One thing I want to get across in this review is how dark and twisted this story is. I feel like this plot was well executed and I loved all the plot twists. Just when I thought I had the story all figured out, I soon learned that I was wrong and it kept me guessing the whole time.

I do wish the last 20% wasn’t so drawn out but overall a great twisted story that will keep you on your toes. I would highly recommend if you looking for something completely original and you don’t mind a few triggers warnings.

I’ve read this authors work before and I look forward to her books in the future.

This fast-paced, psychological thriller gets 5 stars from me. I loved the two different points of views this book was told from and it had me hooked from beginning to end. I look forward to reading more from this author!

The plot of The Imposter looked very intriguing: a mother and daughter once estranged, a reuniting, lies, deceit. Who doesn’t love a book with that in the description. I am usually interested in a family drama but I found myself struggling through this book, from start to long awaited finish. Both main characters, Deborah and her daughter Sibley, were unlikable and untrustworthy. Sometimes an unreliable narrator, if done well, keeps me on the edge of my seat, filled with a sense of dread, however; Sibley was so irritating that I found myself disliking her more than caring about what happened to her. I also found the plot to be very confusing, as it jumped around a bit and sometimes didn’t fill in the blanks about what happened during that time missed.

The ending wasn’t what I was anticipating, so that did bump up the star level half a point for me. It had a few more twists than I saw coming, but overall, this book was just not the greatest thriller. I wouldn’t stray away from Marin Montgomery’s books altogether though. I will probably try one of her more popular books in the future.

Overall this book landed at a 2.5 stars for me, rounded up to a 3.

This review is also posted on my blog at: https://www.fullywell.net/blog/theimposterbookreview

I got about a quarter through this book and had to stop. The story started in the middle of things and you had no idea what had happened to get you there. I understand having things come to light as you go ahead with the story, but there was not enough solid ground to get things started before that happened. There were too many holes and confusing situations.

The premise is that successful divorce lawyer Sibley must return to her hometown after her life goes off the rails. When she arrives home she realizes her estranged mother has been battling mental illness while she herself has been battling her own demons. As the two mend their relationship, lies and secrets are unearthed about what caused Sibley to leave in the first place.

The description sounded good but when you get a quarter through and what you’ve read doesn’t align well with the blurb and is utterly boring and confusing, there’s a problem.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer to review.

I received an ARC from Net Gallery and Marin Montgomery for my honest review.

Deborah lives on a rural farm alone after the mysterious death of her husband 16 years ago. Her daughter Sibley left home and never came back. Now Sibley decides to return home to confront her mother and her past but dark secrets loom in every corner.

This book is told by Sibley as a narrator and also an omniscient narrator telling Deborah’s point of view. The story really picks up when Sibley gets home and I couldn’t put the book down until I got to the end.

It’s a true psychological thriller with twists and turns that kept me guessing.

I highly recommend this book!

Deborah lives alone on her remote farmhouse where tragedy once struck. Late one night she is assaulted and left for dead outside her home. She begins to experience unusual events and episodes of anxiety. Is she experiencing residual trauma from her attack or is someone from her past sending her a message?
Sibley is a successful divorce attorney until an incident that could end both her personal and professional life comes to light. Needing to get away, Sibley heads home to try and reunite with her estranged mother Deborah so they can put the past to rest. As both women try to untangle the events of their past, they discover a tangled web of lies that might just put them both in danger.

The imposter is a mystery/thriller in which past events have torn a mother and daughter apart. As the story unfolds we quickly realize that both women are "unreliable witnesses" making the reader question both past and present events. Although the plot for this novel intrigued me, I had a really hard time getting through this one. The novel kicks off, six months prior, with Deborah being attacked and left for dead late one night on her farm. This should have immediately drawn me into the story but the narrative was a bit slow and I couldn't seem to connect with either Deborah or Sibley. As the story continues we have not one but two unreliable witnesses combined with events that leave the reader uncertain if the event did in fact happen or if they are part of the characters (psychosis, medication, alcohol abuse, etc.)… A good concept that maybe didn't feel like it was executed successfully. Although this novel wasn't a good fit for me, it was still an interesting read with lots of deceit, secrets, and misdirection.

