Reviewied for NetGalley:

I had mixed feelings about this one. Triple perspectives, flipping through the past and present, follows Jenna, Donnie, and Nico.

I enjoyed Jenna’s story the most, and could have just read the story of her: a stepmom and retired assassian.

I think I got lost in the too much, not caring about all the characters and timelines.

This is the first Alex Finlay book I've read, but boy, it will *definitely* not be my last! The various perspectives of the different characters provides so much insight and takes you on this weaving story that all fits together like a glove in the end--which I did NOT see coming. I just wanted to keep turning page after page to find out what happened, and it did not disappoint at all. I just wish I'd had more time to read it all at once, because it was hard to put it down and do that pesky thing called life. I will certainly be picking up another title of Alex's ASAP.

5 stars

*Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy. I voluntarily wrote this review, and all thoughts and comments contained within are my own.*

The story follows three best friends who all ended up at a group home as adolescents. They form a friendship and have some secrets that they keep together. We follow the story with them in the group home 25 years ago, as well as them in current time in their adult hood. The chapters are separated by characters as we begin to unravel what mysterious occurred at the group home as well as who is attempting to uncover these secrets and why.

This story had a great tone and I really enjoyed Jennas chapters. I was hooked initially but as the story went on it felt less fleshed out and messy. New characters were introduced that felt bland to me and over all because of the odd pacing I felt myself caring less and less about the story line.

Overall, the book is a 3/5 stars for me. Thank you to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

#FirstLine ~ PROLOGUE : Twenty-five years ago - At the top of a knoll through a break in the trees, five teenagers stand at the edge of a shallow grave.

This book was FANTASTIC. A new favorite. It was so perfectly plotted. I loved the varied perspectives. It was intense, well paced and satisfying. I never quite knew what was going to happen, which made it all the more fun. What a wild ride!!! A must read for all thriller lovers!

What a ride!

What this book is good at is immediately throwing you into the action. I feel like from page one we’re already in on this cat and mouse game. I was not expecting Jenna to be a former assassin just like I was not expecting an attempted murder for hire, hide in a suitcase, chase thru the city. All from the first chapter?! I’ve never read from this author but man do they know how to hook you right from the beginning!

The high action was my favorite part. All three perspectives lived very different lives, but all we’re playing at running away from these mysterious people trying to kill them. Some of my favorite scenes are these cat and mouse game (especially when Jenna and willow are car chasing for their lives!)

The middle and the quick end is where I kind of got lost. The middle felt as thought it was dragging compared to the quick fire beginning and rapid ending. I felt some scenes weren’t all that necessary. The ending also left me feeling confused. Like nico blackmailing arty and Ben got Ben killed and it was all part of Arty’s plan? Maybe I missed something but it felt off to me.

Overall, this was a solid thriller. Definitely one of the most thrillery thrillers I’ve read in a long time! It felt like an action movie! I will pick up more from this author!

Hearing much love for Alex Finlay, I decided to pick up What Have We Done, his latest thriller.

Three characters have paths that connect themselves to Savior House and the body they buried there. All three believe that the past is in the past. But that all changes when they each are attempted to be murderered. Running for their lives, they must be reunited to save everything they've ever known. But will they be too late for others to discover what they've done?

I enjoyed the dual point of view short chapters that Finlay produced. I enjoyed Jenna and the twins point of views the most as they felt suspenseful. But, I was not able to connect with the male narrator as I felt the voice didn't fit the atmosphere needed. Overall, I was able to figure out the mystery halfway through and listened to find out how Alex Finlay tied it together.

This book was very different from Finlay’s other books. Although not my favorite, WHAT HAVE WE DONE is action packed and unique. I loved reading from each characters POV. It was suspenseful until the very last page.

Alex Finlay has done it again! This fast-paced book takes you through the lives of three past friends who are being hunted. Why? Because of what they have done in their past. I couldn't put this book down, I was loving every second of it. The ending is fairly predictable and a little lackluster, which is why I'm giving it 4.5 stars.

