Just an FYI if you’re a guy and you’re going to read this and you’re very sensitive… Don’t! There is a cop name Nora in a bartender name Sophie and they become friends and what an unlikely duo they are. A man comes in with his fiancé and orders wine Sophie convinces him to get the best wine in the house but when he leaves she’s excited she’ll have the rest of the bottle to drink after work unfortunately soon after he returns and decides to steal a glass of what she now refers to us or wine. Two hours later he’s found dead he is the son of one of the big guys in town and we got a first row seat his murder in the inner thoughts of the killer. I’m not gonna lie I really thought I knew who the killer was and I was so far from being right. I really wasn’t that big of a fan of Sophie but I love Nora so much! I thought both narrators did an awesome job playing demented females and kudos to them this is really a twisted piece of work and one I highly recommend this is yet another book that five stars doesn’t seem to do it justice because it deserves so many more. I want to thank med galley in McMillan audio for my free copy but I am definitely leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the free audio book in exchange for an honest review.

The audio book was read by Sophie Amoss and Xe Sands who were exceptional. I really loved the voices that matched to the 2 narrators. If you have a chance to listen, I highly recommend the audio version!

I requested this book after reading the description comparing it to Killing Eve and Sharp Objects...in my opinion, it lives up to the comparison to 2 of my favorite, dark, psychological thrillers!!!

In this story, Sophie Braam is a lifer in the small Virginia town where she tends bar. Sophie has been raised by her Grandmother who now resides in a local home with dementia. Nora Martin, a beat cop who has recently transferred to the local police department and hopes to reach detective. She is a black female in an all white male small town department and has been labeled as the "diversity hire". Both women strike up an uneasy friendship based mainly on their shared female rage at the male species. To tell you any more would really ruin this deliciously dark story!

For Sophie, I found the prose to be lyrical, poetic and frightening. The imagery of the plants, bugs and mites was so unsettling but essential for her character's development. How better to communicate the darkness in her mind than the imagery the mites digging out of her skin. I found Nora's voice to be more straightforward in her anger and less dramatic.

But, to call this a cat and mouse mystery does this story an injustice. I found this to be an intriguing ride through the many layers of the mind of a psychopath, that makes you a touch empathetic towards her, which is a dark and scary feeling!

Loved this consuming read!!!

Highly Recommend!!

You Know Her by Meagan Jennett
Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Thoughts: I wanted to like this book, and it sounded right up my alley. True crime and thriller? Yes, please! But sadly, it was disappointing. Nora can see dead people, but it's never really expanded on. She just ignores all the dead people everywhere she goes. Sophie is a character in the middle of a psychotic break but yet can keep it together enough to manage a bar and make friends with Nora. Also, is there not a single decent man from this town? Seriously, not one? They all are all disgusting vile pigs whose only thought is raping and degrating women. That seems hard to believe. The only decent man is Nora's boyfriend, and he's not originally from the town. I'm perfectly fine with misogyny but is so over the top that it's frustrating. This book was wordy when it didn't need to be and wordless when more was needed. It felt like a whole lot of nothing happened in such a long audiobook, even with multiple murders. Everything was drowned out by the constant mansplaining and internal monologs on how much men suck.
Thank you NetGalley and Meagan for this advance listen copy in exchange for an honest review.

You Know Her is a fantastic story. I loved how it has elements of suspense and thriller, but also read like a literary fiction novel at times too. The writing is gorgeous and really sucks you in. I listened on audio and was really impressed with the narration. Great performance from both narrators.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the audiobook ARC!

“All men are the same.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)

Thank you @fsgbooks, @macmillan.audio, @netgalley, and @meagjennett for a free audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! This book was completely different than the who-dun-it books I’ve been reading recently. In “You Know Her” you quite literally know who the serial killer is, however the detectives in the town do not!

The serial killer and the detective meet and become acquaintances, all the while the serial killer is going about her life with no one knowing. It starts to become a cat and mouse game with an unexpected ending.

I always love multiple POVs, and this one has just that! As suspenseful as this book is, it’s also creepy with vivid depictions of the crimes. Meagan created some fantastic leading ladies that I genuinely enjoyed!

Am I supposed to like the "bad girl" this much? I love her lines so much. It was like she was speaking to my soul. Yikes. Help me.
WTF that end though!

I loved Nora as well. I haven't read a book yet like this. Amazing.

And the narration was perfect. It was flawless.

A top-notch character-driven serial killer thriller with excellent narration. A recommended purchase in all formats for collections where crime fic is popular.

