Review: Just Between Us

Book Title: Just Between Us
Author: Rebecca Drake
REVIEWED BY: CHELSEA
Series: None
Genres: Domestic Suspense, Mystery, Crime Fiction
Goodreads
Pub Date: 01/09/17
3 STARS

Alison, Julie, Sarah, Heather. Four friends living the suburban ideal. Their jobs are steady, their kids are healthy. They’re as beautiful as their houses. But each of them has a dirty little secret, and hidden behind the veneer of their perfect lives is a crime and a mystery that will consume them all. 

Everything starts to unravel when Alison spots a nasty bruise on Heather’s wrist. She shares her suspicions with Julie and Sarah, compelling all three to investigate what looks like an increasingly violent marriage. As mysterious injuries and erratic behavior mount, Heather can no longer deny the abuse, but she refuses to leave her husband. Desperate to save her, Alison and the others dread the phone call telling them that she’s been killed. But when that call finally comes, it’s not Heather who’s dead. In a moment they’ll come to regret, the women must decide what lengths they’ll go to in order to help a friend.

«»«»«»«»«»

This is a hard book for me to review; a three star rating on my own scale means that overall I enjoyed the book, but I found some issues I couldn’t overcome or the read wasn’t altogether memorable. Here, I found I enjoyed the read in a broad sense, but struggled with the format and determined that I just wasn’t engaged enough to keep all the details straight. This will be a short review, as I don’t have a lot to say, but I still wanted to take the time to acknowledge that I read this and try to reach the reader who may find this to be their own five star read. While this is being promoted as a psychological thriller/suspense, I’d like to add in that I feel it has a lighter, more dramatic angle than a truly dark one. Think Desperate Housewives and Big, Little Lies.

The writing is top notch people. I read the author’s previous novel, Only Ever You, and I devoured it. Her, the writing was just as high quality, so I came to the conclusion that it was my inability to keep straight the multiple POVs that narrate the story. There are four friends here, and we hear from all of them along the way; while this was definitely an interesting idea, I think I might have benefitted from the author choosing two ladies to tell the story and our gathering characterization from the remaining cast throughout their voice and experiences. This is 100% just my opinion though and has no bearing on the quality of writing or the value of the plot’s content. I thought the story was a wonderful idea and found myself having not figured out a few of the twists. If you enjoyed Big, Little Lies and other similar domestic dramas, I think you’ll enjoy this as well.

*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my copy; it was a pleasure to provide my honest thoughts here.