What Have We Done was my first Alex Finlay book! This was a quick, gripping mystery about kids who grew up in a foster home known as the Savior House. The book takes place in the past, and 25 years later when all of the kids are adults living their lives. The story is told in multiple POV’s, by Jenna, Donnie, Nico and Artemis. The kids have a secret that no one can know about from their past, but everything becomes uncovered when someone hires a hitwoman to kill them.

I’m kind of stuck between the fact that I liked this story and it also fell flat. One thing that really bothered me is that throughout the entirety of the story, you read about the past and present and there is no indication of when you switch from past to present. You were reading about the character as an adult and it randomly would switch to a memory from the past, and it made it really confusing.

I also found the characters kind of boring. How does Jenna go from the savior house to an assassin to yoga step mom??

I wanted to read more about the savior house, and what occurred there when they were kids. I will say that I loved the short chapters, it made for a quick read. Also the plot is interesting and you want to keep reading to know what happens. I wasn’t expecting some of the plot twists, and that’s why I gave this one 3 stars.

Thank you to Alex Finlay, NetGalley, and St. Martins Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this new adventure, by Alex Finlay. This was a fast paced, edge of your seat, plenty of action, and not knowing what’s coming around the next corner book. If you enjoy thriller stories, I think you will enjoy this one.


I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

What have We Done is the story of 5 teenagers from an abusive group home who commit a crimes 25 years ago, and it appears like someone has found on what happened. I really wanted to enjoy this book but found it just okay, I did like the character Jenna but didn't really care for Donnie or Nico. The book was action packed but just a little bit over the top for me.

3.5-3.75 stars

This fast-paced, action-packed story was all over the place pretty much right from the beginning. I was expecting a sort of typical murder mystery/thriller/return-of-the-past book, and although it had elements of those pieces, it was more of an action/adventure thriller. Some sections of the plot required real suspension of disbelief, and a few details felt kind of convoluted when trying to bring multiple perspectives together, but all together, they created an intriguing and exciting story, and I did enjoy it.

A stay-at-home mom with a past.
A has-been rock star with a habit.
A reality TV producer with a debt.
Three disparate lives.
One deadly secret.

This description is what grabbed my attention immediately. Rock stars, reality tv...sounds like a fun ride ahead. Only, it really wasn't. The book was slower paced and I found it to be more of book with a "Die Hard" movie scenario as opposed to a thriller.

The book follows three POV's. Jenna, in current adulthood, is an assassin, Donnie is a drunk once famous rock star and Nico is a big time producer with an even bigger gambling debt. I am okay with the three POV's but the POV's also go randomly from present day to past. Very randomly.

Jenna, Donnie, and Nico share a secret from their youth. They resided together in group home and one night, something happened. We spend the pages searching to find out what it was. In the meantime, someone is targeting them current day trying to kill them.

I did not particularly like any of the main characters. Jenna was tolerable, she seemed to be the stronger of the three and I think the book may have been better if it was primarily from her POV. Donnie and Nico were not very likeable.

There are definitely some twists and turns in here but there were also moments of confusion from me when I was thinking "huh?"

It was okay but missing a bit of the fast paced action. I enjoy a book which spikes my blood pressure but this wasn't the one.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a copy to read in exchange for my honest review!

If I was one who could DNF (did not finish) this would have been on that list. I could not get into but I finished hoping that it would get better and it just didn't. I don't even know why, it was just bleh.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the E-ARC.

I wanted this book to be so much more. I devoured Alex Finlay's first two books and was ecstatic to get an advanced reader's copy. Unfortunately I just couldn't get through this book.

The book centers around three grown adults who previously attended the orphanage called, Savior House as children.

The book primarily takes place in the present and rotates POVs between the characters of Jenna, an Angelina Jolie tomb raider step-mom, Donnie an alcohol drinking rocker and Nico an executive producer for a reality coal mining tv show.

I managed to get through 30% of the book and finally DNFed it. When a book takes place in the present with an implication that the past had something horrible and frightening happen the readers need to care and be curious to want to know what took place. Give us a reason to keep turning the pages. There was a small passage in the first chapter which implied that the group was around a grave but the overall description didn't cause me to feel anything. While reading current passages of Donnie, Jenna and Nico in the present I never cared what the possible event happened from the past.

