The Imposter is the latest psychological thriller from Montgomery and explores the doomed reunion of a long-estranged mother and daughter. Arizona-based divorce lawyer Sibley Bradford is a deeply troubled alcoholic with this leading to increasingly wild and unpredictable alcohol-induced behaviour. Her career is not only on hold due to this but also due to accusations that she had slept with client Nico Marcona in the middle of handling his divorce. The firm she works for is at the end of their tether so her boss decides to order her into rehab but instead of arriving and checking in Sibley drives 1,300 miles to attempt to reconcile with her estranged mother, Deborah Sawyer, on the freezing Midwestern farm on which Sibley spent her childhood and formative years. But as the two haven't spoken in sixteen years, Sibley is unaware that her mother is struggling with deep-seated issues, too. Once at the farm, Deborah addresses her by a different name and then ambushes her several times with violent attacks she never saw coming. For some strange reason, this inspires Sibley to investigate her mother's past and finally discover the truth about the issues that tore apart their relationship — the death of Deborah's husband, Jonathan, who apparently died from a tragic fall from the barn loft many, many years ago and her mother's rumoured affair with veteran Edward Pearson, whose severe PTSD drove him to commit suicide.

But the more she looks into the past the bigger the chasm, between the two women, becomes. Sibley has reason to believe that Jonathan may not be her biological father after eavesdropping on conversations she wasn't supposed to hear. It isn't long before Deborah becomes incredibly suspicious of her own daughter and begins believing that whoever this woman is she isn't Sibley. Will the two ever reconcile? This is an original and enthralling psychological thriller crossed with a domestic-based drama about the complicated relationships we all have and how secrets can often be hidden from us for decades by the ones we thought were most honest and open with us. The strained relationship between Deborah and Sibley has some twists in the tale that I was not expecting and a few that I did predict. There is a slow-burn unravelling of lies, deceit, duplicity and the skeletons in the closet come tumbling out. I really enjoyed the unusual structure of the story, too; the first half was dedicated to Deborah and her trials and tribulations and the latter to Sibley’s. Alternating between past and present, first and third person and Deborah and Sibley's perspectives, this was a complex, multilayered and dark tale. Those who enjoy unreliable narrators will likely love The Imposter as you get a double whammy, two for the price of one as neither mother nor daughter seems to be in touch with reality. It is a suspenseful read with a creeping sense of tension and foreboding throughout.

This book unfortunately wasn't for me. It was a but slow. I found myself not wanting to pick it up. But I do think some will enjoy it.

This is a slow burn and it is a interesting story line. It just wasn't for me. But I'll definitely keep an eye out for this author.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC to review


I really tried to read this, but it was not a successful fight.
I read 30 percent of the book and I confess that I was a little disappointed.

The plot is very confusing and I feel I was not quite able to understand the story. I was very bored, throughout the pages I read.
In addition, I feel that the big plot of the book will be around the untrustworthy characters.
I'm a little fed up with this trope.

I am sad to be writing this on the day of the book's release.

I wish the author the best of luck.

I’m all for unreliable narrators, heaps of drama and if you throw in a small town, I’m sold. The Imposter had more than your fair share of all of the above.

In a nutshell: Sibley, a successful attorney with some personal issues, decides to go back home to her rural midwestern hometown and finally see her mother. The two have been estranged for years and it’s time to sift through some of the lies and deceit which caused her to leave home in the first place. Are both women really prepared to face up to the past and confront those old demons? And what really happened the night her father died?

I enjoyed the overall story and although both women were slightly crazy and dramatic it worked. This book was parts family drama with some psychological thriller and a small town mystery, so a good mix for a variety of readers. Could the book have been shorter? Yes! At times it was a tad repetitive, confusing and prolonged, and I just wanted to get to the point. But, I was entertained and curious to see how everything wrapped up at the end.

Sixteen years ago a tragic event happened to this small family, that impacted the whole community. Deborah the young mother with an abusive husband and Sibley the Daddy's girl. 

This story is full of the aftermath of abuse and covering it up to protect your children. The addiction that passes down genetically and the trauma that either pushes you up or drags you down. 

So many secrets that you are never completely sure what happened or which event culminated to where they are now. Sixteen years of not talking or being a part of each other's lives. They don't recognize who they have become.

I started writing this at 60% but seriously I was just on the edge of my seat trying to figure out the story the whole time but I definitely was wrong.

I'm new to the psychological thriller category but definitely love trying to guess who is behind everything. It was not who I thought. I didn't even see them coming lol.

I definitely recommend for those that love psychological thrillers! 