The Imposter is a psychological thriller about the relationship between a mother and daughter. They both have secrets and they both lie. There was a lot of twists and turns and I never knew where this story was going because both the mother and daughter seem so unstable. I enjoyed this book and it was well written even though it was a little slow at the beginning. Thank you Netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book definitely kept me on my toes at times with its many twists and turns especially in the beginning. I also liked how the book used an unreliable narrator because it made the reader think about who to trust in the book. Although the two main characters had interesting, detailed backgrounds, I thought that the wording and phrasing at times made the story long and confusing where parts seemed unnecessary and repetitive. I also thought the story seemed rushed at the end where more details could have been added. Overall, I enjoyed the read with 3.5 stars / 5.

This was all over the place. None of the dialogue or actions resembled things that actual people say or do. And it felt like each chapter picked up somewhere randomly without continuing from where the story picked up.

I know there was supposed to be an element of instability and questionable narration. But a lot of it just wasn’t even following any kind of trajectory. It was just random things happening.

The Imposter was a fantastic thriller that takes the reader into a mother and daughter’s rocky relationship and descent into confusion while uncovering some past secrets. Sibley and her mother, Deborah, are both keeping secrets from each other and cannot repair their relationship until they have hashed out the truth about what happened when Sibley’s father was killed. The story takes us into both women’s perspectives of the past and how that is affecting their current relationship and problems.

My favorite part of this thriller, and any thrillers that use this plot device, was the choice of having the main characters be unreliable. I love when there is so much craziness happening, but you don’t know if it’s actually happening because the characters don’t even know if it’s real!

Liked:
-the eerie farm/small town setting
-the twists & didn’t guess the biggest twist at the end
-that the ending was wrapped up neatly & didn’t leave much ambiguity

Disliked:
-the “bad guy’s” whole “let me reveal by plan and what I did” at the end - I know this is typical for thrillers but I thought it was just a little too easy in this one
-Sibley, she was unlikeable with a lot of issues and I wasn’t really rooting for her, more for Deborah

Thank you #netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for allowing me to read this ARC. The description of the book was intriguing. I liked the beginning of Deborah’s story and of Sibley’s. One problem was I didn’t like or sympathize with either of them. I have to like at least one character in a book to keep me fully engaged. After Sibley went to see Deborah, I started to get bored because things did not seem realistic. I started to skim because I always hope a book will get better. Well this one really did! The end was so good. The problem was after the skimming and there were so many characters I had problems keeping everyone straight. But the end of the book was really good. I think if liking characters is not important to you, you will like this book, 3.5 stars.

This is a slow-burning suspenseful novel filled with plenty of twists. The writing was good and I really enjoyed this book

This was one twisted tale with a lot of red herrings along the way. Who is unstable? Deborah or Sibley? If you like psychological thrillers then this is for you.
Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is an interesting mystery focused on family drama, secrets and lies. It took me about a day (7hrs) to read, which I love.

I wasn’t sold on the epilogue or part one, Deborah’s POV was hard to get into but once I started part two I got into the flow of this story and became hooked. I think starting with Deborah in the third person jarred me, I prefer first person stories. Some third person continues through this story but it’s spaced well and I became used to it, it ended up breaking the POVs up nicely.

This is a slow-burn and the suspense builds slowly. It’s a good mystery cross family drama, with the occasional eerie feels. There is a lot of vague back story, which is worth it in the end.

Halfway through I was confused but intrigued as to what was coming next. By part three I was hooked and there were a couple of twists I wasn’t expecting. Part three was exceptional.

It wrapped up well.

Overall the writing was great. I really enjoyed Sibley’s chapters.

Trigger warnings for: alcoholism, domestic violence.

I think this is a 3.5 star rating for me, rounded down to 3 only because I personally don’t enjoy third person narrative and starting with it almost stopped me continuing. I’m glad I kept reading though.

I would read another book by Marin Montgomery.

Thank you NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and most of all Merin Montgomery for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Honestly- this book sounded pretty intriguing, which is why I wanted to read it in the first place.
However, I couldn’t finish it. I tried, I really did. I started it twice and got a little more read the second time around- but there wasn’t enough happening at the very beginning of the book to keep me hooked.
I’d love to try something else this author has written, but this one was just not it for me.