Wow! This is a debut author as far as I can tell. What a debut. I guess I'm reading a lot of dark books lately. This one is definitly dark with murder and mayhem all about.

You get the perspective of two MC's. Sophie and Nora. Sophie is a mysterious bar tender in a small town with a grandma who teaches her the art of, let's say self defense. Nora is street cop on her way to becoming detective who is haunted by all the past and future deaths that she encounters.

We get to see the cat and the mouse, but they don't always know about each other and what they know. Neither woman is used to being around each other and they become friends, I suppose. It would be hard to be friends with either I would think, they both are in their own heads, distracted by the worlds of their own making.

My heart goes out to Nora though. No comments why but ugh! And that ending. It just ended. No neat bows, just over.

The big questions for me are 1) just because you're a black woman, you choose not to listen to her ideas of a potential serial killer. 2) why would anyone (even small town America) think it's ok to hang a confederate flag up to make a hostile work environment for anyone? That's a big liability, not the good ol boys club antic. 3) If I am a store owner and you have a mysterious jar in my fridge that you get that worked up about, I'm going to look in the jar.

I thought the book was alright, the narrators did a great job, very different from one another, though the chapter changes were a little confusing in audio. There were a few too many repetitive things that I thought were a bit unnecessary and somethings that happened out of character, but overall this was a very enjoyable read with lots of dead bodies. And bugs. My second "southern gothic" story with bugs in detail. Is this a SG thing?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
This was a DNF for me at around 40%. I had to force myself to listen that long.
Not at all for me.

This mystery/thriller starts off as a neatly knit story that grow into a very troubling scene that relies on the guidance of a detective and his assistant to solve the mystery of puzzling deaths. What is the connection? What is the motive? Where is the evidence? Will these terrible crimes lead to the offender?
It’s with great detail, character development, and scene depiction you are able to view through the killer’s eyes, movements, and thoughts so easily.
The author paints the perfect picture while describing each and every intimate thought, step and strategy of the detectives. It’s so smooth!
Sofie is a bartender; use to being harassed, cat-called, hit upon. She’s a single female that feels most of the time, invisible and slithers beneath the radar of the patrols to feed a hunger inside of her. She views men as an inevitable debt to pay. Will she get caught?
Nora, the detective’s assistant, who wants to make a difference. She’s next in line for the detective seat and the blues in her office look down on her. She is gently given leads on this case but when she bounces her gut instincts off the detective that took her under his wing, all her ideas and feelings are pushed aside. Is she able to prove who the killer is by sticking to her guns?
I loved this mystery/thriller. I was engulfed from the beginning. The narrators in the audio version of this book brought this story to life! I highly recommend this book with a 5 star rating!

Thank you Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this audio book.

Female serial killer? YEP!! I like it!!! Entertaining. POV of killer and cop.

Give this gem a try!!

Sophie is a bartender at a restaurant. She's spent years putting up with men being men and expecting her to handle them with patience and kindness. She knows how to play the game and appease them. One night, she's just at her breaking point and snaps. She doesn't feel bad about it though. She feels vindicated. A new cop in the town, Nora, is investigating the crime. Things aren't adding up, but Nora is also haunted by the past women who were victims.

This book was good I can really feel exactly how tired of the patriarchy the characters are. I started out loving it. About halfway through I got bored. Sophie lost any justification she had and Nora just got boring. The concept was great. I would have like a different ending as well.

Going into this I was expecting to love this book. I love thrillers and this sounded like something I was going to get sucked right in. Not only did I not get sucked into it, but I also had a hard time focusing at many points of the book.

A lot of my problems come from the narration. There are two narrators and both were not good in my opinion. The narrator for Nora was very difficult for me to listen to which completely ruined the character for me.

Nora is one of two main characters, the other being Sophie. Sophie I felt was well-written. She is a murderer so we go into the rambling mind of a killer.

There are a lot of heavy topics here and most of them are repeated multiple times. The book was very repetitive and could have easily been a lot shorter and to the point.

I never write off an author based on one book so I will love to check out this author again but You Know Her was definitely a miss for me.

I loved this pretense - a female who is tired of male sh*t - and when no one is stepping up to help her, she takes matters into her own hand. I loved getting her point of view and the narrator nailed the gritty voice of Sophie. Nora, the law enforcement counterpart of Sophie, who deals with very similar male sh*t AND as a Black woman on top of it, was voiced wonderfully - the tired-ness of the character and everything she puts up with, was perfectly captured.
I really enjoyed Nora's character, but for some reason she didn't feel as flushed out as Sophie - potentially because we're with Sophie as she goes into a moral tailspin and then ends up taking it to the next level. At the beginning, especially listening as a fellow woman, I could feel her rage and understood the length she went to in order to punish these men. However, as she begins to lose grip on reality and escalates, it started to become repetitive. The ending, and especially the tie to Nora, was perfect, but the add up to that climax dragged out a little too much for me.
Regardless, never underestimate a woman.
Thanks you, MCD and Macmillan audio for my advanced listening copy!

