I don’t read a lot of thrillers, and if I’m being honest I’m not sure what made me even click on this one, but it definitely kept me hooked and guessing until the very end!

I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

This was a good read. Kept me turning the pages and wanting to know what happened next.
Well written and another great author for me.

The characters are pretty likable and the story flows quite nicely. It has just a hint of a love story going on in places and lots of edge of your seat thrills.

4 stars for this one.

I’m torn on this one. I really wanted to like it but I am not sure I do. I had a hard time staying engaged with the story. This story moved slow and felt a little choppy to me. I think this is a case of even your favorite author writes something you don’t care for. It happens. If this book sounds good to you read it! She is a great author

Mary Burton is an artist at storytelling! Five stars is not enough! So many twists and turns!
I was hooked from beginning to end. I was figuring a few things out, but never saw it coming!

I simply love Mary Burton and in my opinion she is yet to write a bad book. I don't know how she does it, it is a gift and I am very happy she gets to share it with us. I not only can recommend this book which is absolutely amazing in all senses but I can also recommend any other books she has written as I have read them all... more than once... and really can't get enough of her work. Thank you Mary for having such an amazing creativity ability and for sharing it with us. The setting of the North Carolina coast is as ever beautifully executed and the touch of romance is essential in my view to remind us of the important things in life and leave us with a lasting optimism essential in our daily lives. The only downside in my view is the feeling of sadness when the book finishes as leaving the bubble created by Mary Burton is truly difficult.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of The House Beyond the Dunes by Mary Burton in return for my honest review. I have read all of Mary Burtons books and enjoyed them all and this one did not disappoint, once you start reading you’ll find it very hard to put down this is a real page turner with lots of twists and turns and an ending i didn’t see coming. As always a really good read which I defiantly recommend reading.

The House Beyond the Dunes, by Mary Burton, is a twisty psychological thriller with just a touch of romance.
Lane's shocked when she wakes up to find herself laying in a hospital bed. A strange detective tells her that she's the lone survivor in a dangerous fall down the marble staircase at her new boyfriend's beach house. What was supposed to be their first romantic trip, together, has turned into a complete nightmare.
When Lane realizes that her purse, medications and phone are still back at the beach house, she decides to go collect them. Unfortunately, a winter storm turns her quick trip into an overnight stay in the house where her boyfriend died. Now she has to figure out who she can trust: the neighbor, who seems to just want to help or the strange detective who keeps asking her such probing questions.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher, for the eARC in return for my opinion. Firstly, I have to say I did wait for publishing date and borrowed the book via kindle unlimited. The audio was included, so I both listened and read this story alternately. In fact, I couldn't put it down after I started and read it almost in one sitting.

This story is told from Lane's POV, with diary entries from another character, central to the plot. Lane has gone to the house near the beach her new beau of three weeks owns, for their first serious rendezvous. They'd only been there an hour, when she suddenly come to at the bottom of the staircase, her boyfriend dead beside her. Apparently they've fallen. Events start from that point. What happened? Lane's memory is blank for those vital few minutes.

An intriguing man working across the street renovating a house, a busybody female property manager, and a hunky detective star as main side characters. The disappearance of several young women are central to the plot. There are twists and turns - some I saw coming and others I didn't. (No spoilers)

The writing is excellent and if you listen to the audio, the narrator does a first class job of all the characters. At times I was taken aback at how well she did the men's voices. Definitely the way to read this book and be involved in the creepy, stormy atmosphere - by listening! This is a first class psychological thriller and I give it 4.5 stars.

A well woven story of a tragic death that quickly unravels into something sinister when secrets and lies are exposed and concludes with a surprise ending that no one sees coming!

*I want to thank the author for this complimentary copy. The opinion expressed is my own.

Mary Burton has an extensive back library. I've not read all of them, but I have read many, many of them. They all have one thing in common, they're great books of mystery/ thriller/ physcological thriller. Any theme you might think of, she's pulled into a thriller and surprised us at the end. This one is no exception.
Lane is attracted to a young man she meets at the coffee house in which she works. He is a physochologist who asks her to spend the weekend with him after three wekks of dating. She agrees but is reluctant. Lane wakes in the hospital after she and the doctor fall down the stairs in his beach house. He dies in the fall and she can't remember how they came to fall. When Lane returns to the beach house to retrieve her personal belongings, she will be stuck by a storm. The scene/trap is now set!!!!!
If you have read any of Burton's back library, you know someone else is going to die pretty soon and Lane is going to have to double down if she wants it to not be her. If you haven't read any of Burton's back library.....oops!
Either way, you'll spend the rest of the evening, well past the "one more chapter" time until the last twist rushed the ending your way. Then you'll go find the rest of Burton's books. Enjoy!

I have enjoyed every book by Mary Burton I have read and The House Beyond the Dunes is no exception. Suspenseful, I was on the edge of my seat at every turn of the page. It's a quick read that I highly recommend. I look forward to the next release by Mary Burton and find myself trying to catch up on her backlist.

I received an eARC from the publisher and NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

The ultimate unreliable narrator is one with amnesia who doesn’t remember what happened! 😱 I liked the format of this book as we go back and forth in time to put the timeline of events into context. It was definitely worth the wait to piece it all together by the end!
*Thanks to Montlake and NetGalley for the ebook copy for review.

