If you want someone in your back pocket to look out for you, you need Lena Scott. She is tenacious, sassy, witty, and whip-smart!

LIKE A SISTER by Kellye Garrett is character-driven, suspenseful, and propulsive—a Black woman in New York City trying desperately to solve why her estranged sister was found dead of an overdose in the Bronx. The cops want to dismiss it as an overdose, but Lena knows it is more.

Edgy and gritty— a riveting crime thriller that keeps you turning the pages into the wee hours of the morning.

When Lena's estranged younger half-sister, Desiree Pierce —former reality TV star is found dead in lingerie in the Bronx with cocaine and no shoes, she is shocked, especially when she discovered this bit of info from the New York Daily News. She earlier found out her sister was back in NY from Instagram.

Lena hated this. She knew her sister liked to party, drank too much, did drugs, and hung out with a fast crowd, but she does not believe her sister died of an overdose. She was too vain and did not like needles or track marks.

But no one seems to care about a dead Black woman.
But Desiree Pierce wasn't just any Black woman.
She was Mel Pierce's (hip-hop producer star) prized daughter.

How did a woman like Desiree Pierce end up dead in a park alone the morning after her 25th birthday party?

Lena will do anything to get justice for her sister. Even though they had been estranged, she must find answers. She has to get in touch with her family in the process, not something she is looking forward to. Lena had distanced herself from the high-profile lavish word of her mogul father and chose to live with her aunt in the Bronx.

Now she wonders if Desiree was coming to see her.
She needed her and she was going to find out why.
But the cops of course like to leave it as an overdose.
That does not work for Lena.

She immediately reaches out to her sister's friends through her social media account. Who can she trust?

Lena will stop at nothing until she has answers from postings leading up to the death. Who would want her sister dead?

RAZOR-SHARP! I enjoy a strong, flawed Black woman heroine and the sarcastic first-person narrative was superb. What a sleuth and complex wild ride!

The author knows how to create an entertaining read, from mystery, suspense, danger, family dynamics, class, race, discrimination, racial, self-discovery, and privilege— incorporating social media and pop-culture, and best of all, HUMOR!

She is too good to end. Please bring Lena back. My first book by the author and I cannot wait to see what comes next!

While reading I thought of my black best friend Wesley (beautiful, smart, and sassy) with numerous PhDs. She has kept me in stitches laughing for over twenty years, no matter where we live, we will never lose this friendship.

A special thank you to #Mulholland Books #NetGalley for an ARC.

Blog Review Posted at www.JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pub Date: 08 March 2022

Like a Sister is about guilt-ridden Lena who after her famous sister died in a very public way, now Lena wants to find out what really happened.

A whodunnit for the ages. Interesting characters and storyline. The Instagram, music scene and a reality star makes this an enthralling story.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I must preface this novel with a warning to references of drug use and addiction, overdose, drunkenness throughout the novel. I think it’s important that readers know what they’re about to get into when they open the book. I also want to state that I wanted to enjoy this novel much more than I did, but I didn’t NOT enjoy it either. It is a solid effort and I will continue to read Garrett’s work.
My nits with this book lie with what I felt was a tug between a literary fiction novel about a woman who lost her sister while they were estranged and at odds and feels like she needs to ‘find out who she really was’ and a mystery novel in which a woman’s sister turns up dead under mysterious circumstances and the police treat it like a young socialite overdose. From flashbacks to snappy arguments with Auntie, stepmother, father, even business rival, this book was more than a mystery- and a mystery is what I thought I was getting.
It seemed long, with superfluous chapters of running around New York and PA, some details seem nonsensical (Why would a con artist help you try to find her secret identity and send you to the one place everyone knows her??) and when we get down to the real killer and why Desiree had to die… it was anticlimactic for me and entirely too much “you need to really talk to so and so” for the ultimate reveal.
Lastly… I just did not like Desiree. She’s written as a spoiled and irresponsible drug user and alcoholic who seems to always be on social media drunk and/or otherwise inebriated, fabricating stories and situations to keep her name in the press. I didn’t feel any sympathy or her at all- only for Lena who perhaps felt terrible about cutting her sister off, and now that rift can never be mended. The search for what happened to Danielle seems to be Lena’s way of making things right.
Anyhoo, all that rambling to say I was expecting one thing, got another. The another wasn’t all that terrible, just not what I thought I was getting from the way this book was marketed.

