The Perfect Sister
Stephanie DeCarolis

Definitely an enjoyable thriller/suspense. When Alex can’t reach her sister, Maddie, who’s working her way through college in the Hamptons, she decides to go there and investigate. Once she arrives, she’s surprised to find out that Maddie’s world has changed. Alex is soon drawn in to the world of the wealthy, slowly piecing together parts of Maddie’s life prior to her disappearance.

I liked how the author interspersed a variety of POV, it gave a unique insight into the story and a certain tense narrative that I enjoyed. Secrets and betrayal are ripe among this rich crowd and Alex is in the thick of it but will she find her sister or is it too late?

My thanks to Random House for this gifted DRC.

Maddie and Alex’ relationship has been strained since the death of their mother. Still Maddie has always promised to come home to be with Alex on her birthday. When she doesn’t return this year, Alex decides to find her. Maddie is a server at a seafood restaurant in the Hamptons so it should be easy to contact her. But when Alex visits The Lobster Shack, Maddie no longer works there. She’s sent to Blackwell Manor, a luxurious oceanside estate, where Maddie had been staying but left several days ago. Alex, with little cash and a lot of dead ends, accepts Lily Blackwell’s invitation to stay in the family pool house, as Maddie had. This generous offer is not without strings and soon Alex is in a world of dark secrets, jealousy and madness. Did Maddie get out? Will she?

The Perfect Sister is a multilayered mystery with secrets piled on top of secrets. Trust me, you will not be able to figure this one out until the final pages! Settle in for a suspenseful read! 5 stars.

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

One of the many beach-reads I have enjoyed this summer. The pristine beaches at The Hamptons appears too good to be true and so do the people. What are they hiding? Told through multiple POVs, we get a glimpse of the wealthy, beautiful and elusive residents. Looks can be deceiving!
One of the families, known as the Blackwells, offers their pool house to Maddie to live in. When her sister Alex tries to connect with her, her phone calls go unanswered. Maddie and Alex meet once a year in the Hamptons to celebrate Alex's birthday. She would never miss it unless...
They grew up with an unstable childhood, so their connection is important to both of them.
When Alex travels to the Blackwell Mansion, she is invited to stay in their pool house while she searches for her sister.
This psychological suspense is held together with the hunt for Maddie, and with Alex getting too close to the reason she is missing. It is a slow burn, but it is rich in the complex landscape and charming town.
Thank you NetGalley and Bantam Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Lots of good twists and turns to this story. Alex is searching for her sister Maddie. The Blackwell family was hosting Maddie and now offers Alex a place to stay. Each member of the Blackwell family is hiding a piece of the truth and Alex is determined to find it.

I am so glad I waited until my vacation to read this beach mystery next to the ocean! When her sister Maddie goes missing, Alex drops everything and rushes to the Hamptons to search for her. More of a slow burn than a page turning thriller, but the story was captivating, and the ending was very satisfying. Also, I'l love to give a shoutout to whoever designed the gorgeous cover that initially pulled me in!

I want to thank Net Galley, Bantam, and Stephanie DeCarolis for the opportunity to read this unputdownable book. I received The Perfect Sister as an ARC for a free and honest review. The opinions here are mine and mine alone.

This thriller is told from multiple perspectives that may also include snippets from the past. Did I want to know what happened to Maddie? Sure, but it felt a bit all over the place. I also wanted more about Alex & Ben. I could’ve used an epilogue as the ending felt a bit abrupt.

I waited a while to write this review. I tried to find something to like about it. It was just a mess from start to finish. The premise was unbelievable and the actions of the characters made no sense. There were scenes added purely for shock value that were mostly just funny. The multiple points of view looked like they were written by the characters in an 80s soap opera. And the big twist was completely obvious from the first page.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the complimentary copy. This is the first book I’ve read by Stephanie and I really enjoyed it. This book is a treat read..full of suspense, intriguing characters and twists and turns. Many of the characters will give you the ick…but that’s a sign of a good writer! The family is defiantly a hot mess and they are all hiding secrets…when the truth is revealed the family will be turned upside down. There are many assumptions I made as I was reading and the author turned my thoughts upside down when she threw in a couple do unexpected twists.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine for the eARC.

What would you do for your sister? This is a question I found myself grappling with throughout this entire novel. I love multi POV and found that in this book it enhanced the story for me. Although "The Wharf" POV was one that took a bit to get used to.

Easy 3.5 star read for me. I enjoyed parts of it and found other parts to be a bit too much for me. Either way will look forward to future books by this author.

The Perfect Sister
by Stephanie DeCarolis
Pub Date: Jul 16 2024

"The Perfect Sister" is about one woman's search for her missing sister on the sandy white beaches of the Hamptons who uncovers a wealth of secrets worth killing for. It's a sultry and sumptuous psychological suspenseful mystery told from multiple points of view. A great page turner and what sold me on this book was the cover, I mean look at that a beautiful cover!

Synopsis: Alex Walker has always looked up to her perfect older sister. Maddie has succeeded in all the ways Alex has not: she escaped their hometown and seems to have put the memories of their unstable childhood behind her. But despite the different paths their lives have taken, the two sisters made a pact to spend one week together every summer. It was a promise they’d never broken. . . Until now.

Many thanks to #Netgalley #Randomhousepublishing and #Theperfectsister for providing me with an E-ARC of this book.

There was a lot of good material here, but for me there were too many (seven) narrators, and too much back and forth in time for me to really get pulled in. I'd try another book by this author, but this one wasn't really for me.