TW: Alcohol addiction, spousal abuse, addiction, 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you @netgalley and Thomas Mercer for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

The majority of this book is set in the Midwest and the description of Deborah getting the mail hit me hard. There is something about winter, where it is FREEZING out and you have to bundle just to walk to the mailbox and after this winter I felt that! If you have ever experienced a Midwest winter I know you would feel the same!
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I enjoyed the writing style flipping between Deborah and her daughter Sibley’s POV.
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On the outside Sibley has a great home, wonderful husband and successful job but things are not all as they seem. Things aren’t all as they seem in her mother’s life either and when she returns home secrets rise to the surface. When Sibley gets to her mother’s old farmhouse she finds out quickly nothing is what she thought it was. With a mysterious therapist, small town secrets and a prison nearby it’s fair to say this is not just a sweet Midwestern story!
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This book is out today!
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Thank you #NetGalley and #ThomasandMercer for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

An estranged mother and daughter find their lives woven together again after years apart in The Imposter by Marin Montgomery. This thriller packs deception, secrets, and past traumas into a fast-paced story that will have you wondering who and what to believe.

Told in the dual POV’s between Deborah and her daughter Sibley, Montgomery does a stellar job crafting two unreliable narrators whose thoughts and motives are questioned throughout the plot. The initial perception of these two characters is that they’re both unstable (albeit for different reasons) and to view the story from their perspective is akin to combing through a haystack to find the needle of actuality. The Imposter left me guessing through the stirring climax - and while I thought I knew where things were headed, I was still taken off guard with how plot points and characters converged.

The biggest snag for me was the pacing in which the story was wrapped up. The nature of the ending felt rushed and everything seemed to fall into place too perfectly.

Thank you to Marin Montgomery, Thomas & Mercery, and Netgalley for gifting me an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I have never read any of Marin Montgomery's books so I wasn’t sure what to expect! I always enjoy a good physiological thriller so I was happy when she reached out to ask me to review her latest book.

This is a story of a mother and daughter who are reunited after years of being estranged. Sibley decides to return home to her mother, Deborah, when her life seems to be unravelling in her personal and professional life. Returning home creates additional challenges because Deborah has had some of her own mental challenges as of late.

I liked how the story was told from two points of view. In most books I read this is done chapter by chapter but this book each character got their own part of the book and then in part three it’s told from both perspectives switching off by chapter. At times this style worked, but because both narrators are unreliable it was a bit confusing at times and the writing seemed disconnected.
The midwestern setting and the intense cold was very relatable as a midwesterner myself. In the beginning of the book Marin talks about writing this during quarantine. The isolation she felt during this time is reflected in the book.
I enjoyed the many plot twists this book took and how things wrapped up in the conclusion. It was quite an extraordinary ride!

Thank you to Marin and Netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

▪︎•▪︎ Happy Pub Day! ▪︎•▪︎

Thank you @Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for an advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Imposter by Marin Montgomery

I went into this story blind and held on tight. This was a dizzying experience and throughout I was baffled by the experience. As the story unfolds we understand there are life altering secrets that have shaped the lives of Sibley and Deborah. Sibley the daughter tried to run from them. Deborah the mother chose to sit squarely in them.

Both of these women and their choices reveal tragic life consequences for their ways in handling the circumstances of the past. The Imposter takes us down the small town rabbit hole and we get immersed in the unreliable narrative. Yup. BOTH of these women leave the reader with little to no stability in believing anything written on the page. 😒

Honestly, I didn't love the double smack of unreliable narrator. It truly is my least favorite reading experience because I am so anxious the whole story that nothing is real. However, Montgomery overall does a great job using this trope and in the end I wasn't left mad. I felt it was used effectively and purposefully and not simply to fill in plot holes.

There are twists throughout the story that I did not see coming. The ones I figured out earlier than I should I wasn't entirely confident in (hello unreliable narrative!) and it was a page turner until the end.

3.65 ⭐ and rounded up to 4 on Goodreads and Netgalley.


#TheImposter #NetGalley

Happy pub day to @marinmont18 with the release of The Imposter. Thank you to the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, and @netgalley for the gifted early copy.
Secrets, lies, and deceit run deep in the veins of Sibley and her mother, Deborah. After being estranged for many years, Sibley returns home to discover her family wasn’t what it seemed. As Sibley and Deborah sift through long buried history, they each discover the reasons for their estrangement are more shocking than either could have imagined.
This was a twisty thriller that starts off slowly but provides much needed background information about the characters. Told in alternating POV, Sibley’s is an unreliable first person narrative, while Deborah’s is told in third person. Each chapter made me question who was the mentally unstable one versus the liar. It wraps up with a clever and satisfying ending.

This book is narrated from the dual POV of Sibley Sawyer and her mother Deborah. I really like the fact that part one of the book solely focused on Deborah while the second part focused on Sibley. This provided insight into one character at a time which I found to very helpful. The final part of the book follows both characters and each chapter switches to a different perspective.

I liked this book because it had an interesting storyline and the twists are the reason why I continued reading because I needed to know the truth about what was happening. I found the pace to be slow for the majority of the book and I didn’t really connect with any of the characters.

