Cover Image: Never Let Go

Never Let Go

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Member Reviews

This was my novel from Lori Duffy Foster.

Thank you for the ARC.

Carla’s childhood best friend, Rachel, (or so we thought) wants Carla’s husband at any cost. She invites Carla over along with her new baby, Christopher. The next thing Carla knows she wakes in a basement alone. Where’s Christopher? How did she get here? Carla must help her friend seduce her husband or everyone is going to end up dead and Christopher will never be found. Will she be able to tell Rachel how to seduce her husband and save them all?

There was another story going on in this book and I don’t understand because it was confusing and not necessary. Also the storyline got far fetched and hard to believe towards the ending. That is why it only gets 2 stars from me.

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Carla is betrayed by her oldest and most trusted friend. Rachel drugs her, placing Carla in a secret Rachel constructed.
Her baby, Christopher, is sold.
And her husband, Nick, is the real target. Rachel has been obsessed with him for years - harboring hatred for Carla, the best friend who married Rachel's obsession.
And this is just the start of the novel.
Rachel insists Carla give secrets to seduce Nick; Carla desperately searches for a plan to gain freedom; Nick just wants his wife and son to return - pushing the police to take their disappearances seriously, knowing Cara did not run away.
Loved it!

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Carla wakes up in a locked basement room; drugged and trapped, her baby missing. Her best friend has kidnapped her in a plot to woo her husband.

This book is excitement and action from the beginning to the very last page. You think it’s over and will settle, and then anything wild thing happens! It is unrealistic and at times, predictable, but it was also fast paced and full of excitement.

“If one side collapses, we all collapse. In other words, we all die.”

Never Let Go comes out 12/20.

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If I am ever kidnapped by my best friend, that literally everyone could tell was awful and a little crazy except me, and put in an impossible prison I think I will definitely spend more time worrying about her sleeping with my husband than I do about my baby that she says she sold to someone at a fast food restaurant for a greasy bag of cash. Yeah, and that was the most believable part of this thing.

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I don't usually read psychological thrillers, but this one hooked me immediately, and I couldn't stop reading. It begins when Carla wakes up in a sealed basement room without any idea where she is. The last thing she can remember is having lunch with her baby, Christopher, and her best friend, Rachel. Where is she and where is her baby? Where is her husband, Nick?

Meanwhile, husband Nick is falling apart. His wife is missing, along with their baby. Detective Sawyer is the lead on the missing persons case, and the husband is always a suspect in times like these. But as the case plays out, Sawyer begins to believe that Nick is innocent, and his wife and baby are the subjects of a crime. But who?

Desperation sets in for all characters. Will Carla get out of this place? Why is someone she trusted involved in her kidnapping and that of her son? Nick is desperate to get the police to believe in his innocence and find his wife and baby.

Never Let Go also has a subplot with two additional crimes. One of the three crimes is solved halfway through the book, but the other two continue to build the suspense.

I'd highly recommend Lori Duffy Foster's book. The pacing is excellent, the characters interesting, the psychological tension enormous, and the final outcome a logical extension of the plot. My only criticism would be that I thought the other murder plot needed to be more closely connected to the main plot. Overall, I'd highly recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Level Best Books for allowing me to read this for an honest review.

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This story had me on the edge of my seat from the very first page. Carla wakes up in a basement and that isn’t even where her nightmare begins. What happens when the person you trust the most is someone you didn’t know at all? Never let you go is a heart stopping thriller that will keep you guessing to the very end.

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Never Let Go starts off immediately after new mom Carla meeting her bestie since childhood Rachel for lunch with her newborn Christopher. Carla passes out during lunch and awakes in a locked room and Christopher missing. Rachel tells Carla she sold Christopher on the black market, and she intends to keep her hostage while she makes Carla’s husband Nick fall in love with her. Where is Christopher? How will Carla get out of this situation? Detective Sawyer is the lead on this case and is trying to put the pieces together before time runs out.
There is also a subplot of a cold case Detective Sawyer is working of a murdered teenager who so happened to have attended the same high school as those involved in the current case. The author did a great job of showing how class/human trafficking/privilege ties into people’s lives when they are making decisions about their lives.
This was a 4* read! Thank you to Level Best Books, IBPA, and NetGalley for the EArc and the chance to review it!

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Carla Murphy and Rachel have been best friends since they were ten years of age. But now Carla barely remembers this Rachel, in whose basement she has been trapped. She remembers coming over to Rachel’s house with her six-month-old baby Christopher for lunch, but now there’s no sign of Christopher. What’s worse, Carla’s husband, Nick, thinks she has taken off with the baby.

Rachel tells her that she has been planning this since she got to know of Carla’s pregnancy, and she has no intention of letting her leave.

If Rachel doesn't have her way with Nick, she will kill both Nick and Carla. Carla will have to help Rachel seduce her own husband in order to keep herself and her husband alive.



Meanwhile, Sawyer Hamill, police chief, comes to know that a body of a young teen, Leland Boise, presumably killed 15 years ago, has been found. He wonders if Carla fled because she had something to do with it.



