Very interesting read! A grieving mother ends up connected with other grieving mothers of deceased children. They vent about getting rid of the person who caused their children's deaths. They are led through doing things that ultimately lead to the revenge killings. I didn't want to put it down as I wanted to see what happened next. The ending was a little surprising to me but it was a fun read even though it dealt with grieving mothers. I will have to look into more by this Author. Thanks to NetGalley for giving me a copy to review.

Wow! I did not want to stop reading this, it was so good! Draws you in quick and keeps its hold on you until the very end.

This was a twisty, dark, psychological thriller with a little bit of a cat and mouse game. Camille lost her daughter five years earlier, and in her grief, she still struggles to move past her death and continues to focus on the young man she believes was responsible for it. In a moment of weakness, she draws the attention of an online group that is devoted to grieving mothers who have lost a child. Thus starts the twists and turns. Camille shares the story of her daughter's death on the dark web and is quickly greeted with an opportunity to get revenge on the young man responsible for her daughter's death. Be careful what you wish for. Camille is taken through a series of tests, some of which she follows to the T, and some of which she decides to take some risks, all in the name of figuring out if the dark web is just a game or reality. I tore through this book in a little more than a day - there were so many surprises that I wanted to keep turning the pages to finish it as quickly as I could.

A Harrowing, Addictive, and Twisty Revenge Tale I Could Not Put Down

In Alison Gaylin’s thriller or what I call femme-noir, the author introduces us to Camille Gardner. Camille is still grieving the death of her fourteen-year-old daughter Emily who died five years before. The young man responsible for Emily’s death wins a humanitarian award, and at the ceremony, Camille loses it. She publicly accuses the Harris boy of Emily’s death. Camille is dragged out, and her breakdown makes the news and social media.

Enter—The Collective, a group on the dark web run by someone known only by her screen name .001. The Collective is known as Ağlayan Kaya, the weeping stone, and allows only women who have lost a loved one at the hands of another. Its mission is to exact justice on those rich enough or high enough in society to escape punishment. Camille is pulled into the group and to say anything more about the plot would spoil this harrowing, modern tale.

This is a revenge tale for the internet age. The Collective sets itself apart from other revenge tales because it starts with a sympathetic premise—justice—and follows a sympathetic main character. Wouldn’t we all like to see people who are guilty of crimes and who escaped their fate punished for their bad deeds, especially when it concerns the death of a child. Unfortunately, money can buy a lot of justice in our system, but revenge, or vigilante justice, can also be blind and, in this instance, dangerous.

Camille finds out just how dangerous. I could not stop reading as Camille discovers there is no pulling out or quitting the group. She also can trust no one. I could not put this book down. And to say the end was unpredictable or a surprise is an understatement. I actually gasped!

Besides a phenomenal, thought-provoking story, the writing is crisp, the concept stellar, the atmosphere spooky, and the characters fully fleshed out. I ached for Camille and understood her rage. I thought the ending was well earned and fell more into the noir category than thriller.

Thanks to #NetGalley, #AlisonGaylin, and #WilliamMorrow for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars, rounded up for the wild ride it took me on!

Camille is a grieving mother who goes viral after publically confronting the man she believes is responsible for her daughter's death. She finds herself invited to a sisterhood of women just like her, but this is MUCH darker than your typical support group. What mother wouldn't want justice and karma for their children and these ladies are ready to take things into their own hands.

The story is designed really artfully by Alison Gaylin. The secretive nature of The Collective and the dark web (pun intended) of potential characters involved is so engrossing but also means the reader doesn't know what to expect next. There were at least two gasp-worthy moments from me that I didn't see coming and I often felt like I couldn't get my eyeballs to read fast enough at times.

If you are looking for a thriller that will get your heart pumping, this was such a good one!

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for an advanced copy of this and the opportunity to share my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Riveting!! The plot of this story is quite unique, and takes the reader on an emotional journey through a mother’s loss, grief, anger, revenge, and so much more! The emotions are universal and timeless, but the contemporary setting takes you on a journey into the darkest parts of the Internet, with twists and turns, vindications and epiphanies. How far would you go for justice when the legal system has failed you?

Thank you Netgalley and William Morrow and Custom House for the arc of this book. This was a new author to me and I will be looking forward to reading more of her books. What a great story! Is revenge sweet? How far would you go to get revenge? Camille is about to find out.
Camille was a great, if unlikable, character. It was so interesting how she got drawn deeper and deeper into belonging to the collective. We never really get to know the other characters, maybe on purpose.
The writing was good and kept me reading to find out what happened next. At some point I thought I knew what was going to happen but I was wrong!
If you want a book that's easy to read and will make you think and guess, this is it!

It is rare I give 5 stars but this book is truly deserving of it. I was told that I had to read this and I am so glad that I did! It is full of twists and turns and a shocking discovery at the end that I didn't see coming.
The main character, Camile, is obsessed with getting justice for the man that she believes killed her daughter. She is sought out by a group called The Collective. They are mothers just like her trying to get justice for their children that were taken away from them too young by others.
By using the dark web, the killing of perpetrators begins. No one is really sure of who of the group is orchestrating what is happening to those who took their loved ones from them. Those who did so are beginning to die one by one.
Camile is beginning to suspect that this group isn't all it is supposed to be. As she becomes further involved and tries to find out the identities of those in the group, she becomes a target herself.
Truly a work of suspense and will keep you guessing until the end.
Highly recommend!
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book kept me thinking about grief, grieving, forgiveness and REVENGE too far into the night. Sometimes books have an interesting premise and fail to deliver, but that was not the case with this book. Grief is different for everyone and exploring the darkest feelings one can have made it a stand out. Another win for me in the thriller column that has been running low for too long.

