“The Imposter”, by Marin Montgomery is a psychological thriller about an estranged mother and daughter. The book had me going “whaaaatt?” throughout the story. The book unfolds through the points of view of Deborah and Sibley. Sibley is a highly successful lawyer in denial about her alcohol addiction. After she is sent to rehab, she decides to face her demons and go home to her estranged mom, Deborah, who has been living alone in her farm house after being widowed. Deborah’s behavior becomes erratic and the town is concerned for her. Their stories are told separately but as their lives start to collide at the farmhouse the story starts to combine both characters.

The thriller had a slow start because of back story and developing characters and it does pick up in Part 3. Personally, I like books in which the story picks up fast but in this case, the slow build-up did not bother me. I really got a sense for the characters and the dysfunction behind the mother daughter relationship.

You will honestly not see the end of this one coming. Wow!! I was satisfied with the ending. Some parts of the plot seemed predictable, however, the author did a good job of embedding those into things you will not be expecting. As the story unfolded, so many questions were being answered that I felt myself moving through the book quickly.


If you like slow building stories, then this psychological thriller might be worth checking out.

Triggers: Alcoholism and violence

4 stars

Finally finished my first NetGalley read! The Imposter by Marin Montgomery came out on March 9th, and I think that I’d give it 3.5 stars.

There are some decent twists, but some of them I saw coming, and I think that the suspense might be more propulsive if it were condensed into a shorter book. I often felt like the writing was overly expository, the opposite of the adage, “show instead of telling.”

There are some interesting plot lines, but we don’t need as much background on all of the characters as we ultimately get. I’m curious to know whether Marin Montgomery has other books that people have read. If so, let me know what you thought!

I think the ending (last 20% of the book) was by far the strongest part in terms of pacing.

CW: alcoholism, affairs, psychological manipulation, corruption, medical malpractice, institutionalization, domestic abuse, car accidents, infant mortality.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the book. I was initially intrigued by the synopsis, but I wasn't a big fan of the characters. Thank you, NetGalley for this early copy.

I recommend that you pick up a copy of Marin Montgomery’s new release, The Imposter, for your next read. This book is told from multiple POVs around a mother and daughter’s estranged relationship and the secrets that caused Sibley to run many years ago. Now that her perfect life takes a wrong turn she finds herself back in her midwestern town she fled all those years ago.

Unfortunately from the very start I struggled with this book. The writing felt disjointed and didn't flow; it felt as though a lot was implied or hinted at but there was never enough to figure out what that actually was. Deborah was not a likable character and I struggled to connect with other characters, the writing style or the storyline. At only 15% in, I decided this was going to be a DNF for me.

I really had every hope to finish this one. While I feel like it had the potential to be a good story it just fell short. I got about 50% in before I gave up. I am not one to not finish books but I just couldn't do it with this one.

This was my first @marinmont18 book and it won’t be my last. The Imposter is a slow burn that keeps you guessing until the end. I loved that I didn’t know exactly what was going on the entire time, despite having moments that I just “knew” what was happening. I loved the multiple POV. Toward the end my heart was racing. I rate this book a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 and would recommend to others. You can get your copy today!

Synopsis: Sibley is a successful lawyer with a problem of her own that leaves her being reprimanded and on a work probation. When she can’t get over what is becoming of her life she flees to her small hometown to spend time with her estranged mother Deborah. She quickly realizes things are the same when she left home and secrets must come out for both mother and daughter to fix their relationships and themselves.

When life blows up for Sibley, she embarks on a journey to fix her present self by confronting her complicated family dynamics. She quickly goes from a bad situation to a storm of psychological intrigue. Mothers, daughters, fathers, and friends...is anyone who we think they are? The Imposter will keep you asking what's going on until the end.

Thank you NetGalley. I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The cover of the book is simple but makes sense to the genre / storyline.
The writing style was .. just okay. It didn't draw me in right off the bat, and I honestly struggled a little to keep myself reading.
The blurb made the book sound much more exciting than it actually was, unfortuntely.

The Imposter by Marin Montgomery was a decent mystery. Deborah is the mother of Sibley and they have been estranged for years. Deborah lives alone on a farm. She gets attacked by a masked figure one night and starts having thoughts about things that happened in her past. The book started off confusing to me. It was narrated by Deborah and she kept referring to events in the past in a way that made me feel like I missed some information somewhere. These events kept being brought up as a secret but I didn't know what the secret was and it was somewhat confusing to me. I'm glad I kept with the book thought because it ended up being a very good story. I will definitely read this author's books again. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The blurb hooked me. Deceit, lies AND a painful past? Sign me up!

The story started off good. There was enough unexplained things happening that had me invested into the story. Oh Sibley…how I wanted to like you. I tried but you made it so hard. Deborah on the other hand, I just felt bad for her. Neither one were very likable. At times it felt like the story wasn’t going anywhere. Just rambling and wandering around. Then it found its way towards the end. Sort of. The ending was ok but I was expecting much more from this story that I felt let down.