Will Carla get out of the basement alive? Will she ever find her way to her husband and son? Or will Rachel succeed in her aim of getting into a relationship with Nick? Will Nick get over Carla? Or will he keep looking for her?


The book is writen in the 3rd person limited past tense PoV. The plot advances through three perspectives, that of Carla, Nick and Sawyer.

At first, it’s not clear how the Boise case might be linked with that of Carla and Christopher. In the end, the two mysteries don’t get resolved concurrently, I had expected them to be related somehow, but it wasn’t so.

Once one mystery was resolved, the book became more character driven, and the second mystery was put on the back burner. A cold case getting colder.

The book was well written, and the action paced well. I felt invested in the characters. Once there was a breakthrough in the first mystery, I thought the excitement generated would peter out. But it actually went up a few notches.

While I liked the action scenes and the emotions they drew out, there wasn’t much in terms of the investigation. In the end, both cases, though unrelated, were solved on the basis of the same type of clue.

Carla was a stronger character than Nick, who had precious little to do. He was more reactive than proactive.

There were a lot of grammatical issues. The author used allude instead of elude, and allusion instead of illusion.

The end was unexpected. It made me feel a little sad that justice isn’t always meted out the way we’d like it to be.

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Carla disappears with her baby, and her husband dies everything he can to find both of them. With her best friend Rachel always turning up at his house, he races to find his wife and child, following the clues.
An excellent read, I couldn't put it down, as the tension built. Superb thriller!

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3.5 stars! This book had lots of twists and turns that kept me turning the pages. I would definitely be interested in reading something else by this author, Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

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A bit hard for me to get into. It was hard for me to get into the two cases. At the end it made sense how they intertwined but the flow of bouncing between them made it hard for me to read.

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If you enjoyed Shari Lapena’s The Couple Next Door, you’ll love this book. From the opening chapter, with its claustrophobic setting, Never Let Go drew me into the world of a mother whose baby has been stolen during a routine lunch with a friend. Tackling a horrific topic with empathy and insight, this face-paced thriller kept me engaged through to the conclusion. The multiple points of view connect the main characters, showing how each of them is affected by the disappearance of the child. A subplot adds an element of mystery to the novel while driving the main story forward and creating a sense of immediacy, with an unexpected twist at the end. Once you start this book, you won’t want to put it down. I would love to see a sequel with Sawyer returning to the small town of Maplewood Falls, to investigate another crime.

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Thanks to net gallery and the publisher I was able to read an advanced copy of this book and I loved it!
Carla and Nick are living happy with their young baby but one day Carla wakes from a drug induced slumber to find herself locked in a basement and her baby no where to be seen.

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This was intense and I loved every second of it!!! I could not put this book down and wish I could’ve read it faster that’s how badly I needed to know what happened! So. Good. !!

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Wow, Lori Duffy Foster, really knows how to pull you into a story. Your best friend turns out to be your biggest nightmare! Your life was great. Loving husband ,a new baby, and your best friend turns your life into a nightmare. Don't want to give away any spoilers just read it!

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the only problem I had with this book is I wish the author had put the name of the character on the chapter other than that I loved loved this book. the blurb drew me in with its enticements and as soon as I started reading I was hooked.
from the first chapter i was drawn in, my emotions heightened as the book progressed and the twists his me upside the head leaving me stunned and gaping at what had happened. these characters leap off the page and drag you into their twisted world. i'm still in amazement at the end and i don't know what to do with myself now.
Thank you to Netgalley/ Level Best Books/Lori Duffy Foster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Overall a good read, did take me longer than usual to get into the storyline but the characters were good and I did enjoy it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Level Best Books for this ARC.

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This was a fun, riveting, un-put-down-able read!! This was my first Lori Duffy Foster book and it won’t be my last. She completely hooked me into this story and I HAD to know what happened.

There was so much action, drama, suspense and intrigue. There were psychological elements, heartbreak, anger and insane moments. I do wish some of the story lines were more complete, a handful of things felt rushed to a. Conclusion or too pretty and neat in the end, but overall this was a fresh, original, intense and JUICY story!

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This book really pulled me in as a reader and I was drawn to the story. The taut suspense between the two women kept the plot rolling along. I felt there was definitely some fumbling when it came to the police involvement and this was a bit distracting. I would have really liked to see more action surrounding the particulars as this would have been an interesting case to work. I will definitely look forward to reading more from this author. She has a strong voice and provides well written characters, Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

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Never Let Go is a psychological thriller that reminded me in some ways of Gone Girl (a missing wife) and The Woman in the Window (a woman with mental problems). It deals with three inter-related crimes in a small New York town of Maplewood Falls, just south of the Finger Lakes: one involving an ingeniously evil once-best-friend, one related to current news stories about missing babies, and a third about a long-unsolved disappearance of a teen. The heroine, Carla, is amazingly plucky, resolved, in spite of often nightmarish circumstances, never to “let go” when her baby disappears. The novel keeps the reader reading as quickly as possible to see what happens to Carla, her husband Nick, their baby--and more. Thank you to Net Galley for an advance copy.

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