Keep Your Friends Close by Leah Konen @leahkonen
I loved this one!
Set in two NY cities - Brooklyn & Woodstock
Starts off with just Mary’s POV, then adds in Willa’s POV too
I loved Willa in spite of her secrets and certain actions
The men are trash.
I guessed some of the twists, but this was still a highly enjoyable and entertaining read.
Well written with plenty of secrets and drama, the ending did a great job of typing up any leftover loose ends.

Thank you @putnambooks for sending me a @Netgalley widget to read an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Mary is recently separated from her husband, George, and is going through a messy custody battle. She feels she is going to lose everything because her in laws have power and wealth which she does not. She would do anything to keep her son Alex safe. Desperate to make a friend Mary strikes up conversation with a woman named Willa at the park while her son and Alex play. They quickly become fast friends until Mary reveals everything that is going on and how she feels; Willa stops responding to her and she doesn't see her again. With no one to turn to Mary decides it would be best for her an Alex to find a new place to live, somewhere between her soon to be ex and her own family. While taking a week to sort things out in the new town, Mary thinks she sees someone she knows. Could that be Willa? But where is her husband and son? Who is this new man and little girl? She returns to her rental and her ex is in there. What is going on? After a night together they agree to meet up but George doesn't show so she goes to where he is staying only to stumble over his dead body. Who killed him? Why do they think Mary did it? Why is Willa here pretending not to be herself?

This story will keep you wanting to keep reading until you're done. When you think you may have it figured out, another twist is thrown your way.

Thank you Netgalley, the author and the publisher for this ARC !

pretty typical domestic thriller tbh, Konen’s writing is good but I’ve read a ton of similar books and this one just didn’t hold my attention. a well-timed reveal at the 1/3 mark was good but still not enough to make me care about any of the characters enough to finish. I would recommend this more for beginners of the genre

Books with short chapters are my favorite because I feel like even I am able to read fast. Mary and Willa were excellent MCs, both very different but you could find their similarities. This book at times felt like something I already read before. But the combination of relatable characters and short chapters kept my interest. I would label this mystery thriller a binge read perfect for poolside! Nothing so deep that you need all your attention but if you miss things you may regret it at the same time. Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this great mystery to keep me flying through my TBR! Overall this one gets 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

REVIEW 👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏽

Keep Your Friends Close ~ Leah Konen
Pages: 384
Genre: Thriller/Suspense

Gist: Mary’s friendship with Willa is just what she needs to distract her from the tumult of her impending divorce. But when Willa disappears after Mary makes a dramatic confession, she’s back to square one and moves upstate to start a new life. It’s there that she sees a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Willa - and it’s this woman she befriends when her husband George is found dead. What happens next is a cat and mouse, con woman web of lies and deceit that leaves Mary spinning for the truth.

Thoughts: Thank you to @putnam for an eARC copy of KYFC, out today - February 20! I enjoyed this one for sure but definitely saw some pros and cons for me as the story started to develop.

PROS:
* This story started really strong for me which I love because I think it’s super important to gain traction early on in a read to keep me going.
* A lot of characters means a lot of unreliable irons in the fire and I appreciated that despite there being a lot, I was able to keep track of who everyone was.
* Love a book with strong female friendships and an underlying message - in this one, Konen drove home the importance of standing on your own two feet!

CONS:
* The timeline, perspective, and setting kept flip flopping - now, then, NY, update, Willa, Mary. At times this was a bit confusing, especially towards the second half as story ramped up.
* Story dragged at the end - I found myself skimming a bit and whispering to myself, “alright already” as loose ends were tied up.
* This is just me being annoying - but I found some of the dialogue between characters a little surface and robotic. At times, it didn’t feel real to me and I got a little bit of the ick because of it.

I’m straight down the middle on this one - not mad at all for reading it and I definitely felt compelled to finish but not the greatest thing ever. A decent thriller with a surprise at the end is never a bad thing! Check this one out today!

Keep Your Friends Close is the ultimate toxic relationship thriller! It has horrible husbands, frenemies, and in-law drama all rolled into one book. Not to mention that the main character, Mary, is kind of a hot mess who lets others steamroll over her which creates a lot of the drama in this story. I recommend this book to readers who love a domestic thriller full of drama. Be warned, it is hard to put this book down once you start reading it.

