I found this to be an interesting read for the most part. I had some struggles with some of the characters but that's probably expected. Ciara seems to have the perfect life & family according to her Instagram posts & followers. Of course, based on the title, you can figure out that life behind closed doors can be very different. Ciara is very self-centered (not surprising as she is an influencer & mean girl at heart) & very hard to like. Her "friends" give bad vibes all around. It's hard to read adult women behaving like teenagers but unfortunately I think that aspect is spot on. Women can be very unkind to each other. As the synopsis states, Ciara is found dead. This happens in the beginning of the book. Then we go back to the beginning of the month it happens & retrace everyone's story & why they might have the motive to kill her. I liked the style this book was written in by using this method. Overall this is a good book.

Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

Dirty Laundry is a debut mystery thriller from Disha Bose. I love checking out new and new to me authors to find those hidden gems.

With the synopsis, I was definitely interested in what this domestic suspense was going to bring. What I got were a bunch of unlikable characters that really had no respect for one another or their marriages. I have a love/hate relationship with unlikable characters. Sometimes they can really pull me in and make the story and other times they leave me feeling meh. Unfortunately, this book was the latter for me. Luckily, this story read quickly so I still kept chugging along, even though the characters weren't for me.

With a story that gives you the outcome early on and then you go back in time and work your way up to the present, we got to see how everything fell into place for Ciara. She was the woman that apparently had it all, but she was probably the character I despised the most. Along with the men and her "friends", I just was grasping at straws hoping for more.
The story itself was ok, it was just the characters and their execution that left me unsatisfied and skimming rather than being fully immersed.
I would still check out what else Ms Bose offers in the future as I liked the setting and by the premise, it had potential.
While the book wasn't for me, it may work for others if they like unlikable characters and seeing how each marriage in the story affected each individual.

If the synopsis of a book has anything to do with an influencer falling from grace..I’m in. This book did not disappoint.

I often get annoyed with thrillers because of the predictable plot lines and one dimensional characters. Dirty Laundry was definitely anything but flat with it’s cast of unlikeable characters. If you’re going to have highly unlikeable characters..at least make them interesting. And Disha Bose did just that.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say this: this is not your typical domestic thriller. I highly recommend picking this one up when it hits shelves on April 4, 2023.

This one was a SLOW BURN for me. Though the characters seemed well thought out and dimensional most of the book happened before I felt like anything like a big twist was revealed.

Not a terrible book just a little slow for my liking.

I was looking for a quick, scandalous reas, and this didn’t disappointed.

Ciara is a popular mommy influencer living in a small Irish village. Her frazzled neighbor, Lauren, has been at odds with her for years. Their other neighbor, the quiet and agreeable Mishti, is caught in the middle. Tragedy strikes, but everyone has a motive, and no one is left unscathed.

First off, pretty much every character other than Mishti is unlikeable. Even Mishti isn’t especially sympathetic. This is a book about people not knowing what they want and destroying lives in the process of figuring it out. Everyone makes bad decisions, everyone gets in their own way. No one is particularly innocent, although there is arguably one true villain, and you’ll find yourself not being sorry about what happens to that person.

Secondly, I found (as always) the non-linear timeline to be a bit distracting. Pay close attention to the dates of each chapter; otherwise, you’ll find yourself asking when something happened and questioning the order of events.

The pace is quick, but the writing isn’t anything special. It makes for a compelling beach read, and I truly wasn’t sure who the “bad guy” was until the very end, which is always exciting. The end felt a bit suddenly, and there were a few threads I wish had been further fleshed out, especially Parth, Lauren’s final movements, and Gerry, but they are generally unimportant.

Lastly, I wish the author had done a bit more with Mishti. She’s the only especially dynamic and interesting character, but her inclusion seemed a bit token as the focus was fundamentally on the feud between Lauren and Ciara. I felt it was a missed opportunity to do more with a deeply complicated woman.

I’d recommend Dirty Laundry, but manage your expectations!

Enjoyable read. Full of drama, twists and turns. Who do you trust? Who’s using who? How much can you take before you break? Well written characters and plot with great antagonism between them building tensions.

OOOOO what a fabulous soapy (pun intended) novel!!! Of COURSE we all hate the dearly departed. She royally sucked. There was no redeemable quality about this puddle of miserable entitlement. I wanted to throttle her myself. I liked Lauren but loved Mishti and was heartbroken over her marriage and her jerkhole husband. I pretty much hated Sean - he was a total dirtbag and Lauren may need some serious therapy for issues from her childhood. Okay - the entire cast of characters is pretty much nuts - except Gerry and I really enjoyed the last few pages starring him ;) I loved this book!! It truly was a "stay up half the night to finish" book and while I was sad to finish it - I'm excited to find a new author to look for!! This honest review was offered in exchange for a digital copy from Netgalley.