This book is so smart and engaging. Every time I thought I had it figured out, it zigzagged. I loved the complicated family dynamics, the commentary on celebrity culture and how we present our lives versus how they actually are—and the twists!! The twists!! Highly recommend.

Kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time! Its one of those books that I wish I could re read again for the 1st time.

Through a headline in the paper, Lena Scott learns that her younger half-sister Desiree Pierce was found dead in a Bronx playground the morning after her twenty-fifth birthday party. The two had been estranged for two years as Lena was fed up with Desiree’s destructive behavior after achieving fame on a reality TV show. While the police assume the death was an accidental overdose, Lena doesn’t buy it and is determined to learn the truth as well as deal with her guilt that she never reached out to make amends with Desiree. She reestablishes contact with their father, hip-hop mogul Mel Pierce, who may have some secrets of his own.

Author Kellye Garrett has created a very appealing character in Lena. She’s been greatly impacted by the loss of her mother and being the child “from a previous relationship” to a famous music executive. Living in the Bronx, she’s working to get her master’s degree at Columbia and plans to start a nonprofit to help Black families cope with cancer. She's smart and brave, especially when she has to put on her “Super Black Woman cape”. You’ll root for Lena as she navigates her way into a world of fleeting fame and social media excess to find out what really happened to Desiree.

This is a sharply written, insightful and suspenseful book I am happy to recommend.

A solid mystery with a smart and funny amateur sleuth.

When Lena, sister of a social media influencer, doesn't buy the headlines that Des died from an OD, she sets out to prove it. Ripe with red herrings and suspicious characters, this book has all the twists and turns. I could have done without a few of them and I don't think the story would have suffered, but I did really enjoy the guessing game.

The pace mostly worked for me in this cozy style mystery, but with the tone being more thriller, I wanted more tension and less drawing out of the conclusion. I wanted to feel like Lena was risking things to solve this. As far as characters go, Lena was funny and smart and witty and she had some great one liners. I enjoyed seeing her solve the case.

For writing styles in general, I appreciate a good simile and metaphor, but this one had a few too many and it pulled me from the story on occasion. Overall a great mystery and would buy more from this author.

Thanks to NetGalley, Mulholland Books and the author Kellye Garrett. This was a good read for me but it read a bit simple for me. I do not know if it is because I read mostly thrillers with a little bit more grit to it but it still held my attention. I have to say I did not like Shitnuts...like why not go all the way and just say it. I do not know. I was upset every time it said it. It may have just been me. Otherwise, it was a easy read and a smooth read and I like that it was a relatable read for people of colour.

i had high expectations for this book, but sadly i didn't enjoy it very much. the premise was excellent but the execution left much to be desired. the mystery just didn't intrigue me as much as i had hoped it would.

Lena becomes an unlikely detective after her estranged reality star sister, Desiree, dies of an apparent drug overdose. The facts around Desiree's death raise more questions than they answer, and Lena is determined to find out the truth.

From the first pages, my interest was piqued by the murder mystery with a long list of suspects and the complicated family dynamics involved. Lena is a wonderful lead character; she is strong, feisty, determined, and funny, with a vulnerable side. I loved exploring the family issues as part of solving the mystery of what happened to Desiree.

I enjoyed this twisty, entertaining domestic thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for a digital copy of this book. I'm voluntarily leaving this honest, unbiased review.

This is a great whodunnit! Well paced and just when you think you know, you realize you know nothing. At its heart, the story is about a fractured family and the fall out from previous bad parenting decisions. The more Lena unravels how and why her sister died on the playground, the more she learns about herself, her father and mother.

