A great gripping thriller. Loads of twists and turns that kept me interested throughout. The characters were colourful and had a depth of field. Will be looking back at other books from this author!

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

Another great thriller from this author with a twist I never saw coming. Interesting bunch of characters.

Romance, suspense and thriller combined. Page turner and easy read. Would love to see this in a movie. Definitely would recommend.

A good, fast-paced thriller but full of unlikeable characters who seem to change personality at the whim of the author making our heroine either an unreliable narrator or a very poor judge of character. The ending was good and I would enjoy a book following on from the end point and exploring the resolution.

I won't be leaving a public review on Amazon, Goodreads or Bookbub, because it isn't fair to downgrade a book just because it didn't appeal to me. I'm sure it will appeal to many others. I found it predictable, but with a huge twist at the end. I struggled to get through it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. It was an unexpected surprise as it didn’t follow the usual pattern I like of “Couple meets, danger arises, couple handles danger, and couple falls in love.” This story shifted the narrative. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen. Kudos!

I have read many Mary Burton stories and this one so unpredictable never saw the ending coming until the very end. Characters were so believable and real. Another great story!

Mary Burton is always a day and a half read which is a good thing! "The House Beyond the Dunes" is another great book by her.

This was a great read. I love Mary's books very well written. Although I was able to figure some stuff out twist and turns wise there was still some that was a surprise. I enjoyed the added in romance to that was nice. I also love different POVs, and I feel like that is something people highly dislike. This was a page turner for me to see Lane try to figure things out.

I wouldn't exactly say I enjoyed reading "The House Beyond the Dunes"... trigger warnings abound. The plot was somewhat predictable for the genre, but was made up for by the atmospheric setting and the complex and interesting characters.

My only criticism of the book is that I felt like some of the plot twists were a bit predictable, but overall I found it to be a well-written and enjoyable read. If you're able to handle the content warnings, I would definitely recommend giving this book a shot. Perfect quick read for a stormy summer day.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book is another great mystery by Mary Burton.
Set in theNorth Carolina and Virginia border. Lane has decided to go with her boyfriend Kyle to his beach house for a long weekend. Within a hour of being there they take a fall down the stairs. Waking in the hospital she finds herself bruised and achy but Kyle is dead. After a run in with the detective she decides to go back to get her things and jog her memory on what happened. Trapped by a storm she receives text from a mystery lady, that the detective said is missing as well as her friend. Reading her diary she tries to unravel the mystery. Was Kyle the man she knew or some sinister murderer. His book hooked me from the beginning couldn't stop reading.

A great mystery or thriller always throws a curve ball to the reader and catches most by surprise. There’s something the reader didn’t see coming no matter how much they thought they’d figured it all out. The reader enjoys the guess work and pours through the pages to figure out if they were right or not. The House Beyond the Dunes by Mary Burton definitely delivers when it comes to such a book.

It’s the story of Lane McCord, a girl who has recently started dating Kyle Iverson, a psychiatrist who is treating her to a weekend at his beach house. But when Kyle mysteriously dies during a fall shortly after their arrival, Lane has trouble piecing together what really happened.

After a detective tries to question Lane, she decides to return to the house to see if she can remember what happened. She soon meets up with other locals who knew Kyle, and the mystery begins to unfold. There’s the construction worker named Reece who is working on a house across the street. He grew up with Kyle and swears he heard Lane and Kyle having an argument. There’s Devon, a quirky woman who was also friends with Kyle and is the caretaker of the beach house.

Lane questions both Devon and Reece to try to learn more about who Kyle was as a person. She soon discovers Kyle had a sordid past that involved two deceased brothers who were involved in a trail of crime. There’s also Kyle’s old childhood home in the woods and certain parts of Kyle’s past that Devon and Reece refuse to talk about.

A brewing storm traps Lane at the house. As she continues to ponder the man she barely knew, a mysterious woman named Stevie begins sending Lane excerpts from her diary. Stevie has had a rough life and becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her coworker, Nikki, while working at a local bar. Stevie once met Kyle at the bar and thinks he might be involved in Nikki’s disappearance. But Devon and Reece both share a certain loyalty to Kyle and claim they don’t know who Stevie or Nikki is.

As the book switches between Lane and Stevie, the reader is slowly fed pieces of the puzzle leading them closer to figuring out the ending. They’ll no doubt become just as wrapped up in solving Nikki’s disappearance as they will trying to figure out what really happened to Kyle and if he was responsible. And you may even question if Lane is a reliable narrator! But, as the reader nears the end, there’s the plot twist no one saw coming but that keeps us wanting more.

The House Beyond the Dunes is a superb suspenseful mystery and is due to publish September 5th by Montlake, a division of Amazon Publishing.

This was a great story, very suspenseful and mysterious, but the final reveal was just a little too unbelievable for me.

Lane wakes up after a fall down the stairs of a secluded beach house that belongs to her boyfriend Kyle who she has only known for three weeks. Lane has minor injuries, Kyle has died. She has no memory of what happened before the fall. Did Lane push Kyle, or was this just an accident? After leaving the hospital Lane decides to go back to the beach house to learn more about Kyle and try to get her memories back.
This is a fast read. I would say it's a mystery/thriller with a little romance. Lots of twists. The main one I saw coming. The ending was satisfying and tied up all the loose ends.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book, I like the main character and details about the other main charactes. I was not expecting the ending and was very surprised by it. It definitely threw me off a bit.

I really liked this book but I did see the twist coming pretty early on. The story flowed really well between Lane and Stevie’s perspectives, which made the book hard to put down.

Thanks Netgalley for the early copy.

This book was twisty, suspenseful thriller that has the benefit of being one of the few that I didn't guess ahead of time. Part of that might be because I'm convinced the twist comes out of scifi and not a real thing. It was a little too far fetched and unsatisfying. But otherwise I loved the setting having been up to this area of Outer Banks before. I kept turning the pages eager for Lane to figure things out and the opening of the book with the accident was a unique and grabbing way to start.

So, I love Mary Burton’s stories. There’s always a twist and most of the time you can never see the end coming. In this book, THE HOUSE BEYOND THE DUNES, that was true as well. I will tell you halfway thru the book I figured it all out, but it was still satisfying in the end to know I was right!

Lane has met a new guy who seems like. Mr Perfect. Kyle is controlled, kind, with that tiny bad-boy edge all girls like.
Or do they really?
She agrees to go to his beach house with him for the weekend where an accident befalls them, killing him and giving her amnesia.
What happens next is a twisty tale of past evil deeds, lies, secrets, and mental disease.
A good book with a great plot by a fav author!! Heaven for me.
Thanks to Netgalley for a sneak peek. 5 stars.

This book was so good!! I didn’t want to put it down to do all the boring things like work, chores, sleep…

It was listed in the romance genre, but having read some of Mary Burton’s work previously, I knew to expect more thrills with the little bit of romance. (Not sure the spicy parts really counted as romance though.)

I’m not usually a fan of multiple viewpoint storylines, but it really worked in this book with the flashes back and forth from Lane to Stevie’s diary pages. The ending fully meshed these together.

I had a feeling we would be seeing Sully pop up in an integral part of the conclusion, and I was 100% on board with how that played out. However…I was devastated at Reece’s demise. I thought for sure he had potential to ride off into the sunset with Lane 😆

Thanks so much to Montlake and NetGalley for the ARC to checkout! Looking forward to reading more thrillers from Mary Burton!