I liked the twists, turns and all of the secrets that everyone was trying to hide. I never guessed how the story was going to end but it was definitely interesting.

I recieved an advanced copy for free, and this is my honest opinion.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review so, there we go.

This was my first book by this author so, I can’t compared with her other work but I found this book to be quite flat with no effervescence and real suspense. The storyline was a good idea but the way it comes out is somewhat bland to me.
The book begins by having both characters go through some life changing experiences and then brings them together and escalation of events happens until a nearly dramatic ending occurs. For some reason or other, I had pinpointed the various culprits from their first appearance and was disappointed at having been right on all counts.

This was a tough one for me. The writing was a bit hard to follow. Told from two perspectives, it jumps from present to past tense, first person to third person. While I understand this was a deliberate choice, it makes it somewhat hard to lose yourself in the story. The story, about a woman trying to reconnect with her mother and discovering buried family secrets, is, like many “domestic thrillers” these days, more in the variety of a soapy family drama than a true thriller or mystery, I found it somewhat melodramatic (LOTS of adjectives and adverbs) and ultimately it just did not thrill or scare me.

Though I did not connect with the book, I hope it finds an audience with readers who like the “domestic” side of the domestic thriller better than I do. Many thanks to Thomas and Mercer for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I loved the first half of this book, even though the main character is completely unlikeable. The second half was confusing and hard to follow because both narrators were unreliable. I’m honestly undecided on how I feel about the book. I loved parts and didn’t care for parts, so it’s hard to give it more than a 3 star review.

The Imposter by Marin Montgomery is a thriller about Sibley and her estranged mother Deborah. Sibley is an attorney, and her career is not going well. She decides to go visit her mother, but Deborah has changed. Both Deborah and Sibley are having really strange experiences, and they are not sure what's going on and who they can trust. If you like unreliable narrators, you are in luck because this book has TWO unreliable narrators. I couldn't really enjoy the story because I couldn't trust what was going on. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

Deborah, who lives alone on her farm, is attacked one night and can’t shake the fear that the mystery attacker will return. Her estranged daughter, Sibley, comes to visit for the first time since she left for college as she feels she needs to face her past before facing her current drinking problem. The past comes to haunt them both as they face the mysterious circumstances of Deborah’s husband and Sibley’s father's death years ago.

I found this to be a gripping story. Most of the time I didn’t know if the characters were unreliable or going insane and I found that compelling. I was surprised at the ending although I did find the resolution a little rushed. Overall, coming from someone who only reads thrillers sporadically, I found it to have all the elements I expect and want from a book of this genre.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the eArc in exchange for an honest review.

First off, it took me a long time to get into this novel. Sibley and Deborah are initially pretty hard to like, and they are not reliable narrators.

That said, both characters have well-thought out character arcs, and taking the journey with them is definitely worth it.

As a psychological thriller with unreliable narrators, this book is filled with twists and turns that you won’t see coming. If that’s the kind of novel you love, then this is the novel for you!

2.5 STARS - The Imposter's blurb about deceit, secrets and family dysfunction caught my attention. It is a great premise and I could envision the author's intentions with her plot and characters, but the delivery of these ideas fell short.

This psychological thriller had a muddled, choppy feel with most of the cast (besides Sibley's husband) being exceptionally unlikable. I get the whole unreliable character thing, but it was overdone here with both main characters having so many demons that the reader isn't sure what exactly is going on. It didn't help to clarify matters when Deborah's POV is told in the third person and Sibley's in the first-person.

There are some decent twists, long-held secrets, and major family dysfunction, but some of the plot points felt far-fetched and others not explained well, adding to that convoluted feeling. I believe the author was going for a story about these two women reconnecting despite their rocky past, but I never got the feeling that either of them really wanted to mend any fences.

This isn't the thriller I was expecting. It is more of a slow-burn dysfunctional family drama with a bit of mystery that had a persistent, depressing shadow lingering over everything. The Imposter had good bones and a decent final twist, but with its unlikable cast and disjointed telling, I never felt like I was in the middle of the suspense, but merely hearing about it second-hand.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this title by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

I don't even know what to make of this story. It is basically told from two perspectives, both of which are unreliable. Sibley who is an alcoholic with issues from her past, who gets let go from her job. Instead of going to rehab to save her job, she goes to visit her estranged mother.

The mother seems frail and unwell, and made to look "crazy" which I don't care for in thrillers. Mental health is not a joke and to be used as a plot line.

A lot of behaviors and actions are made to seem like hallucinations and tricks of the mind. Overall, the point is to resolve her issues surrounding the death of her father. A lot of rumors and truths are revealed and resolved in the end. Though even the ending had sections that didn't add up and were confusing.

This book was a great fast paced thriller that continued to have so many great twist and turns. I wish the author gave a little more detail and depth to characters so I could have connected with them more but over all it was a great suspense.