This books falls somewhere in the middle of all the thrillers I’ve read - I enjoyed parts of it and would not discourage someone from reading it if it’s on their TBR, but I’ve also read many thrillers that I would recommend over this one. The main reason this one didn’t stick out to me was it was just too slow. Nothing really happens until 75% of the way in. The first 75% is still an introduction to all of the characters and recaps some events that have happened in the past. It’s filled with some drama but the twists don’t come until the very end. I did think the ending was eventful though and I was anxious to figure out the truth.

This had a promising premise for me - idyllic small town neighborhood with lots of secrets and a recently released from prison potential murderer, but honestly it failed to deliver. At the start of the novel we find out that Ruby, who spent 14 months in prison for murdering two of her neighbors, has been released and is back in Hollow's Edge. Right off the bat you know you're about to thrust into lots of secrets and scandal. These neighbors appear to be close, but lurking under the surface is a nest of lies and cover ups that are slowly presented for the reader to untangle. We need to decide who to trust and who has everyone fooled. Pretty standard domestic thriller plot, but normally enjoyable and the perfect summer read.

Unfortunately, this one just didn't do it for me. I was very interested during the first half of the book; there are so many secrets and everyone seems a little sketchy. The problem for me really arrived in the second half of the book. I felt like there were a few really interesting directions the story could have taken but instead the author chose to make this read more like a soap opera than a thriller with any real stakes. There were a few moments where I was genuinely surprised (not shocked or thrilled...more like a mild "hmm that was not what I expected") and I truly wasn't able to guess the villain until it was revealed at the end. My issue really stems from the actual pointlessness of the plot. A lot of avenues I wanted explored more were waved off or conveniently glazed over and it felt almost a little lazy at parts. UGH and don't get me started on the ending...it was very weak and really brought home the pointlessness feeling for me.

All in all, I don't think this book is horrible, I just think it could have been better executed. If you enjoy domestic thrillers then I think you might still like this. It's quick and easy to read and even though there is a large cast of characters it isn't difficult to differentiate between them. This would be okay as a beach read...although if I'm being honest, there are much more successfully written small town domestic thrillers that I would recommend before this book.

3.5 rounded up. For the first 50% or so of this book I was certain it would be a five star read for me, which is why I rounded up instead of down with my rating. However, the ending falls so flat that I could not give it 5 stars. There’s so much drama leading to the conclusion, and then I was mystified that it ended the way it did, and not in a good way.

I received an advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

I like many a slow burning books. But usually there is a good reason it is written that way. I am not sure I know why this one was written in such a manner. We never get really deep in to the characters, and other than a general outline of "Ruby says she didn't kill her neighbors so some one else must have" there isn't really a deep and winding plot to unravel. The feeling of picking apart everyone's half truths (or half lies) never felt suspenseful or surprising. I really wish we had gotten to know both Ruby and Harper better. I really wish there had been more than monotone interactions between the characters prior to the big reveal at the end. This story felt like that last album a band is forced to make to finish out their unfair contract with a record producer. It is decent work but you know it could have been so much better.

Such A Quiet Place is a suspense book filled with lots of twists. The storyline will have the reader wondering what they would do if this happened in their community. I love Megan Miranda as she keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

I was hooked on this at the beginning by the slow burn whodunnit style. The opening was intriguing. I loved the small town feel. I love neighborhood dramas and this has some definite Desperate Housewives vibes. But then, I just got a bit bored with the storyline. I felt very little connection to any of the characters. I hated the two main characters, Harper was a pushover and Ruby was overbearing. This one unfortunately just wasn’t for me.

Ruby Fletcher was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of her neighbors, Brandon and Fiona Truett. All of her neighbors in Hollow’s Edge testified in her trial. When her conviction is overturned, Ruby returns to her Hollow’s Edge home, where she lived with Harper Nash. Harper, along with the other neighborhood residents are quick to question why Ruby has returned, and to suspect her motivations. Why would she come back? What does she want? And who is behind the mysterious notes slipped under Harper’s door?

Megan Miranda is a master of grey morality, and Such a Quiet Place is no exception. In Hollow’s Edge, the characters not only live near each other, but they also work together, essentially making Hollow’s Edge a character itself. In an author chat with Miranda yesterday, she shared that she intentionally kept the location of Hollow’s Edge vague to make it feel more like it could be set anywhere. And she’s write. I thought about what this would be like in my own neighborhood right up until I started trying to calculate places 6 hours from Philadelphia.

