The title and cover alone captivated me. I’ve read another thriller book around the same story point between sisters and was desperately looking for another story. When it comes to my thrillers I’m a “ I need to be dragged in my the first few pages” so that I can be at the edge of my seat and invested for the ride. The Prologue did just that. I was smiling because I was like oh this is going to be unhinged. But was a bit disappointed. This mystery/thriller had a slower pace, but I still found it somewhat engaging. The timeline became confusing and was hard to follow, which left me trying to backtrack to understand it better. It had the potential for a thrilling climax, but unfortunately, it didn't deliver and felt somewhat lackluster. I am absolutely eager to explore more works by this author! They possess a creative spark that has the potential to light up the literary world. While I could grasp the grand vision behind this story, it just didn’t give me that moment where I’m throwing the book across the room lol in a good way.

Thank you net gallery for the opportunity for an ARC copy for my honest book review! I will be posting my review the end of this month on Tik tok (Shecozyandlit)

Kate, Aurora, and Peggy are just your average sisters. They don’t always get along—in fact Aurora may never forgive Peggy for what she did. And also, one of them may be a serial killer…

When Kate purchases her grandfather’s old home that the girls grew up in, she is elated but Aurora and Peggy are skeptical. The house has its pleasant memories, certainly, but its halls are also filled with dark memories that threaten to take hold of the sisters’ present lives. When a string of murders occurs, suspicion turns toward the Rowling sisters causing old, buried secrets to rise to the surface and forcing the sisters to face their past.

Readers receive a viewpoint from the killer—simply narrated as “she”—which was interesting but some of the scenes could be quite gruesome. Aside from the murders and all, there is something clearly worrisome going on with the sisters and the tantalizing prose forced me to keep reading in the beginning but I started to lose steam around the 40% mark.

The passage of time is difficult to keep track of in this book; a clearer timeline could have led to less confusion for the reader. In addition, there were parts where it seemed like the author was struggling to get to what they wanted to say leading to an uneven reading experience and a lack of flow. Wordy in places; this could have easily been trimmed down to a tighter, more concise story.

For me, just an ok story that needed a lot more work. The author seems like a good writer but I don’t think that their full potential is on display here so it will be interesting to see what they do moving forward.

Thank you Poisoned Pen Press for the early copy in exchange for an honest review! Available Jun 10 2025

This was definitely a slower-paced mystery/thriller, but I still thought it was interesting. I just wish the characters were a bit more captivating. I really am such a character-based reader, I really need to be invested in the characters to care about the plot happening to or around them.

I think I also didn't feel like the stakes were high enough?? Which is very weird because people were literally being murdered, but it wasn't made to feel super high stakes. It was a tad monotone when it came to that kind of things at some points in the book.

I also found the ending to be not nearly as satisfying as I wanted it to be. This could've had an amazingly climactic ending, but it just didn't hit that way.

I would like to read other books from this author though, I can see this author creating some amazing stories, but this book just wasn't the one for my I think. And I do think this was a debut author, so I can give a lot of wiggle room for that. I definitely think that any form of art (writing most certainly included) improves over time.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.