Personally, this book just wasn't for me at this time. I think it's largely due to the fact that I'm not in the mood for this genre, but hopefully in the future I can give it another chance. I struggled to motivate myself to pick it up – but I've heard good things from other people, so I recommend reading other reviews for this one.

Everyone is trying to escape something in this book. Julie has always tried to escape her past, not realizing how much she would miss it. She has totally changed her looks, married a man with money. None of that is working so she decides to up and buy a house and leave her husband. This house comes with a lot of baggage. The minister who lived there with his family, has to leave his church suddenly (women scandals) taking his wife and two sons but leaving behind his son from his first marriage. Tom is totally messed up and revenge is all he wants. He also wants his house back. His stepmother Sandy just wants to find herself again too. Can she leave her narcissistic husband? And then there is Jess, Julie's daughter, who is so unhappy with having to give up her luxurious life for this. It will all come to a head and who will come out of it alive?

This is extremely fast paced. Besides the inevitable confrontation, there are some side stories with a prostitution bust and a Nazi game played at a party. Lots going on here, folks. I enjoyed how quickly things moved. Sometimes these stories drag but Ms. Rouda set a really good pace to keep you engrossed. Some of the characters were a bit over the top, I thought a little too much, but the storyline played out to a good finale.

Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy of this book for review.

I received a complimentary copy of this book as part of a Let’s Talk Books tour. Thank you to Amazon Publishing and the author for the opportunity to read and review!

I'm a big fan of Kaira Rounda and was super excited to get an early copy of her latest!

I love a multi-POV thriller. And I love unlikable characters. I don't need to have someone to root for if the characters are interesting. And this book is full of complicated and fairly unlikable characters (looking at you Tom...).

This book tackles a lot. There's domestic abuse, sex scandals, Neo Nazis and Nazi drinking games, abuse of power, topics on religion and shame, incels....and the list goes on. For me, there was a bit too much going on and I would have liked less focus on Tom, who was the least compelling character to me, and more of a focus on Roger, Julie and Jess and their lives. And Sandi and her backstory.

Roger was a dark horse character for me that grew on me more and more as the book progressed. I could use an entire book on his backstory, please!

If you've read other books by the author, this one definitely has a different vibe to it. I look forward to seeing what she comes up with next!

Please do take time to look at trigger warnings for this one.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for gifting me a digital copy of the latest book by Kaira Rouda - 4 stars. If you haven't read Best Day Ever by this author, grab it now - it's definitely a favorite of mine.

Julie Jones has left her marriage to Roger, a wealthy man who viewed Julie only as arm candy. Their daughter, Jess, isn't interested in living with her mother in the house she just bought on the wrong side of the tracks of their hometown. But Julie is excited about her fresh start. There's just one problem - her house has a carriage house on the property where the former owners' son is currently living. He has to be out according to the contract but doesn't seem interested in leaving. He's more interested in his new plan for revenge.

There's a lot going on in this book and none of the characters are very likable. But it was an intriguing domestic suspense novel that I enjoyed. Lots of lessons here about what's really important in life.

Kaira Rouda knows how to write the “creep factor” creating chapters that cause anxiety and build to an explosive ending! I have read and loved a few of her books and was excited to read this newest one!

Thank you Netgalley, Thomas & Mercer and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I have read a couple of this author's previous books and also lately have been on a bit of a thriller kick so was excited to read Somebody's Home by Kaira Rouda. Somebody's Home starts with Sandi and her husband Doug moving away and selling their house in Oceanside to Julie and her daughter Jess. We learn that Doug's son and Sandi's stepson Tom have been living in the carriage house and have been given two days to move out. I have to admit, I wasn't keen on the fact that he was given only a short timeframe and, in a way, I understood why he acted out in the book. Julie and her daughter Jess are looking for a fresh start and have brought the new house to Cherry Lane. Both Sandi and Julie's husbands are control freaks and it's their way all the highway. Julie has the guts to leave but Sandi hasn't quite hit the spot. Though by the end of this book both will finally be set free in an unexpected way. One of my other qualms about this book is when they talk about God, they called God her instead of him and as Julie was Jewish and the Jewish aspect is featured heavily as another storyline, this annoyed me a bit as being brought up as a Christian myself. I don't condone murder and killing normally but I do have to say with Somebody's Home, in a way everybody that deserved justice got it and everybody that was scum - also got what was coming to them which I loved to see. Everything is in the right place. Somebody's Home by Kaira Rouda is the perfect read for those who love scandals and psychological thrillers.

After loving Rouda's book The Next Wife, I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately it wasn't my favorite. I felt like all of the characters were overwhelmingly over the top caricatures of actual characters. The story was complex and had potential but the motivations of the characters just seemed wildly unbelievable to me. I'd like to try more of her books to see if they're all this over the top. I felt like with The Next Wife, the characters really fed well to the plot, but here it just felt like beating a dead horse. Roger's character grew a lot very abruptly and it did not feel genuine to me. All in all, I was entertained but I didn't love it.

I really wish I loved this book because I have loved all of Kaira Rouda's other books but this one was just not for me.
I could not get into the story and it felt like it dragged at most points.

I love all of Kaira Rouda's books and this was no exception. I was sucked in fron the first chapter and could barely put it down! Highly recommended for thriller lovers

I had just been introduced to Kaira Rouda with her book, The Next Wife, and was eager to read more by her.