Thank you @putnambooks for allowing me to read this book ahead of publication in exchange for my honest review.

(This same review was shared on the Barnes & Noble website)

It’s taken years, but Mary has finally realized that her marriage to handsome, wealthy George Haywood is not only bad for her, but for their toddler son Alex as well. At first, George’s riches were so seductive that his controlling tendencies just seemed like a genuine interest in helping her better herself. Once she realizes that she only ever had the appearance of choice – and, worse, that her son is starting to mimic his father – she decides she needs to get out of her marriage:

QUOTE
What I’d thought I’d had with George had been little more than an illusion. I, a Stepford robot that George could control. One he could punish if she crossed him. And Alex, taking this dynamic in. I’ll never forget the way my toddler looked at me one morning and said, “Enough, Mary.” [...] They were the same words George said to me anytime I pushed back. <i>Enough! Enough! Enough!</i> Like I was a child, a dog, a ward to be taught how to act properly.

God damn it if I was going to let my son grow up to think that all of this was okay.
END QUOTE

George, of course, has no interest in letting her go without a fight. Though they signed an iron-clad prenup, he wants to punish her further by taking custody of Alex away from her, citing spurious reasons that his expensive lawyers plan to use to drain her much more meager savings with in a prolonged custody battle. If she comes home, however, they can go back to a comfortable life all together, or so George claims in his frequent attempts to win her back.

With her best friend no longer speaking to her, Mary is thus uniquely susceptible to the charms of gregarious, sophisticated Willa, whom she meets while on a Brooklyn playground one morning. The two swiftly bond over their children and their own relatively laidback attitudes to parenting, striking up a fast friendship and subsequently meeting even without their kids. Lonely Mary is quickly besotted:

QUOTE
The thing about Willa was that she didn’t often volunteer details about her past. You had to lure them out of her[.] There was something nice, almost enchanting, in the mystery of Willa. It made me feel like there would always be more to learn, like the drinks nights and playdates would never, ever end, like I didn’t have to worry about losing her–at least, not yet.

It all felt like promise, like possibility, and when it was like this with her, the sun on our bare legs and our children playing together so happily…

It almost felt like falling in love.
END QUOTE

Alas then that after one booze-filled night together, Willa abruptly ghosts her. A devastated Mary worries that she might have revealed too much about her failing marriage and her own feelings about both it and George. She tries texting and calling, but Willa seems to have fallen right off of the face of the planet.

Fast-forward several months, and Mary is looking to start a new life in Woodstock, a town halfway between the city and Old Forge, where she grew up and still has family upstate. She’s shocked to see a familiar figure walk by as she’s having lunch in a restaurant one day. The woman has different hair and clothes, but is unmistakably Willa. Mary runs out the door to confront her, but the woman claims to have no idea who or what Mary is talking about. More strangely, Willa’s little boy is nowhere in the picture, though a little girl named Poppy is all over this woman who apparently goes by the name of Annie.

Mary is determined to make Willa admit the truth, but her plans are complicated by George’s decision to follow her to Woodstock. When George turns up dead shortly after, Mary fears that Willa might have had something to do with it. With George’s family suspecting that Mary herself murdered George, she’ll have to get to the bottom of Willa’s lies if she has any hope of not being separated forever from her beloved child.

While Mary has some excellent insights into what it means to raise good kids, my sympathies mainly lay with Willa, who has a much more realistic view of life in general. Every time Mary clutched her pearls at something Willa did and subsequently assumed the worst of her friend – ignoring the many ways in which she herself was being both a terrible friend and an even worse feminist – I felt myself rooting harder for Willa to get herself out of the predicament that her involvement with the Haywoods had landed her in. Willa’s desire to be fairly compensated for her work felt absolutely justified to me. And though I wasn’t a fan of Mary’s wishy-washiness, I very much understood Mary’s longing for companionship, platonic or otherwise. It’s important to make and maintain adult friendships, but modern living makes that hard, especially for moms.

Told from Mary and Willa’s alternate viewpoints, Keep Your Friends Close ultimately comes to a satisfying, though perhaps unexpected, conclusion. It’s a swift, entertaining read that isn’t afraid to examine white female complacency, and the “acceptable” ways in which women are allowed to rebel.