Like Miranda’s previous books, the characters drive the story here, and I found it difficult to tear myself away from this one. I was up until 3am reading the first half of this, and was jumpy enough that I definitely had to stifle a scream when i got startled while reading. I really enjoyed this one, found the twists/turns to be compelling, and I’m still thinking about it a few days later.

Such a Quiet place debuts on 7/13/21 and is the perfect summer read.

Thanks so much to Simon and Schuster, Megan Miranda, and LoveArctually for my #gifted copy. All opinions are my own.

Such a Quite Place.
By Megan Miranda.

My first read by this author.
This book the fist half was slow going for me.... then once you hit the half way Mark it starts picking up.. gets more interesting.

Hollow's Edge once was a Quiet Place...


Is a Small suburban, area Everyone seems to get along..


But Now Ruby Fletcher is Back.....
Hell no she didn't give anyone notice.... just Back after 14 months of being Locked up. For a Double Murder... Back like Nothing ever happened....

Saying Surprise.. to Harper her Roommate. Boy Was it Ever..
Ruby's Conviction has been overturned on a Technicality..

Now Ruby's back to prove she did nothing wrong. This small community, wants to pretend she doesn't exist..
Harper takes Ruby in old Roommate and all.
But soon Everyone has put the pressure on Harper.... Everyone wants Ruby GONE.
No one Trust RUBY...


But There's more to this story
Than folks are are willing to admit.
Sometimes things are accidents and sometimes its Murder..

I have to say this was a good Book. I Enjoyed this first book by this author I will read more by this author...


I received a copy of this novel through netgally for an honest review. thanks to Simon and Schuster.and to the talented Megan Miranda. Thank you for this Early Read...

On paper Hollow's Edge appears to be an idyllic place to live. It is quiet, has a neighborhood pool, a lake and a forest to enjoy. The residents in the community have a neighborhood watch and get together for community parties. Sounds like a lovely place to live - that is if you can get past the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. It rocked the neighborhood and had neighbors looking over their shoulders and pointing fingers. The neighborhood is now tainted. It is hard to sell their homes, and they are still reeling from testifying in court.

Ruby, who was convicted for the murders of the Brandon and Fiona Truett, has been released from prison after serving fourteen months. She lived with Harper and all the evidence pointed to her being the killer. But when Ruby's conviction is overturned and she shows up at Harper’s home, everyone is nervous and questioning two things - why did Ruby come back and are they safe? Soon with the neighborhood on edge, it becomes evident that not everyone told the truth about the night of the murders and that that this perfect community is not so perfect after all.

This was a fun little whodunit for me. The first few chapters were slow for me but after that the book went rather fast. I loved trying to figure out what really happened that night, trying to figure out each character's motivation and if he/she could be trusted. All that glitters is not gold in this neighborhood!

This neighborhood is an interesting group of people, and by the end we know more about them. The neighborhood of Hollow's Edge has a small town feel to it. Like Cheers, everyone knows you name, and they even know your business. Sometimes you must take the good with the bad when living in a tight knit community. As the book progresses, Miranda shows us that these characters are not as perfect as they would have their neighbors believe.


Such a Quiet Place was slow to start but ended strong. There are some twists and little reveals which are interesting. There is an underlying sense of tension throughout the book. I could feel the character's mistrust, their anxiety and their doubt. Speaking of the characters, some are likeable, some unlikeable and some had me shaking my head.

Plus, who did not enjoy reading their community page? Nice touch!

Overall, a tense whodunit which delivers proving that Megan Miranda knows how to build suspense and tension. If you have not read one of her books, give her a read. You may be surprised. Once the ball got rolling in this book, it was full steam ahead to the end!

Tense, riveting and entertaining

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Fans of Big Little Lies will love this one! This is an interesting story showing the consequences of the things that are left assumed and unsaid. The only downside for me was that the story took a while to build and was slow at times. Otherwise I was engaged completely and couldn’t wait to get to the conclusion. Didn’t see the ending coming at all. Definitely a good suspense/thriller and I would highly recommend. This was a great summer read as well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for this ARC!

One Sentence Summary: Two years ago, Ruby was convicted in the deaths of a couple in the Hollow's Edge community, and now she's back, but no one knows why.

Overall

Such a Quiet Place has all the makings for a great domestic thriller with a convicted murderer returning to the scene of the crime and upending carefully cultivated facades, secrets, stories, and relationships. At it's heart, it has two crimes that the narrator, Ruby's friend Harper, must solve. In her pursuit of what really happened, everything that made Hollow's Edge what it is, is overturned, disturbed and ruffled. Yet Such a Quiet Place has it's ups and downs. While some of the thrill aspects were a lot of fun, I found it to be a little predictable and some the tension a little lacking.