3.5 stars rounded up. I loved the story, and the writing is beautiful….but it is waaaaaay too wordy and descriptive. I love a descriptive book, but this was excessive and went into so much detail that my mind wandered and I forgot what we were talking about. That said, the story really is good and I loved the 2 POVs that were followed.

I wanted to quit this at 20%, but persevered. At 30%,again wanting to quit, I came and looked at the reviews. Continued on. I should have listened to my gut.

Sophie's chapters were the ramblings of a crazy person. Makes sense, as she is a serial killer. But they were still hard to follow at times (or, more likely, I was not very interested at times). The book starts with Sophie. I was looking forward to Nora's chapters, assuming she was sane. Nope. She sees and interacts with haints. Also crazy. Also rambles.

Obviously, my feelings about this book to not align with the other reviewers. So it is just a me thing :)
The author's writing style just didn't work for me.

The audiobook is narrated by Sophie Amoss and Xe Sands. Sophie narrates Sophie's chapters. I am not super familiar with her work and I was more annoyed by the rambling crazy to notice her narration. I typically enjoy Xe's work, but again, too annoyed to pay attention.

I received an audio copy in exchange for an honest review.

You Know Her by Meagan Jennett is a strong police procedural/serial killer novel. We actually get to go inside the head of a serial killer and learn about their experiences and get a glimpse into what might have let that person to be the way they are. The experiences of the female characters of the book are so relatable. I feel like most of us have had some of the similar experiences, sadly. The dual POV works quite nicely also.

I found the language to be very rich but a bit over-descriptive. As I listened to the audiobook, some of the flavors and tones might have gotten lost on me. I think my mind just could not fully keep up with all the literary descriptions while listening to it. I think a lot of people might enjoy that aspect and manner of writing more. However, I still enjoyed the story and I didn't want for it to end.

The audiobook version is narrated by Sophie Amoss and Xe Sands and both actors did a fantastic job. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy thrillers, police procedurals, the mind of a killer books. It is different but in a good way.

We all know someone like her...

The storyline in this novel was fantastic. Meet Sophie - a bartender with some patrons who are less than polite to her. We all have either been or know someone who has encountered individuals similar to the ones that Sophie deals with daily. But she chose to do something about it.

The imagery in this novel was fantastic - it painted vivid pictures in my mind and made the story even more enjoyable. I listened to the audiobook, and that is my only complaint. The narrators had excellent tones, and the voices fit the characters. However, I felt that the narration was far too slow. I had difficulty paying attention initially because the narration was so slow. I did speed up the audio to 1.5x, which did the trick! At that speed, I felt the narration was at average conversation speed.

Overall, I would recommend this book! It was very well written, and I would love to read more by the author. But next time, I will probably choose to read rather than listen.

Thank you for the ARC!

The premise of this book gripped me from the start. “Killing Eve meets Sharp Objects”sounded unputdownable.

This book is a “cat and mouse” thriller that focuses on a serial killer, who just happens to be a woman named Sophie. Nora is a police officer that is pursuing Sophie.

What I liked This is a solid serial killer/procedural book. It was very dark and haunting.

What I didn’t like: The hyper-descriptive prose. The writing was excellent, but this prose was very hard to keep my attention. I had a difficult time finishing the book because I just got so lost in the language of the book. I felt disconnected due to the wordiness.

This book is definitely worth reading, it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audi for this ALC, which I receivedy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. Wow wow wow wow. I don't think I have ever listened to an audiobook and felt the need to buy a paperback copy of it after, but this one I absolutely will.

This is one of the best thrillers I've ever read. Just an incredible cat-and-mouse story of a female serial killer and the female cop trying to find her.

I don't want to say too much because I went in pretty blind with this one and I'm so happy I did.

What I will say is that around chapter 10, I listened to one of the most powerful, well-written, and well-narrated scenes of my life. I cannot credit Sophie Amoss enough for her INCREDIBLE performance. Xe sands also did a fantastic job.

If you love thrillers, southern gothic settings, female friendship, and discussions of the female experience, you will absolutely love this book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review!