I felt like this story was missing something. It was an ok read and like I stated above, I expected more. Despite my feelings about this particular book, I will check out others by this author. I give this 3 stars.

I will not be reviewing "The Imposter" elsewhere. I skimmed through it to get a sense of the story but found it impossible for me to read seriously. No doubt there is an audience for this book but it's not me. I found the two women, Deborah and Sibley selfish and unpleasant as were the majority of characters. The constant lies were confusing and tiring. The writing style made me uncomfortable. I doubt I will read this author again.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy for an honest review.

The imposter is page Turner from start to finish, I couldn’t wait to find out the secrets behind Sibley and Deborah’’ troubled past.

What can I say about a book that had nothing going for it except exceptional writing? Despicable loser characters mired in self-doubt, alcoholic fugues, acting out badly and harming all in their concentric circles. Even the good guys are bums. Nasty story with not an inch of self redemption and why I kept reading is a mystery I have yet to crack.

Short summary, I didn’t like the story, hated the characters but thought the writing and ability to twist, turn and confuse was excellent. Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy.

This book was a page turner from beginning to end. I literally couldn’t put this book down and finished in one reading. A daughters life implodes. She goes home but her mom isn’t like she remembers. She isn’t like her mom remembers. Twists and turns being to a stunning conclusion. Amazing character development and integration. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I very much love a psychological thriller, but this one fell a little short for me. I found that I didn’t really care about any of the characters, and found some of the character interaction not believable. It was also a bit unnecessarily confusing and dragged on a bit.

Having said that, it still wasn’t a bad read. I enjoyed the concept of the story and it was intriguing enough to make me want to keep reading - what’s going on with all the creepy stuff? Is one of them completely bonkers? Are both of them?

A couple of tweaks to the way the story unfolded and this could have easily been a 4 or 5 star book.

The Imposter is told across two dual story lines involving Deborah and Sibley, an estranged mother and daughter. In the initial chapters Deborah is receiving psychiatric support after being assaulted in her home. Who knows why? Sibley has been fired from her job as a lawyer and her marriage is crumbling, her behaviour most foreign to her, sand he has no memory of the behaviour she’s alleged to have exhibited. And now she’s off to rehab.

I kept a record of my thoughts as I was reading this book and they ranged from:
I have no clue where this book is going, let’s get this started, or I’m going to lose interest.
Deborah is annoying AF. I’ve never heard of Sibley as a name, Sybil yes, but Sibley???
Sibley’s not where she’s supposed to be. WTF? She’s has an entrenched alcohol addiction, what happened to her withdrawal?
Sibley overhears Deborah’s therapy session, just happens to stumble into the psych’s office, despite not having been home in about 17 years.
Sins of the mother but I’m still not sure what’s going on here.
If it wasn’t before, this is getting weird.
Are you kidding me, if I wasn’t 72% I’d DNF this book.

I’m really not sure what to say about this one. It has some promising content - intergenerational stories, resilience following family violence and childhood trauma, and the possibility of making amends. But the stories were tenuously linked, a bit chaotic, and just so fanciful it wasn't palatable. Lies that were propagated and the reasons why were just too flimsy for me to be credible.

This might be a case of wrong time, but a right book .... it might just be best for someone else on this occasion.

I'm sorry this one wasn't a hit for me. I'm thankful for Netgalley and Thomas and Mercer for providing an ecopy of this book to read.

Loved this one! So easy to read and lots of twists and turns along the way. Definitely a quick read and one I recommend.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This story is told in dual POVs by two unreliable narrators. It follows Sibley, an alcoholic attorney and her mother. Past and present collide, secrets and lies are uncovered. This one was a bit of a mess for me. At the halfway point I liked it but it just fell apart after that. I feel like the plot relied too heavily on the unreliable narration and suffered because of it. It wasn’t terrible, just not my favorite

I thought I would love this book. It sounds like an interesting story, but unfortunately, it didn't live up to expectations.
I like reading flawed characters, which Sibley is, but I just didn't like her and the things she did didn't make sense. The same goes for Deborah.
I also didn't like how the story swung back and forth between the characters. Usually I like this, but on this occasion it just annoyed me. This is because something could happen within one character's story, and then in the next chapter it was as if nothing happened, or something could be cleared up by the characters speaking to each other!
I thought the book dragged on, and there was a lot of nothing in it; things and conversations that didn't need to happen, repeating dialogue etc. I think the author also tried to create suspense by doing things like: Sibley having a conversation with someone about something that happened, but not mentioning names or specifics; trying to get us to be intrigued. This backfired on me and just annoyed and bored me.
By the end I didn't really care about what happened, and everything was wrapped up quickly. I probably wouldn't read another book by this author unfortunately.