Extended Thoughts

It's late June, just before the Fourth of July Holiday, when someone walks into Harper's home. Unexpectedly, it's Ruby, Harper's friend and former roommate who had been convicted in the murders of the Truetts. But a mistrial was declared, making Ruby a free woman.

With Ruby's return comes a return of the fear and tension that gripped the community two years before. The community begins to fracture as secrets are forced out and as someone seems to be spying on them and leaving notes, calling into question whether anyone told the truth of what happened the night the Truetts died.

I really wanted to like Such a Quiet Place. I love the idea of a small community harboring secrets and then having them exposed. Unfortunately, it felt a little too predictable and lacked any real tension until the last 10%. It was a little slow to get going and perhaps revealed a little too much early on.

I did think most of the characters were actually quite interesting. Their characterizations were consistent, but they all seemed to have the same kind of aura of secrecy, keeping Harper at arm's length as though she hadn't been a part of the community for years. Harper herself was a little hard to pin down. As the story called for it, she seemed to waffle from one position to another, but tried to maintain a sort of middle of the road approach as to whether Ruby was guilty or not. I liked that they all seemed a little crazy, making Harper seem very alone and rightfully fearful for her life.

What I loved most was the setting. Hollow's Edge is quiet and secluded. While the community extends a little further, the story is centered on one particular area. The houses are close together and follow the same general floor plan, making it easy for all of them to navigate each other's homes. It was an interesting detail, perhaps to add a bit of drama or tension, but I didn't find it to be anything other than just a detail. One interesting thing was that much of the community was connected to the college across the lake, but it actually felt irrelevant. I liked that it indicated the residents of Hollow's Edge had very intermingled lives, but the novel takes place during a holiday, so the campus isn't really seen much, so doesn't play a large role.

The community was fascinating. I loved how it felt like something like a well-oiled wheel. Everyone knows something about each other, has ties to each other, but there are still buried secrets that start to slowly come to light even as everything functions as expected. Everyone knows each others' business, and everyone is suspicious of each other because of it. But they really are a community, which contributed to the only really delicious part of the story.

Such a Quiet Place really lacked a lot of the thrills I expected. I thought something felt a little off, like they were all choosing to focus on something irrelevant, not at all doing a great job of hiding something important to the story. Instead, they just seemed to ignore the truth while it was readily apparent to the reader. I did like that some things were unexpected to me, but most of the story was just really focused on Harper trying to figure out everyone's secrets to piece together what really happened. There were pieces that were irrelevant, feeling like they were thrown in to add a little meat, but didn't actually do a great job at helping to obscure what was going on. Overall, I just felt things were missing and threads were left hanging and I couldn't help thinking the whole time that they were all focusing on the wrong thing.

Such a Quiet Place had all the makings of being a really good domestic thriller, but it's predictability and lack of really twisty turns just makes it an entertaining quick read that also leaves a few threads dangling. I really liked the ending as it was fast-paced and kept the revelations going, but the rest of the story was a little slow and left me feeling a little frustrated.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a good summer read, not only because it takes place in the summer. The mystery was engaging and I didn't quite expect the ending. Overall I recommend! It's one of my favorite megan miranda books now.

Hollow's Edge is the perfect little neighborhood. Neighbors greet eachother from their front porch, and get together for Barbecues. It was the ideal place to live until the Truetts were murdered.
Ruby was convicted of the murders and served fourteen months before it was overturned. Once released, she could go anywhere she wanted. The only place she wanted to go was Hollow's Edge.
The sudden reappearance of Ruby has set the neighborhood on edge. No one wants to live next to a killer. But Ruby still claims her innocence, and plans to prove it. She just needs to get everyone talking, to show their true colors.
Everyone in Hollow's Edge will start to wonder just how well they know the person that lives next door..

Visiting Hollow's Edge is like strolling down Wisteria Lane. From the outside you see perfect homes and a friendly faces, while behind closed doors are the secrets hidden from everyone. Megan Miranda has made us peeping Toms. We are voyeurs who watch unseen as families go through their everyday life in what they think is the privacy of their own homes. In the end she has us questioning how well we really know the people on the other side of the fence.
I couldnt help but be suspicious of every character in this book. Everyone has something to hide, it was just a matter of who wanted their secrets buried the deepest. I was quickly sucked into the paranoia, questioning everything. Before I knew it the book was over and I was still feeling anxious. Always the sign of a good book!
I am a huge Megan Miranda fan. She writes the best fast paced, twisty mysteries. I read this book in one sitting, unable to put it down!

