This was an extremely creative and unique murder mystery. The Hollywood aspect was unreal anything I’ve ever read!

This book was unique. It was quite a journey. It did drag in some spots. Wasn’t my favorite but a good enough beach read

While The Divide is set up as a page turning mystery, it ultimately tries to do too much to deliver a satisfying conclusion.

Jenny St. John spends her days as a psychic life coach, much to her own disdain. She loathes the grift, but it’s the one way she’s found to stay barely afloat since her film career failed before it ever really got started. When the director of her one film is murdered, the police come knocking. Turns out his ex-wife, Gena, bears an uncanny resemblance to Jenny and now she’s missing. And she’s the prime suspect. In part to satisfy her curiosity about this doppelgänger, Jenny takes on an investigation into the murder.

As a murder mystery helmed by an amateur sleuth, The Divide is largely successful. Jenny’s faux psychic skills - which boil down to an ability to read people well and tell them what they want to hear - and her resemblance to Gena open doors for her that remain shut to the official investigators. There’s an attempt at a subplot/twist involving multiverses - tying into the plot of Jenny’s failed movie - that feels unnecessary and takes up space that could have been better served exploring the murder and connections between Jenny and Gena.

One I would recommend to mystery readers who don’t mind some ambiguity and quick wrap-ups.

Jenny St. John hasn’t had much luck since her promising acting career never took off. Now she’s barely making ends meet as a grifting psychic in Morgan Richter’s quirky thriller The Divide.

When Jenny’s former director – and boyfriend – Serge is murdered, she finds herself pulled into the world she never quite got to enter: The Hollywood Elite. Things get weirder and weirder for her as she tries to solve the mystery, including learning about her own (possibly murderous) doppelganger.

The Divide is a fun mystery that gives cheeky nods to genre troupes without being cloying. Having the Hollywood element is a fun conceit, especially as Richter pokes fun at different aspects of celebrity culture (Goop, influencers). Several side characters are interesting and entertaining.

As for the main character, Jenny is a mess, but she knows it, making her many errors more tolerable and the reader can’t help but hope she gets her life together.

Overall, this was a fun read. Thanks as always to NetGalley and Knopf for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Divide by Morgan Richter tells the story of Jenny St John an up and coming actress starring in an indie film. Twenty years later, the director is murdered and his wife Gena Santos has disappeared. However, Jenny and Gena look very much alike. The title has a double meaning which is interesting. The story line is creative. I really liked the characters. I wasn’t sure where the author was going to go with them so it made for a good read. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review.

My first Morgan Richter novel but definitely not my last. I loved the premise and characters. Both kept me totally invested and flipping pages long past my bedtime. I enjoyed the psychological aspect and well written interpersonal relationships. A little disappointed in a couple of loose ends but overall enjoyed the book.
Thank you NetGalley, Morgan Richter and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I love a good Hollywood mystery and this did not disappoint! This was a new author to me and would gladly pick up another of their books. I enjoyed the plot and agree with others some threads needed to be wound up at the end. Some editing issues led to run-on sentences that didn't seem necessary. Overall a solid, quick read. Definitely recommend this to anyone who likes an interesting take on the genre.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing this ARC!

Jenny St. John came to LA when she was 18 to pursue her acting career and thought she had it made when she starred in the film "The Divide", but the film never made it past production and she was never provided another opportunity. Now she is living in her office where she provides physic readings. Then her life gets turned upside down when the police come looking for her because she is an identical match of the missing, Genevieve Santos. She swears there is no relation to Genevieve but they are so identical it is uncanny.

The first 2/3 of this book captures your attention and is full of action, making you want to keep flipping the pages and find out who is good and who is the killer. Then it takes a weird twist when Jenny goes back home to visit her mother to get some answers. It would have been better without adding some sci-fi twists to that section of the book. It took away from the story in my opinion. Other than that particular piece of the book, I enjoyed how they wrapped it up and the ending brought back all the excitement that first part of the book.

Overall it was a good read and I would try another book by author, Morgan Richter.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I was hooked on the book from the very first page. Interesting protagonist with a fascinating background who has to use her wits and talents to solve a very personal mystery. This, coupled with the world of Hollywood made for a real pager-turner. There'd better be a second book with this character - well done!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the advance readers copy.

I like murder mysteries. I like women's self-discovery books. I like sci-fi. I don't like them all in one book

Jenny is a failed former actress, now scaping by as a fake psychic. She made one movie, The Divide, a couple of decades ago, and now the director, Serge, who went on to become famous and sought after, has been murdered. His ex-wife, Gena, has disappeared, and, oh, she happens to be an exact doppelganger for Jenny. And she has been telling people she starred in The Divide. So Jenny embarks on a mission to find out why Gena lied about being in the movie, and who killed Serge and why.

Here's where things get mushy. An Oscar winning actress, now successful cosmetics entrepreneur, hires Jenny to find out what happened to her friend/former lover Serge. Really? So not believable at all. Jenny is suddenly a trusted member of the inner circle of the rich and famous. Again, really?! She is not so concerned with finding out who killed Serge as she is obsessed with finding out why Gena lied about being in HER movie. This was the quasi-murder-mystery part of the story.