This psychological thriller was fantastic. Lane McCord, working on getting a PhD in s psychology and counseling, takes a trip with Dr. Kyle Iverson, who is a private practice psychologist, to the Outer Banks for a weekend after having known each other for a couple of weeks. His beach house is north of Corolla and the Currituck Lighthouse, where he drives her 11 miles further in his Range Rover, which crossing is only by sand. The area is pretty much desolate except for a few houses. After arriving, they both tumble down the stairs from the second floor to the first. As a result, Kyle died and Lane injured her hip. She does not recall what happened to cause their fall. After being transported to a hospital in Norfolk, she returns to the beach house on her own to retrieve her things. Finding out how all of this came about leads her down a dangerous path of learning about missing women and possible serial killers. Her memory comes back in pieces while she receives parts of a diary that are digitally sent to her from Stevie Palmer. This suspense kept me trying to figure out who Lane could trust, and who was involved in all of her encounters and revelations. Lane did not quit trying to find out the truth, no matter how much danger she was in throughout the novel. I loved it.

What is suppose to be a romantic getaway for Lane and Kyle turns into a nightmare. They travel to Kyle’s Outer Baks home and are only there a few short hours when tragedy strikes. Kyle is dead and Lane is flown to a hospital, battered and with no memory of what happened. She heads back to the beach house to see if she can recreate what really happened. This leads her to uncovering and facing dark secrets.

I must admit, I didn’t figure out exactly what was what until the author had to spell it out for me. A true psychological mystery. I really don’t want to say too much, the reader needs to go on this ride for themselves. Fast paced, easy to get lost in. Character development slowly unfolds with surprising twists. The description of the Outer Banks in winter adds to the dark side of the book.

Thanks to Montlake and NetGalley for this ARC. This is my honest opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley, Montlake and the author for an ARC of The House Beyond the Dunes for an honest review.

Wow! This was the first Mary Burton book I have read and it definitely won't be the last. Lane McCord went away for what was supposed to be a romantic weekend with her new boyfriend Kyle and ended up waking up in the hospital after a terrible fall. Lane returns to the beach house to see if she can remember what happened in those final moments before her fall.

How well does Lane know Kyle and herself? When Lane starts receiving cryptic messages and insights into the past she discovers Kyle may not be who she thought he was. Lane starts to uncover decades old secrets about the beach area as well as herself.

A dark secret. A deadly obsession. A Twist you’ll never see coming…

A book filled with secrets, lies, deceit and obsession? Well, you won’t have to twist my arm!

Mary Burton, narrates a wild ride filled with unreliable and perfectly flawed characters. This book is dark! I was completely consumed as soon as I concluded the first chapter. There was no shortage of twists and turns and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. The final twist was insane and unpredictable!

I can not wait to see what Burton comes out with next! The House Beyond The Dunes is out now and currently free on kindle unlimited! Happy reading, folks!

Teaser :

A tragic accident or something more sinister? A woman’s buried memories put her life at risk in a novel of shattering psychological suspense by New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.

Lane McCord wakes up in a hospital having survived a near-fatal fall at a North Carolina beach cottage. Her boyfriend, Kyle, wasn’t so lucky. A senseless tragedy on their first romantic getaway. All Lane remembers is lying at the bottom of the stairs in Kyle’s pooling blood.

Confused and grieving, Lane plans to return to the cottage, collect her personal belongings, and get out. Until a winter rainstorm leaves her stranded and vulnerable, but not alone. A concerned neighbor, who claims he heard a violent argument before the accident, has come out of the storm. So has a suspicious detective on the trail of a missing woman, whose diary deepens the mystery―and raises more questions that fill Lane with dread.

How well did she know Kyle? How well does she know herself? What really happened at the cottage on the beach? And when the answers come, who can Lane trust to get out of this waking nightmare alive?

After an accident that killed her boyfriend Kyle, Lane struggles to remember what happened. Forced to return to the scene of the accident to pick up her things, Lane finds herself trapped at the cottage when a winter storm strands her in. Will the cottage setting help her remember?

I'm going to be honest, the loss of memory storyline sometimes tends to feel overdone. I really enjoyed this book though and I think the atmospheric setting made up for the amnesia because in this book I didn't mind it so much. The ending was so good and unexpected that I'm already looking up Mary Burton's backlist in the hopes of reading more by this author.

Lane McCord wakes up in a hospital having survived a near fatal fall at a North Carolina beach cottage. Her boyfriend of 2 weeks Kyle died from the fall. All Lane remembers is lying at the bottom of the stairs in his blood. Lane returns to the college to collect her belongings and to get answers. A rainstorm leaves her stranded. Characters involved were Det Becker investigating the fall, Reece is a neighbor across the street who heard Lane and Kyle arguing and found them after the fall, Devon is another neighbor and friend of Kyles that looks after the cottage and helps Kyle, Stevie is a woman from the past who has her own issues, Nickie is a young woman Stevie protects.
I felt like some of the twists were predictable. The resulting twist I didn’t see coming and was unbelievable to me. I enjoyed the setting of the story, it had an eerie feeling especially a storm. It was a psychological thriller with no real romance. Each character served a purpose and there was right amount of characters without it being confusing. The story did involve sexual assault of a child . Thank you #netgalley

Mary Burton is like an old friend whom I have known for years. You always know what you are gonna get. In her case, it usually a nice, suspenseful and twisty read with interesting characters. This one is no different. Lane and Kyle take a getaway to the Outer Banks. Lane awakes in the hospital after surviving a fall at their cabin with no memory of what happened. Kyle dies. A detective visits Lane in the hospital asking about two missing women. She ends up stranded back at the cabin due to a storm and begins to question how her romantic vacation became such a tragedy. We hear from Lane and the diary of Stevie, one of the missing women along the way in the twisty, turny mystery. Nice surprises throughout. I absolutely loved the setting, also! Mary has done it again. No big shocker there!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Mary Burton and Montlake Books for this ARC.