A page-turner about what might happen in your quiet, safe community if there was a tragedy and a subsequent witch hunt for the perpetrators on NextDoor. This was an intriguing idea well-executed as always by suspense queen Megan Miranda.

The story focuses primarily on Ruby, the alleged killer who was convicted and then released back into the neighborhood when her conviction is overturned on a technicality. Harper, our narrator, is shocked when the exonerated killer, her former roommate, shows up at Harper’s door, preparing to move back in as if nothing has ever happened. Ruby appears to be investigating the crime for which she was convicted. Does she know who the real killer was? Or was she the killer all along?

I liked the pace of the story, the constant suspense, and the well-written small town characters. Part of the resolution of the mystery left me somewhat dissatisfied, but it had a good point to make. (I won’t spoil it, but I think of you read it, you’ll know it when you see it.) Overall, a strong page-turner by Megan Miranda that solidifies her as an author whose latest book I must always get my hands on ASAP!

Thanks to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster, and the author for the well-written and suspenseful ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this advanced reader copy of Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda.

Such a Quiet Place asks us all how well we really know our neighbors and what would we do if one of them was accused of a terrible crime. When a couple dies in the quiet neighborhood of Hollow's Edge, all clues point to Ruby Fletcher, one of their own and Harper Nash's roommate. It's just coincidence that all of the clues come from Ruby's neighbors, friends and even her own roommate, Harper. When the conviction is overturned and Ruby comes back to Hollow's Edge looking for proof of her innocence the whole neighborhood gets turned upside-down and has to answer some very hard questions about what kind of neighbors and people they really are.

This was a fine book, well-written but not the most original plot you'll ever read. It was interesting enough to keep me wanting to read but in the end I didn't find anything here that I hadn't read before. The plot felt overly complicated for an ending that felt like a letdown, at least to me. I hadn't read anything by Megan Miranda before and this one was just okay. Still a good pick for poolside/beach reading!

Megan Miranda has a way of capturing you - not with wild fantastical telling, but making you believe you’re sitting at brunch across from someone telling you this story about your town. She has a gift. READ THIS ONE.

Megan Miranda's books are always a hit or miss for me, and while it had potential, Such A Quiet Place was a miss.

It started off as a slow burn, albeit with a strong beginning, but then petered out until I was bored.

The MC, Harper, was such a pushover that I didn't care for her. The people in the neighborhood weren't fleshed out enough, and at times I would confuse them with each other. And the most interesting character was only in part of the book.

I didn't guess how or what happened, but I latched onto a suspect early on and I ended up being correct. Even so, I was still expecting a heart pounding ending, and it ended up being anticlimactic.

Put your sleuth hat on and take a drive into the suburbs for this well-written and entertaining ride.

This is my first Megan Miranda experience, but it won't be my last. The most chilling stories I've encountered aren't the ones filled with aliens, ghosts, or clowns who cackle maliciously at you from the creepy depths of a sewer . . . they are the stories that are most plausible, the ones with circumstances real enough to find their way into your life, into your home.

This steady-paced novel will make you question your seemingly comfortable surroundings . . . Do you think you live in a safe neighborhood? Do you think you know your neighbors?

Check your surveillance footage and take a longer look across those well-groomed lawns. Hold tight to your secrets, your keys, and your trust!

I'd like to thank the author, NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read an advanced copy of Such A Quiet Place for an honest review.

Such A Quiet Place is a suspense book filled with lots of twists. The storyline will have the reader wondering what they would do if this happened in their community. Megan Miranda is an author to add to your auto-buy!

After her conviction is overturned, Ruby returns to Hollow's Edge, a beautiful subdivision where the crime for which she was accused took place. Fourteen months ago Ruby was accused of killing her neighbors, the Truetts, a married couple that lived next door to her. Her former roommate, Harper, is shocked by her sudden return to Hollow's Edge and so are the rest of the neighbors. Everyone is on edge. What really happened that day? Is Ruby back for revenge?

Another very interesting and well written novel from expert storyteller, Megan Miranda. I am a fan of her previous novels and this one, once again, delivers! It is a slow burn mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I had to know if Ruby was guilty or innocent. I loved the ending, it was perfect! If you love mysteries then you will want to check out SUCH A QUIET PLACE.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be posted to my Instagram Blog (@coffee.break.book.reviews) on July 12, 2021.