This was a quick read for me. I’m always interested in books that center on family tensions, and this one took us down quite a path! I think you will enjoy it if you like characters you can’t rely on, if you want to be guessing at who you can trust and if you want to be surprised. This story is told by the perspectives of Sibley and also Deborah.

Check it out:

From the outside looking in, Sibley Sawyer has a perfect life. As a successful attorney, she’s worked hard to get to the top of her game—but when her personal and professional lives implode, Sibley looks for a way to turn the page.

Unable to shake the tragic circumstances that caused her to flee her rural Midwestern hometown, Sibley wants nothing more than to reunite with her estranged mother, Deborah, and bury their past tensions.

But as she reenters the life she left behind, she realizes her mother isn’t the same person she remembers, and she’s not the same daughter either.

As both women struggle to piece together a tangled web of deceit and lies, and the shocking circumstances that caused Sibley to leave in the first place, it becomes clear there are secrets rooted deeper than either mother or daughter could ever have imagined.

Can you really deceive your past and those around you?

This book will be out on March 9!

The Imposter is a psychological thriller that focuses on a mother and daughter that have been estranged for many years. Only when the daughter is being forced into rehab by her husband and work does she return to where she grew up to seek answers to her past. She hopes in getting closure to her past that she will get to continue and move on with her future.

The beginning of the book starts out a little slowly in Deborah's POV. She's a woman (the mother in this case) that is seeking out help in her local town. I don't know what it was about the beginning, but I just wasn't connecting to Deborah. Perhaps it was because her parts were told in third person? I can't pinpoint it, but I felt distanced from her.
After we are introduced to Deborah in the small town in the midwest, we meet Sibley in Arizona. She is the daughter of Deborah and a high profile, successful lawyer that seems to have a drinking problem. She appears to have a lot going on, but she brings it all back to alcohol. While I didn't love Sibley, her character had a lot more promise to me. Her parts were told in first person, but both of them were so unreliable because of whatever issues they faced. It was hard to pull for either of them, but at least with Sibley, I felt something towards her.

Their stories are told separately at first because their are in different places, but once they come to the same farmhouse in the midwest, we get their stories together. They both have different memories and different ways to cope with what is happening around them, but we are getting snippets of what makes these characters tick.

This is a story of two women trying to figure out how their pasts line up to the futures and it is a twisted tale of lies and schemes and delusions. But what is real and what is not? Two unreliable characters due to alcohol and medication. Who can you believe? What is the real story here??

"Sometimes, what we forget is more important than what we remember."

I was excited to receive The Imposter by Marin Montgomery since she is a "new to me author". I liked the pacing of the story after getting the two women together in one place, although Sibley's introduction was pretty exciting. I don't think I ever connected to Deborah, but Sibley had potential. She was just so darn unreliable and I hope she wasn't endangering those around her by her mistakes. The story itself was good, but not great. I honestly cannot pinpoint what was not so great other than I really disliked most of the character's other than Sibley's friends and husband. Everyone she grew up with seemed like they had an ulterior motive. Small towns aren't always what they are cracked up to be.

Overall this would be a 3.5 star. Plot was good, characters unlikable, and the pacing was pretty smooth.

The novel opens during a Midwest winter, and I immediately related to the author’s sentiments regarding the seasons. Part one focuses on a widowed mother, Deborah, living alone on her family’s farmland. The novel moves between the points of view of Deborah and her daughter, Sibley. Part two focuses on Sibley, a 34-yr-old attorney, and the pace picks up with her storyline. By part three, I had many questions as a reader, and I was eager to figure out the answers. The last quarter of the book was the most engaging, as the characters and the reader gain clarity and the page-turning pace increases.

Overall, I was engaged in the novel and appreciated the suspense and tying up of loose ends in the second half. At times, I found the excessive similes and cliché expressions distracting, as they interrupted the flow of the writing. Regarding the characters, Sibley is rather unlikable at first, but she grew on me, so I encourage readers to give her a chance.

⚠⚠⚠ Trigger Warnings ⚠⚠⚠ -- both play major roles in the story:
Alcoholism and loss of an infant

The Imposter follows mother, Deborah, and daughter, Sibley who are reunited after not seeing each other for years. With secrets from the past creeping into the present and two women weary of each other with more questions than answers? You have a suspenseful cocktail.

What could have been better?
While, I expected some disjointed storytelling and writing due to two unreliable narrators, it felt more disjointed than necessary and made it hard to get into. Going on, I felt like the story lacked character development or just any character to feel connected to. Then, there was the pacing...the beginning of the story lagged and I thought the end was rushed to a close.

What I did like?
There were twists that surprised me, and times I felt like I was at the edge of my seat. The unreliable narrators did help with some of the suspense and the twists that occur, and the relationships between the characters in the small town were illustrated well.

Thank you #netgalley for this arc for an honest review. This book will be published March 9th.

