Such a good book! Highly recommend it to others. Would love to read more by this author. Loved the cover as well very eye catching!

The Lifeguards was an okay read for me. I didn’t find the characters all that memorable and the story never stuck with me after reading it. I found the chapters from the boys POVs the most enjoyable to read and think maybe if the mothers were a little more likable or relatable, it would have hooked me more. Overall, it was a quick easy read that did have me turning pages to find out what happened on the greenbelt. Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC copy to review.

3.5 stars rounded to 4

How far would you go to protect your children? That is the main theme of this book. It was a quick read which kept me engaged and guessing the whole time. I didn’t expect going into this book for it to be suspenseful but there were a few times I felt a lot of suspense waiting to see what was going to happen. There were some twists and turns that I did not see coming and the ending definitely took my by surprise. Overall, I enjoyed this book but it did leave me with a lot of questions too. The epilogue didn’t reveal as much as I would have liked. I love the cover, super gorgeous and eye catching!

Thank you Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for an ARC in return for my honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I felt like it took off from the get go and I had trouble putting it down. I loved the setting in the Austin area because I am familiar with that city so I recognized several of the street names, restaurants, swimming holes, and neighborhoods that the author referenced. I had trouble putting the book down. I loved the switch between characters and the multitude of personalities and lifestyles that were represented. I also liked how test messages, articles from the newspaper, and feeds from social media were added in and contributed to the story. I was surprised by the twist with Whitney at the end, but I also felt like some vital things were left out. I had to really process what happened and still feel like maybe I'm not right and at the end of the book I like to know what happened. As a mother, this book had difficult moments for me and I found myself pondering how I would have handled that situation. I felt like all the characters could have been developed more and this was definitely a plot driven rather than a character driven story. I have and will continue to recommend this book!

Now that Whitney, Annette, and Liza’s boys are teens with jobs as lifeguards they can let their guard down and relax for the summer. Or so they thought until their safe suburban life is turned on head.

I love books that give you a close look into the inner lives of families, especially the rich and wealthy. There are three women best friends, all with teenage boys, and we get an inner look at their lives. As a mother of boys, this was interesting to me. What do you do if you suspect your son? Is your own son capable of violence? These are all questions that come up, but in the end you are surprised, or maybe not, but I was.

“Maybe in devoting herself to protecting her son, she had been mistaken. Maybe keeping him safe hadn’t been the problem.”

The Lifeguards comes out 4/5.

I always look forward to Amanda Eyre Ward's books, but this wasn't a favorite. The plot had so many loose ends! Why bring up nanny issues when it's not brought up again?

Loved it! It was a pleasant surprise because I wasn't expecting this story at all. From the moment I started, I couldn't put it down because I had to know what happened to Lucy and who was behind her death. There were definitely twists and turns as the story unwound. New Zealand should have been a huge wakeup call to the family. I definitely know why Xavier put a lock on his door. I had to keep reminding myself that these kids are only fifteen. The ending was definitely unexpected. I wished there would have been a bit more explanation. How did Liza get out? What ends up happening to Whitney and Roma? Liza was too concerned with fitting in with her extremely rich friends, that she never listened to her son. Charlie tried telling her what happened, but his mom didn't want to listen. Loved getting to know Whitney, Annette and Liza. These women showed that they would do anything to protect their children. Whitney is proof of that. She surprised me the most. At times it seemed like Xavier, Bobcat and Charlie had more sense than their moms did.

Definitely recommend the book. Loved the characters, story and writing style. Look forward to reading more books by the author.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Unfortunately this was not for me and I abandoned it about half way through. I think it was trying to be a domestic thriller about privileged women in the same way that The Husbands or Big Little Lies or The Undoing was, but it spends a million times more effort describing the physical trappings of wealth than it does building suspense or mystery. Also, I found that all of the women, though having different backstories, were written in the same voice.

I thought this would be a fun summer read, but the plot seemed repetitive and the characters all sounded the same.

This book was not what I was expecting, based on the blurb. I thought it was going to be dramatic "chick lit" but it was practically a thriller, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

At the very start, we know something bad has happened in this idyllic rich neighborhood. Then the narrative backs up and gives us glimpses into what lead up to the crime, alternating with what's going on at the current time. We get the perspective of three different moms whose teen boys are somehow involved. We also get narrative from some of the side characters as well as text transcripts, online posts, and other formats that help us put the pieces together.

While the main focus of the book is about the crime, it also explores the opiate addiction and class dynamics. While all the characters weren't likable, they were well developed. The writing is sharp and I could clearly imagine this neighborhood and nearby greenway.

I highly recommend it for readers of contemporary fictions as well as thrillers.

Disclosure: Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book. What follows is my honest review.

In the privileged enclave of Barton Springs Austin, Whitney, Liza and Annette have built a 16-year long friendship centered around their sons who are as equally close. The trio of women and their three sons dubbed the three musketeers have an inseparable bond. Nothing can come between these friends until something does. The lifeguards is a thrilling read full of mystery, deception, and manipulation. I read the entire book in one go and had a blast reading it. My only gripe is the ending which I won't give away was too vague for how much I felt I had invested in the characters.

The lives of three families become entangled when their sons find a body at a local swimming hole. This story shuffles back and forth in timeline and perspective to unravel this suburban mystery.
I found the characters to be believable and sometimes relatable. The story was slow-moving and the ending chapter felt lackluster.
Definitely a beach read type of mystery book. Wouldn’t reread, but may recommend to a friend if they were into this specific type of story.

