Lyn Liao Butler has mastered the art of full-body-tense suspense in this fresh take on the "stranger in the house" concept, which will have you racing to the end even as your blood pressure increases and you have to remind yourself to breathe.

when Annie receives an unexpected guest in the middle of a storm, she lets her in out of common courtesy.
As time goes by and they start getting to know each it looks like the stranger is not so unknown as she thought.

What I liked -
Pilot twists.
MC doubting her mental state
strange bond between the antagonist and protagonist

The story starts off with Annie second guessing herself and wanting to be better Kinder. This sort of makes her want to open her heart and her door when a stranger comes knocking. But it starts getting super weird and a lil predictable as the story progressed.
You know when the MC is being the dumb chick in the horror movie, but you’re not really annoyed.. like you know whats about to happen but you kinda wanna know how… thats how this book feels.. you don’t approve of her actions but at the same time you don’t want to stop her either instead you let it pan out.

It doesn’t have any significant supporting characters or any of the nonsense. It’s straight up mystery/ psychological story about Annie and Serena

The storm:
It acts as a metaphor to what Serena is causing to Annie’s life and it also makes the setting that much wild and dangerous very much like Serena herself

Eventually, you knew what was coming. But, after the main plot twist, things took on a diff-pace and I kinda enjoyed it.
The story telling type of narration is so good for this particular story as opposed to a first person narration. I was super hooked and chewed through the book fairly quickly. A definite winner!

“Chilling from page one, SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE is an unputdownable descent into two women’s parallel lives. With genuine jaw-dropping twists and enough seeds of doubt to populate a very wicked garden, Butler’s debut thriller is a breath of fresh Kauai air.”

I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Someone Else's Life is a thriller in which Annie moves to Kauai with the aim of getting her life back on track, after something horrible happened which involves her son Finn. The thriller aspect involves not knowing what happened back in New York and Annie welcoming a stranger into her house during a tropical storm.

Annie is a very anxious person and I appreciated the attention on acceptance and recognition of mental illness and care. The setting of the book and the details on Taiwanese culture and food were strong points in this book.
For a thriller, the story is not very original and quite predictable. The writing was simple and the dialogue was repetitive. This made the book feel drawn out, instead of being a pageturning thriller.

Overall, this novel gives a detailed description on what it is like to live on Hawaii, with a simple thriller plot woven in.

The storyline is good, though perhaps not that original. I could already more or less guess what is going on. The writing and dialogue is not bad, though I found some scenes just dragged on too long, with the female main character often drifting into her own little past world. I would say pretty good for a debut and I look forward to what the author will write next.

Someone Else’s Life offered up a unique setting and dire circumstances, but left a little to be desired.

We follow Annie, who recently moved to Hawaii with her husband and young son, wanting a fresh start and a chance to leave near her father and sister after her life unraveled. Following the deaths of her mother and her beloved dog, the bankruptcy of her dance business, and a traumatic incident involving her son, Annie shrinks into a shell of her formal, vibrant self. And when a stranger appears on her doorstep during a scarily intense tropical storm, Annie finds an unexpected connection. But - this is a thriller. ;) So naturally, things go quite wrong.

Here’s what worked for me:
• Super interesting setting and characters. I appreciated the little details that came from the author’s lived experiences - Taiwanese culture and recipes, local spots in Hawaii, and etc.
• The stakes couldn’t have been higher, and the intensity of the storm was delightfully atmospheric.
• I appreciated Annie’s journey towards recognizing that getting help and caring for herself mentally is important and not something to feel shame about - and her father’s acceptance of this (though this was devalued a bit by the other mental illness subplot - see below).
• Doggies! :)
• SPOILER:
Annie’s empathy towards the “villain” was interesting - I was torn about this - it was kind of a lovely show of compassion, but also seemed a little illogical (I mean, her LIFE and her CHILD’S LIFE were at stake). Also Annie seemed to be a self-insert of the author, so I wondered about if this was a “hey, look how lovely and understanding i would be in this situation?”

Here’s what I didn’t love:
• The writing was a bit juvenile for my tastes. Super simplistic, not very descriptive, and a lot of telling us how to feel or what to take away from the action. There were also a fair amount of grammatical issues, but this is an early-ish proof, so i don’t want to come down too hard on that.
• It was also quite repetitive - phrases and plot lines were being SCREAMED at us way too many times. It took away from the twists.
• There was some uncomfortable language surrounding mental illness, and fear of someone being “unstable”/“crazy” or a “psychopath” because of genetics. This was paired with a much better storyline of Annie overcoming her shame around therapy and asking for help, so it was a bummer that some prejudices/problematic language leaked into the writing. This would have benefited greatly from a sensitivity reader.
• The MC and her friend group were meant to be in their forties, but they spoke very, very young.

My overall impression? This was a quick, fun read. It’s got some interesting slices of life from Hawaii and Taiwanese culture, but it’s a tropey thriller plot with simplistic writing, and I probably wouldn’t rush to recommend it.

CW: murder, child death, death of parent, animal death, alcoholism, cancer, child abuse, gaslighting, grief, homophobia/biphobia, mental illness, stalking, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, ableism, violence

Thank you so much for allowing me to read and review your titles. I really not the opportunity!

I do appreciate it and continue to review books that I get the chance to read.
Thanks again!

It’s literally been a year from hell, so Annie Lin packs up what’s left of her life and moves to Kauai with her emotionally traumatized son and her husband.And at first, it really is like living in paradise, but then strange things begin to happen, the collar from her late, beloved dog show up. items lost for years suddenly appear. With her life spiraling out of control, Annie invites a stranger, a woman seeking shelter from a storm, into her home. And that’s when her real nightmare begins. The beautiful setting is a sharp counterpoint to the rising sense of dread in this exciting thriller