Sibley and her mother Deborah have been estranged for years, ever since the tragic event that made Sibley leave.
But as Sibley's life starts unravelling, she decides to reunite with her mother and put their past behind them.

This was a good read, but one that I had trouble rating.
The story didn't instantly grip me; I found the opening chapters following Deborah in the 3rd person impersonal and cold, and I struggled to get into it.
When the perspective switched to Sibley's first-person narrative, my interest was piqued, but even though I enjoyed Sibley's chapters more, still, the story took some time to get going.
The plot became confusing as I read along, and that didn't make for an easy read. Therefore even though the story came together at the end and I appreciate how well-plotted the novel was, I just couldn't give it more than 3 stars.

The Imposter is a story about an estranged relationship between Sibley and her mother and the chaos that their lives seem to spiral into. Sibley is a high-profile divorce attorney that finds herself in a bit of bad press and marital woes. She ends up back in her small town to try and reconcile with her estranged mother and events become very strange as she pieces memories and current situations together to make sense of it all.

I went into this book enticed by the premise of the book and enjoyed the writing style and building of characters, however, what seemed to deter me a bit was how slow the chapters seemed to progress. I found myself skimming ahead to look for finer details and for the story to move more rapidly. I will say that I was not expecting who would be the protagonist at the end of the story for well into about half of the book. Typically it is much faster... so kudos to Marin Montgomery! It was definitely an interesting tale of what we leave behind and what our families try to hide in our pasts and how we uncover those truths in the end. If you like mystery/thrillers, you are sure to enjoy this book.

I really liked this. The first few pages I wasn’t sure about it but I got sucked in soon after my doubts.
There are twists upon twists. I’m trying hard to not post any spoilers but it’s hard. I had no idea what was going on until the end, my predictions through out the book were wrong. Very unexpected and the obvious conclusion I came to was very incorrect. I enjoy that in a suspense/thriller. The ending cleared everything up and tied it up neatly which I really love. I love when all of my questions are answered.
The mother/daughter relationship was painfully strained but realistic after years of estrangement. The characters were real, not perfect heroes. Sibley’s alcoholism was an interesting theme that added to the plot.

I enjoyed this book so much! This book is a psychological thriller with a bunch of twists. Each chapter alternates between Sibley and Deborah told from their perspective of what really happened. It was very interesting to see just how different they saw the same events happen. I also really was not expecting the ending and loved how it turned out.

I found this story to be very convoluted and confusing during the first half. Much information, happenings, and characters are thrown at readers and I found it difficult to sort it out. I also didn’t like any of the characters. I couldn’t discern whether Deborah was in dementia, drug hallucinations, or something else. Sibley wasn’t much better with her drinking and foggy memory. There was clarification at the end, but I didn’t care for the book.

I think this is a really good thriller! The beginning was a little on the slower side, but I really enjoyed the twist and turns towards the end. Definitely kept me guessing! Definitely getting this book to share when it comes out!

This book was just ok for me. It was told by 2 different point of views - from Deborah and Sibley. I found myself skimming through parts of the book because it was just moving way too slow for me. I kept going until the end and there were a few twists thrown in that I did not see coming. Will definitely look for more books by Marin Montgomery in the future. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a slow burning, unreliable narrator type story. In this case, we have two questionable narrators - Deborah, a middle aged woman, whose perspective is told in the third person, and Sibley, her estranged daughter, told in the first person. I've never seen two different perspective voices used like this before, but it worked just fine for me.

Deborah seems to be of ailing health, both physically and mentally. Sibley is both a successful lawyer and a raging alcoholic. The first half of the book is pretty much setting up the two characters. When Sibley decides to skip rehab and go confront her past demons by visiting her estranged mother instead, their stories collide and intertwine. They both have secrets and unreliable perspectives, and we're left guessing and reguessing quite often as to what is reality and what isn't.

I rather enjoy the unreliable narrator plot device and a story that keeps you guessing, so I did quite enjoy this read for the most part. Though the pace is fairly slow, it kept me interested and wanting to know more. I liked the uncertainty of what was real and who to believe.

The problem I have - and I think I've realised I'm quite hard to impress in this area - is that I was really underwhelmed by the climax, reveal and resolution. It seemed a bit rushed compared to the slow pace of the story, and involved pretty much just a lot of expository dialogue. Like, now this person is explaining things somewhat unnecessarily? And now another person is explaining more things. It felt a bit too much like being told what happened instead of shown. Not to mention, the "bad guy" was kind of hard to believe and their expository dialogue a little too "villain-y".

An intriguing tale that was let down by the execution of the ending - which ultimately, is pretty much the crucial element of a story like this.

I found this book to be well written. It captivates you within the first chapter and gets you to just keep going. Both the main characters are deeply flawed and right away you understand something terrible has been covered up in their past. The ending however was a complete surprise. Which I love! I definitely see this as movie in the future. Very well done. Thank you to netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this e-arc.

I was lucky to read an ARC of this book provided by the author, and obtained through NetGalley.

