Member Reviews
A former writer for Vanity Fair, and is now a private eye due to a bad choice in an acquisition of someone who committed suicide due to the story. She is hired by a mom who is looking for the father of her daughters baby. Her daughter is being kept alive due to a "suicide" attempt. It ties back to the the murder that led to her loss of her writing career. This was definitely a thriller and the mysteries of what happened and what was really going on kept me hooked. The ending was a surprise, filled with some disappointment and some happy things.
Definitely not for me but that cover is stunning. I fell for the cover but it’s just not the kind of book I like.
This was gifted by Netgalley & the publisher.
Kara Thomas is always a good time, this book was no different.
First of all, the cover is stunning. I loved it right away. We are following a PI who used to be a journalist as they are trying to handle the case that ruined their career. We also follow another timeline of a 20 year old girl.
The premise sounded exciting to me, but once we actually got deeper into the book. I found it hard to keep track of all the characters and the timelines while different, did not feel like we were following separate characters.
I think overall, this book just fell short for me and what my expectations were.
What is it about Dune Road?? It apparently is not a good place for a girl 👱♀️ to be alone. Bad area? NOPE… it’s in the Hampton’s and a playground for the very wealthy💰 … but that doesn’t make it safe.. especially for a young girl… 😳…
Paul Brennan has it all… a 12.2 million dollar home… on DUNE ROAD… a wife… highly successful… except… he is the LAST person known to see Jenna… alive… 😳… on Dune Road… Fast forward to another girl… meeting a tragic fate.. on Dune Road… 🤔… What the hell is going on… in the Hamptons??? 😳😳😳
This was a twisted story that kept me thinking the whole time. What happened to these girls?? Holy good ole boys club… 🥃🥃🍻🥂… So many unlikable characters!! I personally enjoy that aspect as I think it makes them extremely interesting. 🤷♀️
Our girl Natalee… or Lee as she prefers to be called….was fired from Vanity Fair… this ex reporter is making a name for herself as a private investigator…. Will she get to the bottom of what is going on? 🤔
I loved @karathomaswrites last book Out Of The Ashes and couldn’t wait to read this one. Twisted and dark… this had me up way into the night.
This is my first adult novel by Thomas, and I really enjoyed it. I loved Lee's character as well as how her relationships develop with other main characters, particularly Chase and Nelson. The plot kept me guessing, and the twists all felt pretty believable to me. I will definitely be checking out more books by Thomas soon!
Thank you for this review copy! I enjoyed the book, but honestly it also confused me a lot. There were a lot of (similar) characters and at one point I didn't know who they were talking about anymore. The plot was well written and the build-up to it was also really good!
Lost To Dune Road was pretty harsh. Two women were not only lost to Dune Road but taken and used before then, This is a pretty sad story with a flawed protagonist that you eventually connect with. I hope there is another opportunity to read about her.
In today's political climate, what would happen if a woman was to attempt suicide while 6 months pregnant and survive, albeit in a vegetative state? That's a question I have to say I've never asked myself but it's interesting to ponder.
Lee, formerly Natalee, is a disgraced former Vanity Fair journalist. She failed to properly vet a source she interviewed and and got dropped like a hot potato.
Now she's in the private investigating arena and when she loses her current position, she has time on her hands so when the mother of the aforementioned comatose girl, Amanda, reaches out to her, she decides to give it a looksie and it has some ties back to the story that ruined her career in the first place.
Reluctantly, she goes down this rabbit hole with Amanda's mother, who could be suspicious for good reason, or could just be a mother in denial. Either way, Lee's number was found in Amanda's things and it's just not adding up. Who was the father and why was Amanda being put up in a ritzy apartment?
It seems a conspiracy is at hand and using her natural intuitiveness and detective skills, Lee may be the only one with the guts to get to the bottom of it.
I'm a huge fan of Kara Thomas. I'm in my 30's so I should prefer her new stuff, but I miss the YA novels. Thomas is an amazing writer, there's no doubt about it, but in her newest works, she tackles subjects that are more politically charged and as a news junkie, I'm usually reading to escape that world. It's not that I disagree with anything covered, in fact it's often that these stories are preaching to the choir and that bugs me. I didn't care for the racial aspect and felt it was a bit tone-deaf and cringe.
Regardless, it was well-written and a page-turner. I got a lot of Long Island Serial Killer vibes. It was very dark, very heavy and definitely worth a read if you're somewhere at least center left politically.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read ahead of release in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.
An exciting mystery about a clever formerly disgraced reporter turned PI.
There are plenty of clever twist and turns as the main character, Lee, attempts to find out who attempted to kill the young woman in a coma with her unborn child (a crime originally determined to be a suicide).
The only loose strand that bother me intensely was the fact that Lee never returned to rescue her friend Nelson's beloved dog, we were left to believe that it died a solitary death in Nelson's backyard! You will have to read the book to learn what I am talking about, but this was a detail on which I kept HOPING for resolution, but it was left unresolved.
.
What can I say, as an animal lover, this detail haunted me (I am amazed no one, such as book editors do not notice these loose ends so they can be addressed before a book is released).
However, I wanted to mention that I LOVE STORM publishing; they have kept me busy reading their top-quality books, and they are rapidly becoming my favorite publisher.
