Member Reviews

Another thrilling read from the author! And perfect summertime setting.
Liked the friendship component and rotating narrators to keep the plot moving and this reader engaged.

With thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for this e-ARC.

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I expected to like this book more than I did. I love books about complicated female friendships, but this took toxic to a whole new level. May was the most irritating, self-pitying, egotistical character I've read recently. Lauren seemed like the best of the lot, but I really didn't get to "see" her much. I've read other Alafair Burke books and loved them, so I'll look forward to the next one.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

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Alafair Burke is an automatic read for me, so I was very excited to receive a copy of The Note. The Note is a masterful whodunit with female friendship as a centerpiece. The "Cancelled Crew" May, Lauren and Kelsey are each dealing with personal scandals, and a history of shared trauma. The three friends meet up for a vacation in the Hamptons after May has a very public social media scandal that causes her to lose her job as an attorney. The girls have a mini altercation with some strangers that leads to a revenge prank that takes a very bad turn. The backstories of all three women were compelling and there were numerous twists and surprises. Another solid book from Alafair Burke. Thanks to the publisher and #netgalley for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

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The Note- Alafair Burke
Pub Date: 01/07/25
Rating: 3/5

Thoughts:
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Three long term friends, May, Lauren, and Kelsey decide to meet up for a vacation in the Hamptons to reconnect after life has thrown each of them their own curveballs. As the three are enjoying themselves, Kelsey decides to write a note and place it on the windshield of a couple who very rudely stole their parking spot as a prank to get them back. This note brings them into an investigation that turns their weekend into a nightmare, bringing forward an event that happened in the past involving a young girl drowning in a lake at the same summer camp all three friends were present at.

I will say, this took me a while to finish. I felt that the characters were....a little too much. i didn't feel like a single one of them was likeable, and had a hard time connecting to them. The suspense and build up was done well with the reveal being the person I didn't suspect especially for the reason provided. Overall, well written story that I enjoyed, but nothing over the top for me.

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Burke delivers another excellent psychological thriller in which 3 friends reunite in the Hamptons only to have chaos ensue after a night spent out drinking. Burke created a fast-moving narrative with multiple narrators and lots of unexpected twists. For fans of Lisa Unger and Heather Gudenkauf.

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DNF this at 40%. I just cannot get through one more page of this book. Thanks to Netgally for an ARC of this one, but I cannot get through it. The characters are annoying, it’s so Covid-heavy, the themes could be so good if they weren’t over the top in your face, and the story was flushed out better. The story line changes from present to past and switches between characters so I found myself confused and having to reread paragraphs over and over again. This could have used a heavy handed editor to fix a lot of these simple issues.

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Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the eARC.

Alafair Burke is the queen of unreliable narrators. Who on earth was even trustworthy in this novel? So many lies, so much deception... Yikes. I will say this reminded me a bit of the Netflix Series Beef with Ali Wong. It was not my favorite read of the year of of Burke's but hey, still enjoyable.

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May Hanover, a former district attorney turned law professor, takes a vacation in the Hamptons with two long-time friends Lauren and Kelsey in The Note by Alafair Burke coming out January 14, 2025. A prank by Kelsey involving a note put on the car of the couple who rudely stole the parking place in Sag Harbor that the women were waiting for turns into a police investigation.

Each woman has a complicated past. May recently had an episode of extreme anxiety that a stranger caught on video causing her great embarrassment and a threat to derail her career. Lauren, involved in an lengthy and on-going affair with a wealthy married man who happened to be her boss, finds her job at risk when the wife reveals the affair to Lauren’s current employer. Kelsey, a suspect in her husband’s murder five years ago, still lives under the shadow of doubt.

When the driver of the pranked car goes missing, the trail eventually leads back to the three friends. Now they scramble to try to figure out what went so terribly wrong that the police were at their ocean-side rental. Do they confess that Kelsey put the note on the car? She really does not need to be on the wrong side of the law again.