The story follows Deborah who lives in a desolate area on a farm and has an estranged relationship with her daughter Sibley. The main of the story is that a tragedy occurred within this community and Sibley left. As the story begins to unfold, Sibley finds herself back in her hometown, on the same farm she grew up on, but in her absence, many changes have materialized.

The book is full of twists, as you would expect of a psychological thriller, and as the story unfolds you begin second-guessing the characters that one seemed reliable. It took a little time for me to get into the storyline, but by the end, I was staying up at ungodly hours trying to finish it off. The characterization of two characters that are unreliable in narrating the story interested me a lot and kept me on edge the entire time!

If you enjoy reading an entire book full of characters who are totally gorked out of their heads and completely unreliable, this is the book for you.

The Imposter was chapter, after chapter, after chapter of confused ramblings...chapters which frequently made no sense. I personally hate this type of story. It's lazy misdirection...who needs a plot when you can just make the characters seem totally off the wall? Further, the threads of the story simply didn't tie together well. It felt choppy.

The conclusion? I had that figured out very early on, despite all the crazy.

Unfortunately, I simply can't recommend this book. I dreaded picking it up, and couldn't find many redeeming qualities.

1.5 stars (simply because I've read One-Star Review, and know what happens to reviewers who dare to give 1-star). 😂

Available March 9, 2021

Despite my lackluster review of this novel, I still extend my heartfelt thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for my review copy.

"The Imposter" tells the mysterious past, present, and future of mother and daughter, Deborah and Sibley. Sibley seems to have it all, she is married and has a successful career as a lawyer at a big law firm. However, in reality her marriage is struggling, she has a severe addiction to alcohol, and has been estranged from her mother for years. Sibley realizes that before she can go to rehab and work on herself, she has to reunite with her mother and make peace with her past. The chapters alternate between Sibley's and Deborah's point of views, a literally device that I always enjoy and that definitely enriches this story. This novel starts off a bit slow, but once Deborah and Sibley were reunited I could not put it down. There were so many twists and turns that I did not see coming! I also found it extremely captivating that I often didn't know whether to believe Sibley or Deborah or even if certain events were happening at all. Read "The Imposter" if you enjoy psychological thrillers with twists and turns, strong and flawed characters, and unique family dynamics.

I don't usually read this kind of books, but I kept hearing about it and I had to check it out. It was okay, I guess, but I wasn't crazy about it at all.

The book was too slow for my taste (things started to happen around 50% in) and I didn't like the devices used to inform us about the things from the past. It is ALWAYS zoning out and recalling. Too much so that I lost myself from time to time.

We have two points of view here, but I didn't like that one wast told from the first person, and the other from the third.

Also, the characters were pretty annoying to me.

I also came across various comments that the ending was spectacular and that they couldn't figure out who was what they were not supposed to be, but I figured that out pretty easily. And the very ending was just too convenient. I mean, the resolution was just too fortunate and fake for my liking.

I love a good psychological thriller so I jumped into "The Imposter" with big expectations. While the book was a slow burn thriller, it came together really well in the end. Mother and daughter have an estrangement that provides twists and turns throughout the entire novel. Character development is big for me and Montgomery nailed it with this book.

When a thriller wraps up all loose ends, allowing me to guess who the imposter (guilty party) is, I find myself excited about that author's work. I always feel like they've written a good novel if the reader is satisfied with the rollercoaster they take you on.

Thank you to Netgalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Marin Montegomery for providing me with the ARC of The Imposter in exchange for my honest review.

When I read the synopsis, it sounded like something right up my alley. I love a good psychological thriller. The book started a bit slow for me, in fact, the entire book was a bit of a slow burn, but it did all come together in the end. The characters were developed really well and it was easy to picture them all. At it's core, it's a story about a mother and daughter and their estrangement, but with plenty of twists and turns.

I will say, I guessed who the imposter was well before it was revealed, but I couldn't guess why. It was a pretty startling twist and I certainly felt like the book wrapped up well with all loose ends tied up.

I only had one issue. I like knowing where my books are taking place, and unless I missed it, we didn't learn Sybil was in Arizona until a little bit into the book and I'm still not entirely sure where in the Midwest her hometown was - I assumed Iowa because of the mention of soybean farming. Again, I very well could have just missed it.

Overall, a solid thriller. This was the first book I've read from Marin and I look forward to reading more from her.
3.5/5 stars

This was an enjoyable mystery novel full of twists and turns. It did take me a little while to get into it because it starts off a little slow but then it builds and builds to an exciting, fast paced and eventful ending. Throughout the story, the building suspense and mystery is fantastic. So many little things are happening and there is an air of creepiness about it that keeps the book completely enthralling. I thought I had worked out what was going on but my assumption was far from the truth, the twisy and surprising ending was great!!
This is a great psychological thriller novel and the perfect book to curl up on a rainy day with. The ending was like a suspenseful, fast paced movie and I recommend this exciting read.
Thanks to Net Galley for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review 😊