Loved this domestic thriller about a group of women who all have their own secrets. The characters are all self absorbed and unlikeable, but have reasons for their behavior. The story centers around three couples who are all harboring their own secrets while trying to look as though their lives are perfect. When one of the women is murdered, all the neighbors are suspected because she wasn’t especially nice to anyone. Fast paced and well written this book was impossible to put down. I will definitely be watching for more books from this author.

If you like the Real Housewives, then this book is for you. Ciara was such an unlikeable character . All the women in this book were so mean to each other, it definitely gave me mean girl vibes. It really didn’t set well with me. Overall it was an okay read

Horrible people doing mean things to each other makes a fun read. I read this one quickly and wasn't sure who I was rooting for.

Thanks for the ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. Dirty Laundry is a title that is accurate for the description of what takes place in the story. Three women in a small Irish town - but a town big enough for some of its residents to create big problems. Laurel grew up in the town and owns and lives in her deceased grandma's house with her long-time partner and their three children. Ciara is married and is an Instragram influencer, with two children and a husband who, to her, is just a prop. Mishti is bound in her traditional Indian marriage to her husband and daughter. There were several surprises along the way in the story - affairs with men that no one would suspect, old secrets and lots of gossip. The ending had a good twist - there were a lot of indicators pointing to a couple of suspects but the actual murderer was a big twist.

Small Irish village dynamics, family dynamics, and social media influencing collide to produce a compelling tale. See my GoodReads review here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5375594099

This book was ok. It was so much going on between all of the neighbors that it was really hard to keep up with it all. Also the end of the book was sort of confusing as to who did it and how it ended.

This was a fun book with interesting, if not entirely likable, characters. I particularly enjoyed the multicultural elements that Mishti and her family brought to the story. Altogether this kept me entertained and reading to the end. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun read! It was a neighborhood thriller which is interesting to me as I live in one of those neighborhoods with cliques lol. The end was a bit of a surprise regarding Ciara, but not completely out of the ballpark. I didn't really like any of the characters except Mishti.

I really wanted to like this one. It had an intriguing and fresh storyline but I hated all of the characters - and not in an "I love to hate them" sort of way. The big reveal as to who killed the MC was not terribly exciting and though I wanted to know how it ended, it felt like a bit of a chore to read

I will leave a review on Amazon and B&N on April 4th

Sadly I didn't like any of the characters in this book, but I did read it all the way until the end. I will give the author credit she did describe the characters enough to give a overall decent description of them all. Whether we like them or not, we knew what they thought and did. Although this wasn't a great read for me, I would still recommend it to others because I know not everyone enjoys the same style of books.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Ballantine Books, I am leaving my review voluntarily.

For this being the debut novel for this author, I think she hit the ball out of the ballpark with it. I loved this story and the mostly unlikeable characters in it. Ciara is the glamorous neighbor who is an Instagram blogger who is always posting pictures and bragging about herself and her perfect family. She has two children she does not seem to show any affection towards and her husband is wrapped up in his job. Neighbors Mishti and Parth moved from India after their arranged marriage. Parth is a psychologist and Mishti does not much of anything except let Parth control her. They have a young daughter. Neighbors, Sean and Lauren are not married and have 3 children they let run wild. Sean does not seem to hold a job most of the time and mainly lives off Lauren. Lauren was bullied in school and some of her school bullies still live in the village and still basically follow Ciara's lead and continue to bully her. Lots of things happen in this story and there are plenty of surprises.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine Books for the ARC of this fantastic book that I could not put down. I look forward to more book by this brilliant author.

*Many thanks to Random House Ballantine, Disha Bose, and Netgalley for my gifted eARC. Publication date 4/4/23*

This book is about the lives of 3 very different couples living in the same neighborhood. Ciera, the main character is the "it" girl and everybody wants to be her friend, unfortunately for her neighbor Lauren that's not the case and she is looking from the outside in. This book is very character driven and told through the eyes of the 3 women about their past and their current lives with husband's and kids.
This book reminded me of Mean Girls mixed with Desperate Housewives. This was a decent solid read with an okay ending, I felt the ending could have been a little better. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4

I finished this book a few weeks ago. It always takes me some time to write a review on a book I did not like. This book had some interesting but very unlikeable characters. All of them. I struggled with the flow and the overall main storyline of the book. There were little storylines here and there but over all it just did not gel for me. Was there suppose to be a mystery to it? I am not sure. There wasn't really and the ending was anti-climatic.