This was a fun read that kept me interested to see how it was all going to play out however I don’t think it’s one that will stick with me at all. Mary is going through a divorce and makes a new friend Willa on the playground one day. They become fast friends and are soon hanging out both with and without the kids. However Willa suddenly ghosts her and Mary is left wondering why. The story takes off from there and alternates between their perspectives. Thank you to PRH Audio for the audiobook and to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook to review.

Mary and George Haywood are getting divorced and working to settle custody of their son, Alex, 2. The Haywood family is very wealthy and powerful. Thus, they are not going to make things easy for Mary at all. while Mary had all the designer clothes and an easy life, she could not handle George’s control and dictating every move she makes. George tells her that there are ways that he can take Alex away from here. When George’s brother, Henry’s wife, Cassandra, divorced him, they made her life very bad for her.

While living in a small place waiting for the divorce, Mary meets a young woman called Willa who has a young son. They spend time at the playground with their children and meet up some evenings for drinks. May confides in her about George and the problems they are having and then Willa simply ghosts her. But sometime later, she sees Willa again and the woman acts like she doesn’t know her.

As we follow the interactions between these two women, it’s difficult to say if it’s a love or hate relationship. Willa has led such a nomad life taking everything she can get from men before moving on to another one. Mary just wants her marriage to be over and to have her son all to herself. But George and the Haywood family aren’t going to let her go that easily.

There were times in this book that I thought it was a perfect 5-star read but there were so many twists and turns that nearly made me dizzy. The ending is satisfactory and I finally gave it 4 stars. Do enjoy. This one is quite a ride.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Books with short chapters are my favorite because I feel like I can fly through them but there are enough stopping points for me to also be productive lol. Mary and Willa were excellent MCs, both very different but you could find their similarities. While Mary needed a hug, Willa needed a vacation. There are a few mysteries, separate from the main whodunnit, that will keep your attention. If you are in the market for a binge read then check this one out!

This book is a wild ride. Not only keep your friends close, do you really know who your friends are? In a world of riches, who do you trust?

I never liked Willa. Something was always off about her. Mary just wanted to start fresh. And George just wanted his way, always. I felt the loneliness Mary was experiencing and I felt compassion for her.

This is a great psychological thriller.

"Keep Your Friends Close" is a suspenseful and engaging domestic thriller that will keep readers hooked from beginning to end. Leah Konen's skillful use of dual timelines, dual points of view, and the exploration of friendship dynamics make this book a compelling choice for fans of the genre. If you enjoy unraveling mysteries and questioning the authenticity of relationships, this book is definitely worth a read.

Lonely and in the middle of a divorce & custody battle, Mary is desperate for a friend. When she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, their connection feel like fate. But during a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and the next morning Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing. Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa . . . only Willa’s name is now Annie, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead only days later and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in town: Willa. As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

This book is told in the alternating viewpoints of Mary and Willa, and goes back and forth between past and present. There are so many twists and turns that you will be unable to tell fact from fiction, friend from foe. This book will definitely keep you on your toes, questioning everything and everyone, all the way to the end. If you are a fan of thrillers, then you should definitely check this one out.

This is a very twisty novel. Mary lives in NYC and is going through a nasty divorce. She is befriended by Willa as their children play in a park. Willa seems to have her life under control, unlike Mary. Willa disappears without a word leaving Mary confused. Once the divorce is finalized, Mary moves to upstate New York to begin her new, free life. She is stunned for see Willa living in the same town with a new family and tries to question her.

Who is this woman who Mary considered a friend? The plot gets twistier as the story evolves. I don't want to say more and spoil the book for other readers. I will say I found the story enjoyable and wonder what the author will write next. I'll be waiting for and hope another book is written.

Thanks to NetGalley for my chance to read this book prior to publication.

Thanks for the free/gifted e-galley@ Putnam Books also.

★ 4 Stars ★
I have only read two novels by this author, but she seems to enjoy writing about complicated female friendships and messy divorces. This book follows two characters' perspectives with timelines that alternate between them. The chapters often end with cliffhangers, making it difficult to put the book down. The story immediately drew me in and kept me engaged.