*I was gifted a digital copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Wow. This was a page turner!

On the surface, it looks like a story of a Summer - 3 moms in a rich neighborhood get together and have too many cocktails and talk about their sons' new summer jobs as lifeguards. But as you get deeper into the story, multiple POVs weave together and you learn that one of the moms struggles with her lack of citizenship and disdain for her husband, one is barely making ends meet and is running from the past, and the third has a very carefully curated facade that is ready to crack with her own family's ignored issues. Despite their issues and their differences, what ties them together is their deep love for their children that knows no bounds, making no action unfathomable.

At the beginning of the book, the boys race to one of their moms' many boozy parties with a shocker of a find - and the book beautifully unfolds the story little by little until revealing all in the end. Perhaps a little too quickly and too neatly, but overall a really great book that had me wanting to do nothing else but read it. It was about finding out what exactly happened on that fateful day, but it was also about learning to be true to yourself, the ferocity of motherhood, and the secrets that mothers can keep.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into with this book. Whitney, Liza and Annette are all mothers trying to do the right thing for their children. And then their sons find a dead body. Did they have something to do with the woman that died? What a thrilling ride, I fell in love with so many of the characters and I fell in hate with so many others. I cannot recommend this book enough!

I enjoyed alot about this book. It's a mystery/thriller that quickly engages and holds your attention throughout with multiple POVs that were easy to follow. The book is set in Austin,Texas and follows along with three affluent women who meet and become fast friends bonding easily because they are all pregnant. They stay close friends, raising their children together, who in turn become close friends as well. Their seemingly perfect worlds are turned upside down when a body is discovered close to their homes. The mystery aspect had me constantly guessing and the book did have some comedic parts,especially the neighborhood women posting on their ultra-lux neighborhood Facebook page. It felt very tongue in cheek and I enjoyed that. However, one fault I had with the book is it felt rushed at the end, so alot was left unanswered. Overall, I think it would be a perfect beach read.

For readers who enjoyed The Hunting Wives, this is similar, but in my opinion, done much better.

**Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me an advanced copy of this book and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion. I am posting this review to my Goodreads account immediately and will post it to my Amazon & Instagram accounts upon publication.

3.5 stars for this novel.

The Lifeguards is about three best friends, and their sons who are also best friends over the span of several days in early June in Austin TX. Liza and Charlie, Annette and Robert aka Bobcat, and Whitney and Xavier. This novel explores friendship and family and the ties that bind us when things go awry. It seems that everyone has their own secrets, some more serious than others, in this book.

I read this book quickly, it is paced fairly well in my opinion, after the initial introductions of all the characters, the mothers and their families, and a detective who becomes involved after a tragedy early on in the book. That said the book wrapped up far too quickly. Some plot lines are completely abandoned and never explored. I also found the inclusion of message board threads, website blurbs, news articles, and text messages spaced throughout to distract from the overall story, even if some of the inclusions were humorous.

To summarize, I could see this read being perfect for a vacation where you don't want anything too complex or deep but it still left me feeling unsatisfied.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for the electronic ARC copy of this novel for review.

By the time I started this, I had forgotten the premise and the cover really made me think it would be a rom-com (it is most definitely not), but it turned out to be a neighborhood thriller/mystery that was hard to put down! Gave me very similar vibes to The Gifted School, and while I didn't love the writing itself, the plot was unique and caught me by surprise.

Whitney, Annette, and Liza have spent the last fifteen years as best friends and neighbors in Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood , raising their sons who are also best friends. This summer, their boys have even become lifeguards together. One night, as the three moms are enjoying a relaxing happy hour, the boys come back from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole with news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created....they found a girl dead at the place they were swimmng at .
This book was so much fun! It is told in alternating points of view from each of the characters, and goes back and forth between before that night and present day. You slowly get to piece together the mystery of what happened and find out if she was killed or if it was an accident. There are also pages of texts, local mom forum chats, and police interviews. There is lots of misdirection, as a lot of people are not telling the truth about a lot of different things. Marriages that seem so perfect on the outside, aren't at all what they seem to be. A cop who's wife died is struggling with the realities of being a single parent. A single mom, living above her means, is trying to fit in with her friends and keep up appearances so no one will know how broke she really is. This is like reading a gossip column for your neighborhood (albeit maybe fancier than where you live), but the gossip is the same everywhere you go. If you are looking for a book that will put a smile on your face and make you feel like you are cuddled up on the couch with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee reading about the latest gossip, with a juicy mystery thrown in, well then, this is the book for you.

Thank you to Random House Group-Ballantine and NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this book! I really enjoyed this novel and will definitely be checking out some of Eyre Ward's other books. I am a sucker for rich people's mama drama, and when that's topped off with a murder, it's a book right up my alley. My favorite part about this book was that the three sons were as involved as the mothers. While you know who did it from basically the beginning, I didn't mind, as the plot was more about the why than the who.

I went into this with the women’s fiction genre in mind, but to me it was more a family drama/thriller. Think desperate housewives meets Austin-moms.

3 moms all from different ways of life bond over the birth of their sons. Now 15 year olds they are lifeguards one summer and at the beginning of summer something goes wrong. The mom’s have secrets, the sons have secrets. This alternates in POV between the moms, with snippets from the boys, as we discover how a woman was murdered.

I honestly really enjoyed this till the end. The ending was just ended. Like what happened in the secret cave? I want to know what came of Roma as well. How did life turn around so quickly? I felt there were a lot of good plot lines and nothing truly got resolved. Very good start to like 90% of the book though.