Thank you to Bantam Books and NetGalley for an e-ARC.

Growing up, Alex idolized her older sister Madison. From watching their mother's failed aspirations in Hollywood to their father's abandonment, the sisters leaned on each other for support. Even after a devastating fight, Alex anticipates everything will go back to normal between them. When Madison cancels their annual birthday get-together at the last minute and doesn't wish Alex a happy birthday, Alex gets the sinking feeling that something is going on with her sister. She's never missed the yearly tradition. Determined to get to the bottom of it, Alex heads to where Madison was last sighted: the Hamptons. As Alex soon discovers, it's not just Madison that's hiding things in the wealthy enclave.

The Perfect Sister is a good book to bring to the beach. Not only will it have the vibe you're looking for, you'll be able to fly through it like I did. What I'll add is that it felt like the book suffered from too many endings, like one piled on top of the other to get as many twists in as possible, and I felt like I was left hanging by the time I reached the last one. It was almost like a rush to get there and then the follow-through was dropped.

Having loved The Guilty Husband I was really looking forward to this read by Stephanie DeCarolis. The setting, an atmospheric brooding mansion in the Hamptons, was so very promising, as was the missing sister. I so appreciate when stories are told from multiple points of view, but this strategy seemed to get in the way of my understanding and ultimately my enjoyment of this particular book as I personally felt there were too many different points of view. I was struggling to keep the timeline and some of the characters straight at times.
I enjoyed the mystery surrounding Maddie’s disappearance and the multiple suspects. The addition of the Jeffery Epstein like scenarios were a surprising twist and had me forming different conclusions about Maddie’s disappearance. So very many suspects.
I did find myself relating to Alex about 2/3’s of the way through the book which kept me engaged until the end. All in all an engaging read, complete with family turmoil and drama, murder, a mystery, police involvement, voyeuristic sexual activity, and various budding romances.
Many thanks to Stephanie DeCarolis, Bantam, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read an arc of this just published read.

I was looking forward to this book, based on the synopsis but it fell flat in many ways, I do not recommend it.

Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group for the chance to read and review this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a good psychological suspense book involving sisters Alex and Maddie. The sisters had always agreed to meet on Alex's birthday no matter where they are. When Maddie cancels, Alex begins to worry. When she doesn't hear from her sister for a few days, Alex decides to go to the Hamptons to investigate. She finds clues to Maddie's life, but she cannot find Maddie. What happened and where is her sister? I enjoyed this mystery-it is quick moving with several twists and turns. The characters are very well developed and add to the suspense of the story. The ending is also satisfying. I recommend this book if you like mystery novels.

Not a bad read, just nothing super memorable. Kind of predictable, been there done that.

It's now two days since I finished and can I remember much about this book? Nope. I had to re-read the synopsis to remind myself what it was about.

Alex has always looked up to her older sister Madison (Maddie), and Maddie has always been there for her. Their tumultuous childhood bonded them together strongly. The one thing Maddie promised was that she would always celebrate Alex's birthday with her. However, this year, they had a falling out after their mother's death and although Maddie agreed to text Alex on her birthday, she has now ghosted her--Alex can't get in touch and Maddie won't reply. The Hamptons was the last known location she had for Maddie, so Alex travels to see if she can find her. She gets caught up in a complicated web of lies, cover-up, and possibly murder.

Except for the creative, yet WAY OTT resolution, most of this book was incredibly predictable and I saw where it was going from the beginning. I think one of the issues this book has is that there are far too many character POVs. We hop from one person to the next, from present to past to near past and it just gets jumbled together. Sometimes it was difficult for me to remember whose head I was in and had to go back to the beginning of the chapter to figure it out.

I know many people have enjoyed this one, so if you like stories featuring missing people, this one might be a winner for you.

This started off so strong and I liked the tense atmosphere that was created here. I’m a fan of rich people behaving badly, or shady, in this book, and that aspect also worked well for me. I did find the middle to slow down a bit and would classify this more as a solid mystery than a thriller. The build up and ending resolution was satisfying and I liked how it was different than other mysteries. Overall, a solid summer mystery.

Thank you Netgalley, Stephanie DeCarolis and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine for the ebook. This was a gripping story of sisterhood and the lengths one is willing to go for family. Alex was driven and not giving up on her sister Maddie. The twists were wild and I didn't see many coming. A must read!

THE PERFECT SISTER is a slow(er) burn thriller about a young woman trying to find her missing sister in the lush Hamptons. You really do not have a sense of who you can trust, but you start getting breadcrumbs on who might be more on the up and up based on all the multiple POVs of which the story is told. The author gives you just the right amount of information at the time they see fit. It all mostly works, too! I was extremely curious to discover what happened to the sister (if anything, nefarious or otherwise) and why. I think I got a little sidetracked with all of the POVs (there are like... 6? 7+?) and it made me lose a little focus, but then it would pick back up again. Solid book!

3.5 star review.

A missing sister, a privileged family, and lots of secrets. There are so many secrets in this book. The relationships in this book are quirky and unique. I kept trying to put it together and figure out what had happened to Maddie and if Alex would find her sister before it was too late.

When I picked up The Perfect Sister, I was looking for a book that held my attention and kept me wanting more. The Perfect Sister started off being just what I was looking for. About ¾ of the way through I started to slow down. I was losing interest but had to finish and find out the answers. I am glad I stuck with the book.