Somebody’s Home was very disappointing on several levels. There was not one likeable character in the whole book. Well, maybe the minister’s wife – I did like her, but she was very weak. The parental approval of the debauchery of the teens reminded me the horrible book, “All We ever wanted”.

And the fact that there was just so much human evil depicted and/or promoted left me wanting to close the book, but I didn’t.

The bottom line is that this was a horrible story about horrible people. I can’t recommend this to anyone.

I do appreciate this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, Thomas and Mercer, in exchange for an honest review. Needless to say, this review is my own.

This is a story about secrets.

This didn’t quite work for me- one twist in particular really took me out of it. I think it may be directly connected to the time when I’m reading it, but it’s just not a narrative element I’m wanting to encounter. That being said it was a quick, suspenseful read!

Thank you so much Netgalley & Thomas & Mercer for the eArc!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ecopy for my Kindle.
This book had too much profanity and was a little "dark". The story line was good, but it just wasn't a good book for me.

Julie Jones is done with her controlling husband, Roger, who ignores her and their daughter except to shower them with money. She buys a small fixer upper house on the other side of the tracks and takes her spoiled, entitled daughter, Jess with her to raise her with better morals. Pastor Doug and his wife, Sandie, sell their house to Julie to move to Temecula and his new congregation after his misdeeds with a few of the divorcees in their old Parrish. Their oldest son, Tom lives in the carriage house in the backyard and Julie allows him an extra weekend to move out. Over the course of a weekend, lives are changed due to the choices made in the past for this community.

Someone’s Home is a incredibly interwoven thriller with many twists and turns, but without any likable or reliable characters. It didn’t engage me as much as this author’s work normally does, but wasn’t a bad read.

Ms. Rouda is one of my go-to authors.

The time frame of this story is one weekend involving 2 families and each chapter is the POV of one of the characters. The characters were 3 dimensional whereas I could vividly picture them in my mind.

I found that the story was intriguing as it, in my opinion, touched upon issues in today's climate. The suspense relating to those issues had me turning the pages.

I did find the book to be an entertaining read.

01/19/22 Posted to: (links below) Goodreads. Instagram, B&N. Will be posted on blog 01/21/22

Amazon refused with this explanation: "Thank you for submitting a customer review on Amazon. After carefully reviewing your submission, your review could not be posted to the website. It appears your content did not comply with our guidelines." Or it could be that I posted another review yesterday. This is the first time I got denied.

I try to give a brief synopsis of each book prior to my review but I kid you not, this book has so much going on that I don't even know where to start. With multiple POV's (and there are many), I enjoyed getting to know each character but it was astounding how unlikable each of them were! I didn't mind this book but it wasn't as exciting as I had hoped despite a cracker of an ending.

Read this if you enjoy:
✔️ unlikable characters that will have you shaking your head from the sheer absurdity (and stupidity) of their actions!
✔️ fast-paced and nail-biting suspense
✔️ multiple POVs with short chapters that will eventually culminate in a tragic ending
✔️ endings that send positive message: that however bad we become, however many bad decisions we make, we can always choose to change for the better. It’s never ever too late to change.

Told from half a dozen or so POVs, Somebody’s Home is a fast paced domestic thriller. Kaira Rouda gives us front row seats to collapse of two families. Julie Jones has finally decided her marriage is over and wants to make a fresh start with her daughter. As for Sandi Dean, despite her husband’s indiscretions, she only wants to hold her family together, including her estranged stepson. Each family harbors their own secrets, each struggles with their own problems, brought together because of a house.
I’m not always the biggest fan of books told from so many points of view, but I have to say this book hooked me from the very start. And it’s only through Ms Rouda’s decision to use the multi-POVs that we really get to know this cast of complex and flawed characters. (some more flawed than others) The tension really ratchets up as the story rushes to a thrilling climax. I could see this making an excellent miniseries for one of the streaming services. 4.5 stars out of 5, rounded up.
I’d like to thank Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of Somebody’s Home.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/somebodys-home-kaira-rouda/1139072253?ean=9781542026116&bvnotificationId=4d1ba07b-78c1-11ec-8be3-12eb6a793e67&bvmessageType=REVIEW_APPROVED&bvrecipientDomain=gmail.com#review/198878855

https://www.amazon.com/review/R27HGP0LYJJU0T/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

I really enjoyed this book. All the male characters were seriously flawed & the women were just trying to keep things together. I felt really bad for Julie that she was trying to move her life forward & it seems like every challenge came right at her all at once. It was nice to see Roger & Doug get some redemption in the end, The build up of this story towards the climax was excellent & the end was satisfying.

Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for the chance to read this book.

Another twisty and suspenseful novel by this author. Her characters are all flawed and mostly unlikable but are convincing in the roles they play in the story. Two families become intertwined as events in their lives spiral out of control.

(3.5/5) This book hooked my in the first chapter but I felt it slowed down quite a bit for me after the first few chapters, then picked up again around the last six chapters. Even so, it was still a fast read. I had to keep reading to find out what Tom was up to. Told in alternating voices of many characters, including Tom, I have to say that I didn’t really care for any of them. I suppose that sometimes horrible characters make for a good story. And it worked here in this book.

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