Jenna's plot line was very fast paced and was the most interesting. I liked her character as well as her newly formed step-family. The passages with Nico and Donnie didn't hold my attention at all. I needed the author to give me a POV from a character from the past, perhaps Artemis or Annie to give me clues of what sort of tension was building up in the past.

The overall plot was inventive. The execution was a disappointment.

Oh man I was on the edge of my seat from the first few minutes of this book!!

I swear I literally had anxiety at times in this book waiting to see what was going to happen!! Constant suspense until the very end!

I enjoyed Alex’s book The Night Shift and this one was so good too!

**Many thanks to NetGalley, St.Martin's Press/Minotaur, and Alex Finlay for an ARC of this book!**

Alex Finlay has easily become one of my go-to mystery/thriller authors in the last couple of years. Though this is only his third book, I felt like I had a solid list of Finlay hallmarks to look for when picking up one of his books:

*short, snappy chapters
*a TWISTY, corkscrew "did that really just happen" type of plot
*multiple POVs...but more importantly, characters that are not only well-developed but SPRING off the pages

Well...when it came to this book...I wished I was holding a physical copy...so I could keep flipping back to the cover and make SURE it was the same Alex Finlay I'd grown to know and love...because this B movie, action film style novel bears little resemblance to the high bar set by his two previous books.

The premise centers around a group of friends who met many years ago at the Savior House, a group home specially designated for teenagers without parents. This trio of pals consists of Donnie, Nico, and Jenna. 25 years later, they are all living wildly different lives; Donnie is an aging rockstar, battling the bottle and struggling to remember (and relive) his glory days, Nico works as a TV producer on a reality show based in a mine but struggles with demons of his own in the form of a gambling addiction, and Jenna has left her days as a trained gun behind to be a wife and mom to two stepkids.

They haven't spoken in years, but this group remains bound in an inextricable way: they are all holding on to a terrible shared secret from one night, long ago. But as the past begins to creep up in a terrifying way, the trio realizes that one decision may have destined them all for the same deadly fate...but can they figure out just HOW their secret got out...and WHO may be hot on their heels...and aiming to kill?

At first, I tried to get very invested in Finlay's characters, since in his previous novels this was not only enjoyable, but EASY to do. With this book, however, there was so little to go on in terms of believability that I had trouble seeing the characters as people from the real world. This isn't necessarily a deal breaker in fiction, ESPECIALLY in a popcorn action thriller such as this one...but for Finlay, it felt like such a dramatic letdown from the talent displayed in his first two books. An aging rock star with an alcohol problem, for example: basically a stock character. Finlay COULD have given him depth and layers, but instead, Donnie acted EXACTLY how you'd expect him to act...not very compelling to read.

The closest Finlay came to a character that defied expectation on some level and felt a bit 'more than meets the eye' was in Jenna, and for a while, I thought I could sort of throw my attention into her story line and let that hold my interest. But after a while, her section of the story fell so far into action-movie territory that I had trouble not only believing it, but staying engrossed. This became a recurring theme: the plot itself was so straightforward in many respects, that I kept wondering why Finlay was telling us so much, so soon.

I almost wished there had been more detail overall about the events in the past and the relationship building that happened at Savior House rather than such a heavy focus on the 'cat and mouse' style chase from the present that dominated most of the narrative. The sections that WERE set in the past, however, were sometimes difficult to distinguish too, and this was yet another area where some editing (perhaps adding Now and Then or the year at beginning of chapters) to help differentiate and clue the reader in would have been helpful.

Though this book has Finlay's trademark short chapters, when I saw this book had EIGHTY FIVE, I honestly just began to dread how much was left to go. Rather than flying through the pages, the short chapters in this one just seemed to emphasize how much was left to read and felt borderline interminable by the end. The plot itself also met a reasonable(ish) conclusion, but I wasn't left feeling satisfied or on an adrenaline-fueled high like I have been in the past reading Finlay's books...rather, just tired and feeling like I needed a nap.