Next, she is told by the police that, although she and Gena are NOT the same person, as the police initially believed, their DNA is enough of a match that they are identical twins. So, Jenny heads home to Iowa to confront her Mother and her Aunt Connie for the truth. Her distant Mother is no help at all and Aunt Connie (who as it happens, really is a genuine psychic) doesn't know anything either. Jenny spends time rehashing her past as a teenager, comes to grips with misdeeds she both committed and suffered, and reflects on her life back then and the trajectory her life has taken thus far. Here we had the women's self-discovery portion of the novel.

Finally, returning to LA, she has a heart to heart with the surfer-boy/former-lover of Gena, touching on parallel universes and how we all have a counter-part that may or may not cross over into our universe. Thus concludes the sci-fi portion of the tale.

Of course, there is a lot of other stuff going on in between, but as a whole, I felt I was reading a book that didn't have any idea what it wanted to be when it grew up. The murder is solved, but the DNA match between Jenny and Gena isn't. Poor Serge's death is given pretty short shrift overall, and Gena's fate is more of a guess than a concrete ending. Any of these three fleshed out into a whole book of its own would have been great, but mixed up together in a kind of goulash, it just let me unsatisfied and hungry for dessert,

I love a gritty LA murder mystery and this one was pretty fun! Jenny St. John is barely making ends meet as a psychic (fraudulent by her own admission) when her life is upturned by a visit from Detective Toni Moreau. Twenty years ago, Jenny starred in an Indie film, The Divide, directed by Serge Grumet. This film should have catapulted Jenny’s acting career but the film never made it to the theaters and she never acted again. Detective Moreau is investigating Serge’s recent murder and is searching for his wife, Genevieve Santos, who is mysteriously missing. The detective is convinced that Jenny is actually Genevieve and Jenny has to prove that she, in fact, is not the painter known as Gena. Fortunately it is quick and easy for her to show the detective that she is Jenny and not Gena, and it is embarrassing for both of them albeit highly effective. But the fact that Jenny has a doppelgänger who may have some knowledge about Serge’s death and who is also claiming to have been the star of The Divide, causes her to immerse herself back into the dark side of Hollywood world to find answers. Unfortunately, this search also puts a bulls eye on her back with the killer who is still out there.

This slow burn mystery was well plotted with a captivating set of characters. The ending left a lot of loose ends, which usually is ok with me, but, in this story, left me wishing for more answers. All in all, this was a good story and I will be looking for more from this author.

Thank you Netgalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review. This book will be available for purchase on August 20, 2024

Thank you, NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the copy of The Divide by Morgan Richter.There were a few big issues that weren’t explained well or resolved at the end, so that was annoying. I liked Jenny and her explanation of her psychic abilities and how she used her abilities to help solve the mysteries. I love the description and plot of the book, but the execution fell short.The writing was uneven and there were times I was completely disengaged from the story and other times I was totally invested, but this ended up being a pretty good read.

This one was fun! I really enjoyed the mystery of why Jenny and Gena looked alike. The character all seemed a little suspicious. The story moved fast and kept me hooked the entire time. My only "issue" was I wanted more of a connection between Gena and Jenny. It felt like such a large part of the mystery, but not as delved into once everything was resolved.

A failed actress turned grifting psychic searches for her missing doppelgänger and is plunged into a web of murder and corruption among Hollywood A-listers.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would rate it more as a 4.5.

Mystery, whodunnit vibes, LA setting, and some minor psychicness thrown in. It did feel a little slow at times, but I think that added to the plot/ambiance of the book.

Overall, this was a great read!

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this ARC.

This was an ok story. Nothing super original but sometimes that’s alright. We meet Jenny as an 18 year old aspiring starlet who gets her first big movie. When it tanks, she doesn’t get a second chance. Twenty years later she’s struggling in LA when the director of her only movie is found murdered. And it just so happens she resembles his wife a lot. Good solid mystery. Would read this author again.

If you believe that all your life is a connection of dots, chance meetings and possibly destiny…. This is your book. Could you have a doppelgänger out there who takes one of your biggest achievements and uses it as her own? But when she goes missing and you step in as a dysfunctional psychic to help find her…. The closer you look the more connections you find that she is more like you. Is she a relative you didn’t know…. Or is this all just a coincidence?

This was a good propulsive read . I enjoyed the setting and the characters.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review the book

I loved this book! It’s a gritty old school LA noir, full of Hollywood types, movie stars and money and restaurants and secrets and murders. Jenny is a down on her luck “clairvoyant” grifter who starred in exactly one movie and never ready made it in Hollywood. She turns into an amateur detective when she discovers that a missing artist, who just happens to be married to the guy who directed that one movie, is pretending to be the actress in that film. Throw in some faint whiffs of the supernatural that keep you guessing how much is real and how much is just coincidence, a complicated web of history and backstory, and some old fashioned deductive reasoning, and you get such a winner.

The Divide by Morgan Richter is a captivating neo-noir thriller that delves into the complexities of mistaken identity and the harsh realities of life and death in Los Angeles. This novel is both strange and incredibly addictive, making it a must-read for fans of the genre.

I love a whodunnit murder mystery novel! The FMC Jenny tried out an acting career and the director of her solo movie endeavor is murdered. Jenny gets a visit from the police and is told that someone looking a lot like her, living under her name had fled the scene. All in all the character of Jenny was likable and related while she went out to clear her name. Using some of her intuitive skill to solve the mystery. Worth the read for a thriller!