The twists and turns in this one! Kept me on turning the pages and on the edge of my seat. Highly recommend.

The story revolves around a small group of neighborhood and playgroup moms in Ireland who are organized and led social media darling all moms look up to. Each of these women have complicated lives that intertwine with each other in different ways. Mix in a lot of jealousy and unhappy people and we find our social media darling dead in her home - the question is who is to blame? None of these characters are particularly likeable, and frankly can be annoying, but the story is easy to follow and invest in. The conclusion is satisfying, but definitely could have been developed further and possibly made a character or two redeeming in the end. Good read, but don't expect to love any of the flawed characters.

This book was just okay for me. I enjoyed the story line but I dis not care for the characters. I found them to be unlikable and kept asking myself why would they do that.

eGalley provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a DNF.

Ciara Dunphy has it all—a loving husband, well-behaved children, and a beautiful home—a picture-perfect life. The other mothers come to her for advice and they all want what she has until she's found murdered in her Instagram-worthy home.

The first half of this book was so slow and the characters so unlikeable that I could not bring myself to spend any more time reading it. At the halfway point I only knew that Ciara was murdered because it says so in the synopsis. The buildup to her murder was painful at best. There wasn't much chance I was going to make it through this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this neighborhood thriller! The story takes place in a sleepy Irish village and is centered on a trio of mothers who are as different as you can get: seemingly perfect social media influencer Ciara, crunchy mama Lauren, and Indian immigrant Mishti. Of course, things are not what they seem and there are a lot of secrets lurking underneath when you scratch the surface. When Ciara is found in a pool of blood at the bottom of her grand staircase, it seems there is no shortage of people with a motive for murder.

Literally every single character in this book is unlikeable, but that doesn’t make them any less compelling. The female characters are very well developed and it’s fascinating to see how their personal histories influence their relationships with each other and with their husbands. Speaking of husbands, they’re pretty much straight out of central casting, but they’re kind of supporting actors anyway, so that didn’t bother me. I loved the way this story started out with Ciara’s death and then went back in time to unravel everything that led up to it.

Disha Bose’s debut novel is perfect for fans of Big Little Lies. Ms. Bose is being hailed as an author to watch, and I will definitely be watching for more of her work in the future! Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine Books for providing me an advance copy of this book.

Dirty Laundry is told from the perspective of three women who are all unhappy in their own ways. While each of the woman strive to present their lives as picture perfect, secrets start to be exposed.

I found it hard to connect with 2 out of the 3 characters who shared their perspectives. Mishti was the only character that had some relatable characteristics. I would have loved to hear more depth in her story. I found the other women to be one-dimensional, focused solely on maintaining images and creating unnecessary conflict.

Despite a slow start, I enjoyed the ending of the book which resolves how Ciara dies and the ways everyone is impacted.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for an advanced copy!

I really enjoyed this!! I was immediately interested, and it kept my attention. I’m usually not a fan of changing POV in books, but I think it really helped in this case. I liked the unfolding of the stories in the end, but would have liked a little more closure/insight on Mishti’s character. I also felt that her interaction with Neel was a little abrupt and forced. Overall, very enjoyable and entertaining, I hope to see more from this author!

It was a fun read who done it, that you knew the dead person when it started. So many people hated her. You could guess which one did it

A quick read about competitive Moms in a small Irish village. You’ll find busy families, cheating, doubts and Instagram all wrapped up in one book! Thank you NG for the ARC

Ciara Dunphy, vlogger and influencer, has it all. A wealthy, handsome husband, two beautiful children, the biggest house in the village, the tightest circle of friends, a carefully curated wardrobe…everything. She’s also dead. We know this from the beginning of Dirty Laundry, a juicy desperate housewives on steroids domestic thriller. We won’t know who killed her until the final chapter but there are many suspects. There’s her unappreciated husband who she married for money, her “best friend” Mishti who has started to see the real Ciara, her next door neighbor Lauren, the target of her bullying and many more. Jilted lovers, plots worthy of high school mean girls, addictions, deceptions, love, despair…the Dirty Laundry piles up.

There are no even slightly likable characters in this delicious, fun to read mystery. It doesn’t matter! I especially liked learning about the childhoods of Ciara, Mishti and Lauren and how they were shaped by them. It makes their actions more complex and understandable. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and Disha Bose for this ARC.

Ciara Dunphy has moved to the neighborhood with her two children and husband. Ciara is also very outgoing and beautiful. Ciara's childhood was turned on its ear after her father left and her mother closed herself off in her bedroom. Ciara has a hole that she is constantly trying to feed to boost her ego.

Mishti Guha chose the path she knew would make her parents proud by allowing them to pick her husband. She knew others envied her when Dr. Parth Guha chose her and whisked her away from Calcutta to Ireland. She has a young daughter, Maya, who is best friends with Ciara's daughter, Bella. Mishti feels grateful that she was welcomed under Ciara's wing.

Lauren Doyle has lived her entire life in the village. She grew up feeling displaced in her own family so she would stay with her gran. Despite all her attempts to make friends, the other girls would look down their noses at her. When her gran passed, she left Lauren an inheritance, including her house. Lauren lives there with her three children and partner.

My perception of the three women changed as I read about each one. Reading the background of each gave a picture of what made them tick. I got why Mishti wanted to be accepted by the women and wouldn't be friendly to Lauren for fear of being shunned, however, by not stepping up and saying something Mishti was also participating in the ostracizing of Lauren. I felt the most for Lauren, who seemed to lack love growing up with a family who thought they were saddled with a daughter they didn't want. As a result of feeling like an outsider, Lauren didn't know how to socialize where others saw her as odd. That lasted into her adulthood. While Lauren seemed good at reading Ciara's motives and giving Mishti advice, I was angry at Lauren for overlooking her own situation and not being stronger. Ciara's situation growing up left her with an insatiable need for attention. She had no problem vilifying others using social media. Ciara isn't who her friends think she is.

