman, just in triplicate.

Thirdly, -- and related to the above-mentioned problem -- in what I believe is a misguided attempt by Berry to write the novel in a fashion similar to Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies, she initially withholds too much information about the women and their lives from the reader. Berry takes her time . . . WAY too much time . . . and s-l-o-w-l-y unfurls the defining details of the characters, their lives, their hidden scandals and secrets. But she doesn’t reveal enough to the reader in the very beginning so that a clear mental image of the three women can be formed in one’s mind. It is extremely difficult to fully connect to the story and the characters because of this.

And lastly, I feel like Berry throws random, out-of-the blue, jarring facts about the characters into the narrative . . . only to then, very oddly, never mention them again. It's as if she wanted to desperately up the shock factor and the scandal, and then forgot to fully weave all of the dangling loose ends fully into the story. For example, almost 3/4 of the way into the book, Berry slips in the fact that one of the women has an eating disorder -- but then that's it. The reader never learns anything else about said eating disorder. AT ALL. Umm . . . really?!?! An eating disorder is not something that should be haphazardly tossed into a narrative, only to then be instantly forgotten.

There is also an allusion to a character maybe, possibly, having a drinking problem . . . but I have no clue as to whether it was ever fully clarified in the story. And at the very end of the novel, a reference is made regarding an event that happened during the women's junior year of high school. But for the life of me, I don't believe we ever find out what actually transpired. I've even skimmed back through the novel and searched, in an attempt to find an earlier reference to that particular night that I may have read and then misplaced in my mind. I have found nothing and am still left scratching my head about it. (If anyone finds another reference or an explanation of the event, will you please let me know?)

And after all that . . . after wading through the novel’s extremely messy and disorganized narrative . . . the big reveal of the who and the how and the why of the tragic accident involving the three teenage boys is a bit of a letdown. It is so anti-climactic, in fact, that I was even taken aback while reading it, not having realized and being surprised that I had, indeed, arrived at the grand finale.

Sigh. ‘Tis disappointing, I know.

The Best of Friends earns two stars from me, as my interest was held well enough that I was inclined to at least see it through to the end. But unfortunately, I am unable to recommend it.


I received an Advanced Readers Copy from #NetGalley and #ThomasandMercer in exchange for an honest review. All opinions included herein are my own.

The start of The Best of Friends created a great setting for a thriller or mystery. As the book went on, I felt it was very heavy in the drama of the families and less about getting to the bottom of the crime. I believe if you go in thinking it is in the Fiction genre you will get more out of this as the story is very unique. It feels like you are looking in on the lives of normal people with normal family struggles with an unfortunate crime at the center. I wish there was a little more character development at the beginning. Since there are so many characters all in the same situation with similar family dynamics I found I would confuse many of the characters or would have to start each chapter listing unique attributes of the focused character and her family just to keep everything straight. The ending felt a little rushed and didn't satisfy me as a mystery or thriller but was very unique and different from any other book I've read. I'd recommend it if you are looking for a family drama.

When I first started reading this book there were so many characters to keep track of and several narrators, so it took me nearly a third of the book to get into the flow of the storyline. Once I figured out who was connected, I found this to be a suspenseful and dramatic novel, though I found all of the characters unlikable. As a result, I was emotionally disconnected from the story. I found myself revising my predictions after each new detail was revealed, and while I did predict the ending (both twists), the way it all came together was well-crafted.
3.5 stars, rounded up.
Advanced readers copy provided courtesy of #NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.