Alafair Burke’s use of unreliable narrators and twisty plots keeps the reader engaged to the very end, with a surprising conclusion. Burke, a Stanford Law School grad and a former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, is a law professor at Hofstra Law School where she teaches criminal law and procedure.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting July 26, 2024.

I would like to thank Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

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Holy plot twist, Batman. That took a wild turn.

I still don’t quite understand *why* this group of ladies was friends. They seem to all dislike each other to some degree, but trauma bonds I suppose. Other than that, this was riveting. The slow unfolding of the secrets was addicting. The note thing seemed so unbearably silly until it got explained for what it truly was. May was my favorite character by far and seemed to show the most character development. .

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When 3 friends decide to take a vacation together in the Hamptons, the last thing they expected was to be pulled into a murder investigation. May, Lauren, and Kelsey have been friends since they were teens. After a hiatus of not seeing each other in person, they vacation in a B&B in the Hamptons. On a night out on the town celebrating, the parking spot they are about to pull into gets taken by a younger couple who completely ignore the fact the friends were trying to pull into that same spot. Later that night, the three friends drunkenly write a note to put on the couple's car as a prank. The next morning they learn the man, David Smith, has gone missing and the cops trace it back to May, Lauren, and Kelsey.

This was a fairly decent mystery thriller. All 3 friends have secrets that are slowly revealed. This book started out strong, but the ending felt rushed and not flushed out. Very few details were given to explain. All the male characters were insufferable. May's fiance Josh is the worst. He's controlling and a complete ass-hat. Kelsey's step-brother Nate is very two dimensional, and her father is the stereotypical rich guy trying to throw money at everything to control the situation. The concluding chapters just listed what happened rather than build any suspense in the reveal. This had a lot of promise, but didn't finish as strong as it started.

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The Note by Alafair Burke is about a vacation in the Hamptons that goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history. I was excited to get this copy to read, but the story fell flat for me, and I did not like any of the characters.

May, Lauren, and Kelsey are long-time friends, and one bad decision on their first night out unravels a mystery where they all lie for each other.

The story was just okay. I did not connect with any of the characters and felt they were all a bit plastic and stereotypical. I didn't really care what was going to happen and just found myself reading it to get to the end. The Note is not one of my favorites by this author.

#TheNote #NetGalley @AAKnopf

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The Note was aptly named. It is the story of three friends, May, Kelsey and Lauren who went on holiday to the Hamptons. May was a lawyer turned law professor, Kelsey worked in her father's real estate empire and Lauren was involved with the Houston symphony. Kelsey had been accused of murdering her husband, Luke.

The first night of the holiday, The three friends decided to go out for dinner. While waiting for a parking space, another car pulled in ahead of them. It really pissed them of. The couple who took their parking space got out of the car and went into the restaurant. While festering over the incident, Kelsey decided to leave a note on the other car's windshield stating that the guy was a cheater. May and Lauren thought it was a bad idea to leave the note but Kelsey did it anyway. The couple's names were David and Christine, and unbeknownst to May and Lauren, Kelsey had been dating. David.

David was murdered and in the midst of the investigation it was determined that Kelsey murdered him. So now she was accused of murdering both Luke and David. Enter Nate. He was Kelsey's half brother and he was there in the Hamptons at the time. When he learned that May was leaving early, Kelsey and Lauren invited him to come and stay at the house.

There had also been another death. Years prior, the friends were all counselors at a summer camp. Marnie had been an attendee and no one liked her. Her body had been found in the water and it was assumed that she jumped over the ledge and hit her head on a rock. With Kelsey having been accused of the murders of both of the men in her life, the investigation into Marnie's death was reopened.

Putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, May decided that Kelsey was guilty and she said as much to Detective Decker who was the detective investigating the murder. Lauren knew that Kelsey needed a lawyer and she asked May to do it. At first she didn't want to, but after reevaluating the evidence, she decided that Kelsey was innocent and agreed to represent her, at least for her arraignment. She was able to get her off on her own recognizance as long as she stayed in town with May.