Ciara's murder brings to light everyone's dirty laundry!

I received an ARC from NetGalley via Random House Publishing Group--Ballantine and I have voluntarily reviewed this book.

Cheating, arranged marriages, bullies, mean girls, revenge, spying, possible murder. What more can someone want in the book they’re reading? Set in a small Irish town we have old friends, new friends, old enemies, new enemies. And it pretty much takes just one to get the ball rolling. I literally didn’t want to put this book down. And I sure as heck couldn’t survive under these conditions!

The novel begins with a dead body. The rest of the book details the many people who won’t be sorry Ciara is gone.

Ciara seems to have it all, and she details it on her social media accounts that are generating revenue. Most of the other women in the small Irish village choose to listen to her, which leads to ugly mean-girl behavior.

Mishti is Ciara’s best friend, but she’s in an unhappily arranged marriage and misses the warmth of her native India. Lauren loves motherhood in all its disheveled glory, but her freethinking ways make her a weirdo in her village, particularly since she inadvertently got on Ciara’s wrong side when they first met.

I thought the characters of Mishti and Lauren were interesting. Ciara is pretty despicable. These women either don’t do a good job of standing up for themselves or, in the other direction, not caring about other people at all. This is fun, but I didn’t love it.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES MARCH 24, 2023.

Dirty Laundry reads like a desperate housewives murder mystery. The author does a good job of keeping the reader guessing until the very end. The character of Ciara is hard to like and doesn’t have many redeeming qualities. Mostly the books makes the reader sad for Lauren and Mishti and the wedge that Ciara’s presence puts between the very type of friendship the aforementioned women need. The husbands while all vastly different were similar in that they were not what their wives needed. The book was a good and interesting read.

When I started this book I thought murder would be the forefront to this story, but that seemed to be more of a background thought. I like the small town, small neighborhood, domestic drama angle of this book. Told from three POV's from each woman Lauren, Mishti, and Ciara. These women in their own ways all definitely had "dirty laundry" that needed to be rectified. I have to say this is the first book I can think of off the top of my head that I really despised a lot of the characters. Ciara I found that even though it was explained why she acted how she did I still found so annoying because she still chose to be that way and was all around not a good person. Mishti I felt sadness for with her arranged marriage to her Parth, and I despised his character he wasn't a nice or kind person either. Lauren and her boyfriend Sean I probably liked them the least. Sean was such a loser as a partner and so selfish, and Lauren annoyingly just accepted Sean's faults over and over until she got mad about what she already accepted with his infidelity and selfishness. Ciara's husband Gerry wasn't a big part of the storyline but I do like how he was incorporated at the end. This book delved intricately into the lives of these women and their significant others and how it all led to one who ended up dead! This book was different for me, not a thriller, slightly a mystery, some suspense, no real romance that made me swoon, but there was a lot of drama and it wasn't boring so it made me want to see how it unfolded. For a debut, I would say it is intriguing and I am interested in reading what Bose will come up with next! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC to read and review.

I really wanted to like this book. It’s well written, the setting is interesting, I probably could have even gotten comfortable with the premise. But there is not one single likeable character in this entire novel. So hard to watch them do terrible things to each other, without anything redeeming in the back story. Some deeper exploration of online bullying in moms circles might have helped. Unfortunately not a hit for me.

I think my rating for this book hovers around 2.5-3 stars, but I’m rounding up to 3 because I did find this book to be very readable.

That said, just about everything in this book is fine, but not great. The plot is fine, the story is fine, the characters are fine. But the book as a whole just misses its mark. Much of the book feels like it was just included to add to the page count without really doing anything for the story. The dialogue is also a big problem for me. A lot of the dialogue feels forced and stilted. At times it reads as natural, but for the most part I found myself being torn out of the story due to the unnatural dialogue between the characters, particularly the women.

Also, none of the characters are particularly likeable, which I know was intentional; however, not having at least one character to really root for made it difficult for me to want to see the book through to the end.

As for the ending, it felt very abrupt. The book builds up to Ciara’s murder and then suddenly ends without much closure. I think and Epilogue would have been a nice way to wrap things up for the reader.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Three women live in Ireland with their husbands (even though one is not married, they would be considered common law in the US). Ciara has the perfect life, great house, rich husband and perfect children. Or is it so perfect?

I liked the back stories of the women and felt sorry for Lauren and Mishti. Ciara had it all, or at least that's how everyone perceived her life. She has many followers on her social media platform and everyone envies her but she just isn't a nice person.

The author does a great job of keeping you interested in the story.

I personally love reading about terrible women and mothers, which made me love this book.

The Prem and Mishti dynamic is so GD real, I felt it in my bones. Which is why while the ending to Mishti's storyline was gruesome ala "In My Dreams I Hold A Knife," I am excited for her future.

I have many thoughts on how Lauren ended up. Framed positively, but I felt its tragedy.

Ending was abrupt but still tied all the loose strings.

Looking forward to more Bose in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

The premise of this book piqued my interest — a story of three families living in County Cork, Ireland. These couples have a tenuous relationship at best. The proverbial shite hits the fan when they learn that one of them is manipulating all of them. I enjoyed this book, but I don’t think it quite hit the mark with what it was trying to achieve. It will be interesting to find out what other people think once it is released. Stories like this always spark lively discussion.