Don’t expect a deep and meaningful novel, this isn’t it. However, this a light, humorous beach read that touches on the differences between the wealthy and working class. It's always enjoyable to see snobby characters get their comeuppance.

Mary married into a wealthy family that believes they can have anything they want. However, her husband George is different from the rest of his family, until their opinions clash. They separate, leading to a heated custody battle.

Mary makes a new friend, Willa, at the playground, who helps her through her tough times. But things take a dark turn when Mary discovers that Willa is not who she seems to be. To make matters worse, George is found murdered, and Mary becomes the prime suspect. Whew—a lot of twists.

Thanks to Putnam Books/PRH for providing a copy of this gifted book through NetGalley. As always, all opinions are my own and left voluntarily.

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Keep Your Friends Close was an interesting read.

Mary is going through a divorce when she meets fellow mom Willa at the playground. They become fast friends until one day Willa has ghosted Mary.

I can't say anything in the book truly surprised me. Quite predictable at times. But for people who don't read thrillers as much as I do might not find that to be the case.

I couldn't decide who to root for in this one. They are all unlikable to me. I found myself changing my mind several times throughout the book. I liked that aspect.

Lots of drama going on. That is what kept me going, wanting to know how it all ended.

Thanks to netgalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the arc.

3.5 stars

I thought this book was a decent read, but not particularly memorable.

Mary is married to the very wealthy George and the two have a two-year-old son Alex. They are currently separated and Mary wants a divorce, but George wants Mary back. While at the park one day, Mary meets Willa, another mother of a young child. The two forge a connection, sharing secrets and creating a close friendship. Then one day, Willa ghosts Mary and disappears. Fast forward and Mary is visiting Woodstock, NY to find a rental so she can live away from George but Alex can still spend time with his family. While there, Mary sees Willa walking down the street, and when Mary confronts her, she denies knowing her and says her name is Annie. What is going on?

Although there are some nice twists in this book, I called pretty much all of them before they happened. The main reason why I rounded down instead of up is because I really could not stand Mary. This woman never met an alcoholic beverage she didn't love, shown by her capacity to drink multiple servings and then make very dumb choices afterward. Again and again. Any wise woman in the midst of a contentious divorce and custody battle would dial back the drinking and focus on the task at hand. It made her character both not believable and incredibly annoying.

Overall, this is a pretty fast paced book and it really made me want to know what happened with Willa and why, so it is engaging enough to keep a reader interested. Will I remember much of it after a few weeks? Probably not but it is entertaining for a time.

Mary, newly separated, finds the friend she so desperately needs in Willa. But once she shares her deepest secret with her, Willa ghosts her. Now, months later and newly divorced, Mary travels to Woodstock to look for a new home for her and her son only to run into Willa. Only now she goes by a new name.

This was on twisty thriller! There were so many things to like in this one. First, I found Mary really interesting. She's at a crossroads because she knows she can't continue on with her husband but she knows what's waiting for her if she leaves his wealth and privilege behind. This forces her to make some interesting choices, some that really set her in hot water. The men in this book were so easy to hate. I'm sure that was by design but even when they were being nice, I wasn't happy with them at all. Willa as also interesting. She has a lot of secrets that unfold as the story moves.

The structure of this was also very well done. You shoot back and forth between past and present and even shift narrators at times. This gives you the backstory bit by bit which helps with the intensity of the story.

All in all, this was a good thriller that keeps you guessing.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the gifted copy!

Mary and Willa meet seemingly by chance at a playground, and form a fast intense friendship. For Mary, a mother going through a very rough divorce, Willa appears to be exactly what she needs.

Then Willa ghosts her-and shows up later in a different town under a different name, with a whole different family.

Konen explores some really important topics here-gender roles, toxic masculinity, power dynamics, and wealth. The only thing is that the book moved a little slow for me, and was somewhat more predictable. This was by no means a bad book, just not a favorite for me.

This was fine! It didn’t do anything new or exciting. The characters weren’t very likable or especially detestable, and the plot wasn’t quite strong enough to run the show on its own - I needed more stake in the characters (or a more thrilling plot) for this to be a higher rating. Nothing felt truly shocking, but nothing made me roll my eyes, either. It was just a fine starter-thriller, if you will?

3.5 rounded down to 3.