What an intricate plot for this story! I really enjoyed it and all of the POVs--Bree, Sophie, Carter and Luke.

The story starts in the present and then goes back a few months. In the present, Bree is homeless and living in her car. She is barely scraping by with the money she makes from teaching piano. She is looking for a place to sleep (that is not her car), so she trespasses onto a Rodeo Drive backyard and sleeps in the pool house. Just five months earlier, she was happily married to Luke, celebrating their third anniversary. Her contractor husband, Luke, gifts her a house.

Sophie is the new owner of the house's daughter. She finds Bree and feels sorry for her. Sophie invites Bree to a Halloween party in the backyard that she and her brother, Carter, are having. After the party is over, Bree flees upstairs and decides to sleep in one of the vacant bedrooms. But when she wakes up in the morning, she sees a dead body floating in the pool...and she knows that this won't be good for her.

It all unravels from there.

Thank you to Thriller Book Lovers Promotions, Lake Union Publishing, NetGalley and the author for an advanced readers copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Happy Publication Day!!!!

Lie by the Pool by Susan Walter
Thank you to @susanwalter @thrillerbookloverpromotions @amazonpublishing for the #gifted arc copy.

Run to get this book. I promise you will not be disappointed. It was fast paced and suspenseful. I was hooked from the beginning. Bree is homeless and living out of her car, but she keeps sneaking back to her mansion. She misses her husband and she desperately wants to go back to what life was like before it all went wrong. Everything has to do with that house and it is only the beginning. Bree thinks everything that has happened is all her fault, but she is about to find out the truth. Can she pick up the pieces and put her life back together?

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
I found "Lie By The Pool" by Susan Walter to be an addictive, interesting & well written thriller that pulled me in right away & didn't let me go until its final page.
I enjoyed the author's writing style, how she told the story by connecting her main characters through
alternating chapters & timelines.
I would love to read another book by Ms. Walter.

DNF at 50% it just felt like a chore to read this one. I couldn’t get into any of the characters or the plot line. I felt weirdly disconnected for whatever reason.

Talented Susan Walter's third novel, LIE BY THE POOL, is a multi-layered, gripping, twisty suspense page-turner thriller of a homeless woman who witnesses a murder while sleeping in a luxury Beverly Hills pool house.

Captivating! I read in two sittings and could not wait to see how this twisty edge-of-your-seat gem would turn out. I loved it and the satisfying conclusion!

Told from POV: Past & present
Bree (homeless woman)
Carter (son of the homeowner)
Sophie (daughter of the homeowner)
Luke (Bree's husband)

We meet Bree, a pianist from Canada who later moved to New York and married the love of her life, Luke. They lived in LA, California, and now she is homeless. He was a building contractor with a successful business. She was a piano teacher, putting her musical tour on hold. We do not know what happened to her husband at this point, but she blames herself. The mystery of what happened leading her here is not uncovered until the end of the book.

She is still teaching piano lessons when she can get work. She is down on her luck. Her car is on its last leg; for now, it is her home. The problem is she has difficulty finding a place to park to sleep in her car. She finds free food samples when she can. She either gets pricey parking tickets, gets towed, and, at the latest, someone has broken into her car, knocking out her windows and no money to repair, while stealing all the money she has stored in the vehicle.

Bree finds herself in a Beverly Hills upscale home on Rodeo Drive. No one lives there for now, and she sleeps in the lounge chair by the pool and uses the pool house to shower. She keeps a rock in front of the gate to go in and out and parks away from the home.

The beautiful contemporary home is a temporary place to crash until a woman catches her but does not say anything. The next night, strangely, there is a bag left for her with great food, chocolates, cheese crackers, fruit, wine, and an encouraging note with a Halloween costume inviting her to a party there the following evening.

How could this be? Little does she know what lies ahead.

Sophie is throwing the Halloween party at the house on Rodeo Drive, which her father owns. (Of course, her parents do not know). They are out of town, so she talks her brother, Carter, and pool guy, Jared, into helping her.

However, the power goes out, and Bree winds up later staying over in the house in a bedroom upstairs and, shockingly, the next morning finds a body dead in the pool.