This is a compulsively readable mystery/thriller that's almost impossible to put down. The main character is great, and it's so wonderful (though it's sad it's still so noteworthy) to read a great thriller with a Black woman as the protagonist, set in predominantly Black spaces. There were a few elements that didn't fully work for me, such as the narrative voice's tendency to use off-the-wall analogies peppered throughout the text, but overall this was very immersive and engaging, and I'll definitely be picking up more from Kellye Garrett.

Straight from the headline news. As I started reading this book, I realized I have heard this story before! It's actually a real-life incident that happened to a "reality" star. The author nicely used that story as the backbone and branched off into a sister searching for the truth in her sister's overdose. I did enjoy the storyline however it was a bit confusing on the reasons why this happened to her sister. Nevertheless, Like a Sister by Kellye Garret was a 5 star from me. Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. I am eternally grateful!

Lena is devastated to learn that her estranged half-sister has died of a drug dose. The body is discovered within walking distance of Lena’s house, suggesting that reality television star Desiree was planning a reconciliation. While Desiree was known to abuse drugs, Lena is certain her half-sister would never inject heroin. As Lena digs deeper, she finds plenty of people with reasons to want Desiree dead.

As a big fan of Garrett’s HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE series, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on LIKE A SISTER, and my high expectations were exceeded with this phenomenal thriller. Lena makes a fantastic protagonist. She’s smart, full of heart, and devastated by the loss of her mother to cancer, she’s driven to create a non-profit to help Black woman in similar situations. I adore Lena’s way of looking at the world and how she is comfortable being herself despite the fame and money her father and sister possess.

The secondary characters are well developed and fun. My favorites include Aunt E, the partner of Lena’s deceased grandmother, and nosy neighbor Ms. Paterson. This book nicely captures the complexity of familial relationships. The falling out Lena had with Desiree provides excellent motivation for Lena to learn the truth about Desiree’s death. The suspect pool is wonderfully deep and kept me guessing what really happened to Desiree.

LIKE A SISTER is one awesome read.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Mulholland Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

This was such a great, fast paced thriller! I enjoyed the social media aspect of the novel. I finished the book in two days.

I was thrilled and excited to read an advanced copy of Like a Sister having loved Kellye Garrett's Hollywood Homicide. Thanks, NetGalley!

Kept me turning the pages, sometimes holding my breath, often chuckling. Deep, complicated characters, tight plot that had me guessing (wrongly, mostly). I didn't even mind (much) that it's not based in Los Angeles!

This has a very compelling premise! I really loved this arc. It has a reality tv series set in the Bronx setting.

Like a Sister is the book you want to return to when you’re reading a book you don’t want to (not a subtweet, I’m referring to a first draft of my work in progress, lol). Kellye Garrett has crafted both a fun and twisty mystery that has all the elements I love: reality television, broken familial relationships, and a great lead character. Already well known in the crime fiction world, Kellye Garrett is poised to draw new fans with Like a Sister.

Thanks to Mulholland, NetGalley, and the author for the early read.

Woah. A mystery with a strong, black female protagonist who is smart, funny and honest? For once, a suspenseful twisty book that doesn’t feature a drunk, unreliable woman (See any recent novel beginning with “The Girl” or the “The Woman”). Lena is so refreshing and different and I loved it. As a bonus, the side characters have real backstories that are interesting and engaging enough that I still want to know more about them. The themes of family, friendship, home and place are almost more important here than the mystery itself.
As new characters were introduced and Lena followed their trail, I thought I saw what was coming and was disappointed that it was so obvious. Once I realized that I was wrong, I had renewed faith and kept going. I do feel that the actual killer turned out to have less of a motive than some of the other options, but sometimes that’s how things work, so I wasn’t mad at the ending.
I think my biggest problem with this book is that I’m not ready to let these characters go. Please please please make this a series! Hear me out: after successfully solving Desiree’s murder, Lena and Erin realize that’s where they should focus their energy and put the money that Erin and Desiree had been gathering for a club into the beginning of a PI agency. Boom. Then I can sleep at night knowing that I get to see everybody again!
Thank you to Netgalley and Mulholland Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review and thank you to Kellye Garrett for my new favorite word, “Shitnuts.”