Ehhhhhhhh. This was meant to be a thriller but honestly it took so long to get started and it stretched disbelief so hard that I just couldn't really get into it. And then the ending seemed to come out of nowhere. I've been trying to think where I missed the cues and I can't think of them. So. Not great.

Terrific book and very well-structured. I've read books with similar concepts, and they were all too episodic for me. Gaylin ties everything together from the get-go, and her twists are so well-orchestrated, they should be taught to wannabe thriller writers. Some of the medical details didn't work for me, but that's quibbling.

Thank you, NetGalley and William Morrow/Custom House for this ARC!

Well, this book was certainly different. I love a good revenge story/thriller, and this definitely fit that bill. It has been five years since Camille lost her teenage daughter, and the grief that she feels over it has literally destroyed not only most everything in her life, but her sanity and ability to move forward with life. After a vengeful moment encountering Harris Blanchard, the young male college student responsible for her daughter's death, Camille is handed a card with one word on it. Soon, Camille follows the trail of the card and ends up online, on the dark web, in a group called The Collective. The Collective is a "safe" place for other mothers like Camille, to vent about the things that you envision or wish would happen to the person that is responsible for your child's death. This book had me hooked until about 65% into it. It went from a 4 star down to a 3 to me because I just didn't enjoy the "reveal" toward the end. I will say, though that the final sentence of the epilogue was a nice touch. 3 stars!

This book had all the twists and turns to keep me guessing about the outcome. Without giving away the entire plot, the book deals with grieving women who have lost their children through violence and what they would do to enact justice on their child's killer. The Collective is the answer.

Grief can wreak havoc on a person. Could it drive you to vigilante justice? That’s exactly what it does to Camille Gardner after losing her daughter and watching the one who allegedly took her life go without punishment. The plot line is what kept me turning the pages. Unfortunately, I never really connected with Camille. That could be because I have never lost a child.

Kudos to Gaylin for keeping me guessing all the way to the very end.

This fast-paced, complex thriller sucked me in and did not let me go! Thank you so much to William Morrow and Custom House for my NetGalley ARC!

Pub date: Nov 2

Camille Gardner is still suffering five years after her daughter's death - then she decides to do something. She joins The Collective, a dark web community of women like herself dedicated to revenge. But what seemed like a fun game turns very real when her daughter's assailant turns up dead.

Most of us wouldn't resort to revenge in real life, but we've probably thought about it. The Collective takes those thoughts and runs with them. I loved the mysterious nature of the group and the complex, well coordinated events necessary to plan their undetectable revenge killings. I was super impressed at how the tasks Camille completed came up again later in the narrative - great planning by author Alison Gaylin! Camille is a sympathetic character; you can feel her pain and see her getting in over her head before finding out it's too late to get out.

There are plenty of twists in this narrative - and I guessed pretty much none of them. Like many of my favorite thrillers, I read this one in one sitting because I just had to know what would happen next. If you like dark, unlikeable characters, this is a great pick for spooky season. I'm going to rate this one 5 stars (!) because it exceeded my expectations and was such a wild ride.

After a rather uncomfortable beginning, this book takes off and never stops until the last page. Some books are roller coasters, this one is a runaway train! The unrelenting pace, the brooding atmosphere, compelling plot and overwrought main character combine to make this story of revenge one you cannot put down. My copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it.

This is my fist time reading this author but I would definitely read more. This is an easy thriller that kept me reading. I was always wanting to find out the next piece of the puzzle. I'm always looking for different types of thriller story lines and this is one I've never read before , I thought it was different than you would normally read. The concept of an online cult type group helping ladies " take care of" each others worst problems in life no questions for most part is a great concept.

The Collective is a tense and unrelenting thriller from Alison Gaylin. Camille Gardner has been suffering for the past five years after the rape and death of her teenage daughter. After she makes a scene at an awards ceremony for the young man responsible, Camille goes viral as the grieving crazy mother.
But she's not alone in her grief. There are many woman who also carry a grudge and want vengeance. Camille becomes part of the collective, a secret group of women who work together to wipe out their children's oppressors.
The more involved she becomes, the more Camille realizes she's way in over her head. The collective is everywhere and they don't take no for an answer.
This has the potential to be a runaway hit with "movie" written all over it.

Love love loved this book!! Alison Gaylin is a must-read author for me and she did not disappoint with The Collective, an intriguing story about grief, revenge, and what it means to create your own karma. This book kept me hooked all the way through to the unexpected ending. Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the advance copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hate, justice, and revenge all mixed up into one heck of a page turner. Imagine if you were able to be a part of a group that would go to great lengths to provide justice to those that the system failed but you also have to do questionable actions in exchange, would you do it? Highly recommend this book.