While May was delving into the case, the plot took a huge turn. The twists and turns in the story was the author's clever way of sending the reader toward other possible scenarios. For instance, Kelsey's overprotective father had mafia hookups and he would stop at nothing to harm anyone who hurt his little girl. And her half brother, Nate, had an unhealthy attraction to her and wanted her all to himself. Also, no one knew where Christine was when the murder occurred.

This saga was really intriguing to me and I couldn't wait to find out who the culprit was. I didn't have it figured out until nearly the end. I gave it five stars.

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Three best friends on a weekend getaway get embroiled in a murder mystery. Kind of a fun summer read. A weekend read. Unfortunately, it wasn't an "I loved it" read.

May is an attorney. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and Columbia. Worked for the DA's office, and is now a law professor. She has every reason to feel successful and confident, but she doesn't. She second guesses herself and constantly compares herself to Lauren and Kelsey. She also had something traumatic happen at the subway, which was videoed, and went viral.

Kelsey is beautiful and wealthy, but her husband died a few years ago under suspicious circumstances, and, thanks to the media, everyone believes she killed her husband.

Lauren is a successful composer who has been dating an older married man for 20-plus years. She had to leave a previous job at an arts camp because a camp counselor died under her watch.

Now they are all three entangled in another mysterious death, and as they all lie to each other, who's to tell if one of them isn't the killer?

This had the potential to be an interesting book, but it fell short in numerous areas.
1. The characters were boring. May perseverated throughout the book about her shortcomings and insecurities. Boring! May questions her relationship with her fiancé throughout the book. Boring! They all lie to each other about important things, and psycho-analyze each others motives.
2. It was predictable. I didn't figure out who the killer was, but all other plot points in the book were predictable.
3. The author kept bringing up the same events in their pasts, and it felt stagnant. I wanted to the book to move along, to progress...I kept saying to myself, "Yup, I got it. We know this already."

What did I like about it? It was just a summer, sit-by-the-pool and relax kind of book. No thinking required.

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This is the first Alafair Burke I have read and I would definitely read another one. The book is set predominantly in the Hamptons and New York it revolves around three women who find themselves entangled in legal troubles and some strange murders. The plot twists are unexpected, but everything falls into place perfectly. I like the way they all had backstories and entanglements that were brought in throughout the story.

The pacing at the beginning and story was a little slow. The initial chapters drag a bit, making it somewhat challenging to get into the story. However, once the narrative gains momentum, it becomes addictive read. The slower start is quickly forgotten as the plot thickens and the tension builds, leading to a climax that is well worth the wait. The intricate plotting and character dynamics create a reading experience that is both engaging and rewarding.

Overall, this book is a fantastic blend of mystery, drama, and suspense, I found the book an enjoyable read that I would definitely recommend to fans of the genre.

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The note seemed like a book I was going to enjoy based on the synopsis. But I just couldn't get into it. I disliked the toxic group of friends. The book kept dragging to get to the actual thriller part. The note just wasn't for me. The twist at the end did catch me off guard because the one person I wasn't expecting to be involved actually was.

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Scandal and friends at a beach house and everything goes wrong. Murder and trying to solve the case between these three friends is at the forefront of the plot. I really enjoyed learning about their friendships and what happened to make them all cancelled and then the big twist about the murder sealed the deal for me. 5 stars and I hope this isnt the last we hear from this friend group.

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This was my first of Alafair Burke’s books to read but I have heard wonderful things! I would say this book was a mild thriller and had she gone into more detail about some things it would have been too much for me but as it stands it was a great book and a quick read!

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This was a very satisfying thriller. I loved the premise of the note on the car. The twists & turns of this book were very well done.

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I have read several Alafair Books written with Mary Higgins Clark. This was my first book written by her. I do not mind a "slow burn" or given the backstory of the characters. However, I do not want to be overwhelmed by it all. It was OK for me. I would encourage others to read it. My opinion is mine alone. I most definitely would read other books by this author.

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I am a pretty big Alafair Burke fan (I loved The Ex!) and enjoyed this one, though I did feel it went on a bit longer than it needed to. I was surprised by the twist near the end, but not blown away. Enjoyable.

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