I'm not sure if the absence of Agent Keller was the nail in the coffin of What Have We Done, but I think it's safe to say it couldn't hurt to bring her back for Finlay's next book and give that a shot. But rather than What Have We Done, I think a more fitting moniker (in reference to Finlay and his plan for this book) would have to be "What Has HE Done?"

3.5 stars

While I loved The Night Shift, this book was a totally different story. I enjoyed the multiple POV’s once the story took off but found myself confused in the beginning trying to make sense of it all. The story focuses on a group of kids who form friendships while living in a foster-care style home with a man named Mr.Brood. Tormented by his son, Derek, the group bands together at the same time as girls begin to go missing from the home. An event takes place involving all the main characters that tie them together forever. We get flashbacks to their time at the home 25 years ago and what’s happening in the present.

We have multiple characters, so let me dissect them one by one:

-Jenna: she’s a bad ass who was trained to be an assassin at a young age. Very Jason Bourne meets the old TV show, Nikita. She has since retired from the profession and has married a nice tax attorney with 2 young daughters. Trying to live her life as normal as possible while managing being a new step-mom, she finds herself slipping back into her old routines once she is forced into a hit job that she abandons when she realizes the target is her old childhood friend, Artemis.

-Artemis- he’s now a tech billionaire but once he was a shy, nerdy kid who was ruthlessly picked on at the home. He is not a very prominent character in the story but he is said to be very smart and calculating by the others. Arty informs Jenna that he thinks Derek is out to kill them all and start to work together to figure out why.

-Nico- Nico was abandoned by his mother after his father lost his life to the O’Leary mob group. Nico was in love with a girl named Annie while at the home, but Annie goes missing along with a long list of other girls and he is forever affected by it. He now has a gambling addiction and recently has taken a job working on a tv show that revolves around miners and was lured into a cave that was detonated, trapping him inside. Luckily he escapes but finds himself drawn back to the town where the event 25 years ago took place.

-Donnie- the rockstar of the group, he finds himself partying and boozing his way through life. That is until he is forced by a mysterious woman to jump off the cruise ship his band is playing on. Miraculously, he survives the plunge into the ocean and is rescued by a nearby boat. Finding out in the hospital that his best friend of the group, Benny, has been killed, spurs him into action and leads him back to the town of the event.

Ben/Benny- he’s the only character of color and a judge who we don’t get to hear from. He is dead in the story, believed to be murdered by someone he put away as a lawyer years ago. Ben shows up though in flashbacks and as a voice inside Donnie’s head. They were best friends and Ben leaves behind a message for Donnie prior to his death that helps the group figure out what is really happening to all of them in the current situation.

While the story is definitely a wild one, it was very hard to believe any of it. Between Jenna’s unreal skill set and the events that take place and reveal the true person behind the threats to their lives, it’s all just too unbelievable. While I loved the mystery and clues unraveling, I was shocked to say the least about the reveal. I definitely will keep reading Alex Finlay’s work as I think it’s outside the normal thriller books, but this one fell a little flat for me.

A fast paced, action packed, popcorn thriller that had one of the strongest on the edge of your seat intros I've read in a while. It lost a little momentum mid way but the ending was very strong and satisfying. I especially enjoyed Jenna's character and would love to read her prequel story. A great choice if you need to get your heart pumping but you're too lazy to do any actual exercise! A great read!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books for this eARC.

I was very intrigued by the beginning and set-up of the characters in this book. Three people with a connected past all befall unusual circumstances where ultimately they are being chased and sought after to be killed. Sounds fun right? The ultimate race/chase for your life!

As the reader, we are flashed back and forth in time without and dates on the page, so it did get confusing at times keeping the many characters straight amongst the time period. Then the book continued to what felt like a non-stop action movie where the action took the plot rather than the history and storyline.

I ended up feeling pretty meh and underwhelmed by the book. One of those that started out with a lot of promise but petered out half way and limped to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the e-copy of this book.