I enjoyed the overall plot, and the writing was excellent. Repeat cliffhangers make it hard for me to stay invested in a story. That's a personal preference, not a critique.

Throughout the story, the point of view keeps switching back and forth between mother and daughter. This in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, in this story it helps us see just how misunderstood they each are. As each chapter ended, I grew more and more confused. I didn't appreciate how that confusion aided the story until I got to the end, then I realized if the reader is confused it helps accentuate how confused the two main characters really are. And, boy oh boy are they confused on what is real versus what is imagined.

This story has murder (maybe), ghosts (probably), manipulation (very possibly), misunderstanding (definitely), and family drama (of course).

Arc provided by NetGalley and Marin Montgomery. In return for my honest thoughts and my review. I will be honest I have never read a book by this author. After reading this book I will be checking out more of her books. This book is set to be released March 9, 2021 and highly recommend this bool to anyone who loves a good thriller and some crazy twist and turns, I went in not knowing or didn’t want to know to much about this book. This book is amazing I would think the story would go a way and then it totally took me by surprise.
About book-
Deborah is a lonely old woman living in the country with things hidden in her past. She feels like there are things there that she cant seem to wrap is it real or not. She has a big farm which she runs alone. Since her husband was killed many years ago and her daughter she hasn’t spoked to in many years. Sibley is a divorce attorney who has problems of her own drinking and trying to keep her marriage together. When Sibley is forced to make some changes. But she has to make a stop home. Again amazing book highly recommend...

The beginning was very slow doing the back story and establishing the main characters. I did find myself very intrigued with the main charter Sibley. Her life is wild and has a lot going on.
—
The story goes between 2 different POV and I enjoy reading different perspectives of the story. This twisted tale was a psychological thriller between a mother and a daughter.
—
There were many secrets and lies throughout the story. I was very shocked at the ending. To me there were two shockers for one for each character. Definitely kept me going to see what happened.

This was messy. The writing is repetitive and the dialogue occasionally unrealistic, and it needed some serious editing. With about 50-75 fewer pages, this could have been a tight, disorienting thriller, but its bloated length sap the story of energy and propulsion.

The Imposter by Marin Montgomery
Pub date March 9, 2021 by Thomas & Mercer
This was the first book I’ve read by Marin Montgomery, so I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was a wild ride that kept me guessing until the very end. The book features two narrators, Deborah, the mother, and Sibley, her adult daughter. They have been estranged for 14 years, since the time that Sibley’s father died in an accident on their farm that was considered suspicious by some in their small town. It was always suspected by local gossips that Deborah was having an affair at the time, and in some way helped to cause the accident, but there was never any proof to back up this blame. Shortly after the accident, Sibley graduated from high school, packed up and left for good. She worked her way through college and law school, became a successful attorney and got married, all with very limited contact with her mother. In the present day, Sibley is struggling with depression and an alcohol addiction and seems to be suffering from blackouts when drinking – she sometimes can’t remember where she’s been or what she’s done. She is accused of sleeping with a client, and her law firm puts her on probation until she completes rehab. After a heart-to-heart talk with a friend, she can’t shake the gnawing feeling that she needs to resolve her issues at home with her mother before she can move on and heal. She crosses the country and shows up unannounced at her mom’s house, who still lives on the farm where Sibley grew up. Deborah is also struggling. Her relationship with her husband was not what Sibley always thought, and she is dealing with her own depression, anxiety and guilt over events surrounding her husband’s death years ago. To make matters worth, she suffers an attack one dark night outside her home which has long lasting physical and mental impacts. She has finally decided to start seeing a psychiatrist to work through some of her issues when Sibley arrives home. It becomes clear that both mother and daughter have been keeping secrets from each other for years. Together, they slowly begin to unravel the mysteries of their family.
I liked this book. It was entertaining. Both narrators were unreliable and confused at times, so it really kept the reader guessing about what had happened in the past and what was happening in the present. I liked the part when Deborah saw a strange man sitting in her living room – that really got my attention and had me wondering – is it a ghost or is she hallucinating? How serious are her mental issues? There were several interesting twists that I didn’t guess, and the ending was satisfying – the loose ends were tied up and questions were resolved. I gave this book 3 ½ stars – rounded up to 4.
It was a good, solid domestic thriller. Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.