Natalee Ellerin, a disgraced journalist after the man she wrongly suspected and disgraced killed himself, takes on the case of Amanda Hartley. Amanda’s mother contacts her because she found her number in her daughter’s belongings. And before she can halt her investigation she’s back on Dune Road again, the place where Jenna Mackey went missing. Sometimes fiction is used to spotlight how an investigation into the truth is mishandled. Corrupt elected officials getting rid of those who don’t fall in line, and instead hire yes men. Lower class women being victimized in the news by calling them trash. A body (or bodies) found in the marsh of a beach.
When I received this ARC they had just announced the arrest of the Gilgo Beach serial killer. It was kind of funny to see the way that this book mirrored the investigation in some ways. I think it shows incredible knowledge and planning for an author to correctly nail down what happens in the aftermath of an investigation. Kara Thomas really knows her stuff. She shows incredible foresight into how the real life investigation would work out.
Even though this was written months before that person was arrested.
Don’t get me wrong. The ending is not something that you can predict. There is nothing contrived or procedural about it. When reading this book, it’s not hard to get Lost to Dune Road.
Lost to Dune Road started as a slow burn and then just *poof* exploded into a truly captivating mystery. A disgraced former reporter turned private investigator gets herself embroiled in the investigation of an attempted suicide that might just have ties to the murder investigation years ago that she lost her career over. I found myself quickly obsessed with this well-plotted and engrossing read showing the dark underbelly of the rich Hamptons elite, with a cast of complicated and flawed characters.
Lost to Dune Road by Kara Thomas is another fantastic thriller that had me glued to the pages.
What can I say, Kara Thomas has done it again. I love her books, and this one is no exception. She has a way of spinning a tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat and leaves you wanting more.
What a wonderfully paced thriller, both creepy and intriguing that will have you flipping those pages quickly.
Thank You NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
The beautiful cover drew me towards this read but I cannot, for the life of me, get into this book. There are way too many characters that it’s making my mind swim with uncertainty and I was struggling to move forward. Every time I pick up this book, I feel like I need to pay extra special attention to the storyline because the two cases being investigated are quite similar, but I’m having a hard time differentiating the two.
It’s taken me a week to read a little over half and I’m not enjoying it. I understand that a good book would need a little romance splashed inside, but this one felt child-like. After about 70%, I skimmed to the end, but I wasn’t wow-ed with the conclusion.
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this read. It was an okay read for me. It was just jam packed with characters it was way too much. I did not enjoy it as much because of that. Sometimes you forget how this person relates to the story and they come out of nowhere. It was okay.
I live for a redemption story and one that has a new thrill added to the mix.
This was atmospheric and dark and entertaining and OH WOW SO GOOD!
I loved this and didn't want it to end!
This was my first novel by Kara Thomas and I was definitely impressed! This was a twisty suspenseful novel and I couldn’t get enough!
Lee’s determination to get justice for these two young women was just amazing. She never gave up even when everyone wanted her to. She followed her gut even when it might get her in trouble. I loved that she cared so much about what happened to the women.
I definitely plan to read more of Kara Thomas.
Lee was once a journalist, but became disgraced when a murder suspect she named ended his life. She has been trying to forget the Jenna Mackey case and working as a PI since then. When the mother of Amanda, a girl found pregnant and on the verge of death, finds Lee's contact info in Amanda's bag, she reaches out for help solving what happened to her. But the more Lee digs in, the more connections she finds between Amanda and Jenna.
This is my third book from this author and she is an instant pre-order for me. That said, this book was a lot slower of a start than I am used to seeing from her. Some parts of the book felt a bit random and convoluted, but overall I enjoyed the story and kept reading to find out who the killer was.
Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.
This was a good read! Loved the theme, and the way it was written. A slow burn that wasn't boring or lost momentum in the middle. I hope there's more mysteries with this journalist that's spunky, smart and capable.
Thank you to MBC PR for my review copy. all opinions are my own.
3 stars.Lost to Dune Road is a dark and suspenseful thriller that does discuss some tough topics. The overall premise is a good one and immediately grabbed my attention however it was easy to get lost in the multitude of characters, the pacing and two different situations they were flipping back and forth for. The tough subjects discussed in this book include: police (and politician) corruption, abortion and adoption, and unhealthy relationships (particularly where older men and young girls are concerned). I was able to get into the book/plot over halfway through and actually really liked how both major storylines were woven together, however at times I was confused about which victim I was reading about and the details of their story. There were some suspenseful parts but there were also some parts that tended to drag on for awhile. My major issue was with the sheer number of characters involved in this book. I understand there are 2 major plot lines going on within however it was hard to sometimes follow along.
If you like private investigator/detective based thrillers I think you may enjoy this one. It wasn't one of my favorites however I would pick up another book by her!.
Thank you Netgalley & Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this novel. These thoughts and opinions are my own.
“‘Everyone wants to be on the winning team in the end.’ ‘Or maybe even shitty people are capable of doing the right thing sometimes.’”
I love how the author used the real life issue,
in the local to her Gilgo Case, of the mistreatment of families by authorities when a missing woman has a history of sex work. As if that diminishes the importance of them being found. Ugh!
In Lost To Dune Road a desperate mother asks disgraced reporter Lee Ellerin, now a private investigator, to investigate the mysterious suicide attempt of her pregnant college student daughter. She wants answers and she knows her daughter Amanda would never do this. Yet no one is taking her seriously. Can Lee help?
This is a multifaceted and multilayered story of money, police corruption, the power of the media, and murder. There are A LOT of characters here and I may have given this book five stars if I was able to keep them all straight. But overall this book hooked me from the start and had me flipping those pages looking for answers.
Thank you to @karathomaswrites, @amazonpublishing, and @mbc_books for the #gifted copy.