From here, the book speeds up to a high adrenaline-fueled, non-stop action thriller as all the pieces of this mysterious puzzle and secrets are unraveled. It was fun seeing all the characters collide from past to present in this thrilling, well-written, entertaining thriller! Unputdownable.

I loved all the characters, especially Luke and Bree, and I also enjoyed Carter and Sophie's parts and how the book was laid out.

I love Rodeo Drive, LA, Beverly Hills, and have spent much time in Santa Barbara and Montecito—I love the furniture shopping in quaint Ojai! —from Wilshire Boulevard to South Santa Monica Boulevard and the scenic Pacific Highway.

I love the musical elements as my ex-husband was a pianist, so I am familiar with all the references. I adore stories of FBI, crime, mobsters, and whistleblowers —this was tops, and I loved everything about LIE BY THE POOL and the author's style!

For fans of Robyn Harding's The Drowning Woman and Kaira Rouda! I cannot wait to see what the talented author comes up with next! I love the title and the cover.

I am looking forward to listening to the audiobook narrated by Michael Crouch (favorite), Jess Nahikian, Selah Victor, and Aaron Shedlock.

Thanks to Lake Union and NetGalley for a gifted ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Blog Review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: Sept 12, 2023
Sept 2023 Must-Read Books

Thank you Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the chance to read Lie by the pool by Susan Walter. This was a fast & fabulous thriller, and not what I was expecting! The story is told in the past and present with altering perspectives of Bree, Carter, Sophie and Luke and the chapters are clearly marked as who is narrating. There were some great twists that I didn't see coming, and totally recommend it!

Thank you to the author, Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The blurb on this sounded good, but sadly the writing made this a dud for me. Told in multiple POVs, which I usually enjoy, but with so, so much extraneous detail that added nothing to the plot, but rather detracted from the flow of the story - and with so, so many cliffhanger sentences in.every.single.chapter (at the end, and sometimes in the middle of the chapter as well) - this quickly became an annoying rather than a fun read. Due to aforementioned cliffhangers, by about 30% I knew what the twists and turns were going t0 be. Sorry, cannot recommend.

Living in her car, desperate for a decent night's sleep, Bree crashes in the pool house. And not just any house, but a vacant luxurious home in Beverly Hills. When Sophie, daughter of the absentee owner discovers her, she is surprised to be invited to a party Sophie is hosting.
Accepting an invitation leads to a night of fun, and Bree can't help herself sneaking to a real bed when the party is over. But the invitation leads to more than just a night of good sleep...


Written in multiple POV's we follow quite a few lies by the pool. You can see that not all is as it seems, and you are looking for an unreliable narrator. The story is written in short chapters, but at the end of it are, as opposed to cliffhangers, little reveals that give a glimpse into the next part.
The book had a lot of aspects that I normally enjoy, but in this case, I just couldn't connect to the story or characters. I wasn't fond of Bree and the 'dead' husband thing ruined the book for me.

Yowza!! I absolutely LOVED this one, it hooked me from the start and was such a great read. I loved both Bree and Sophie and just overall what Walter did with these characters. The book is told from several POV’s and timelines which I thought worked well. The pacing was steady and picks up toward the end, it kept you guessing throughout and I loved the twisty ending. I flew through the last half and could not put it down it was so suspenseful. You must add this to your list when it comes out on Tuesday, I really enjoyed this one so much.

A huge thank you to the author, Lake Union Publishing, and Thriller Book Lovers Promotions for the gifted copy to review.

Wow! This book was such a good bingeable weekend read!

The foreshadowing and dramatic irony in this story left me flipping through and needing to know what happens next. I had to know Bree’s secret and the plot twist behind the whole situation was something I didn’t see coming. I enjoyed the criminal element in this book and the politics behind it. The suspense of the last 25% was totally a page turner!

Though I really loved this book, there were parts of the backstory that I felt were unnecessary and the ending, though tense, felt unbelievable.

Definitely enjoyed this one! Thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy.

August seems like it was just the other day, but last week school began here in MA! I’m really excited about my course load and my students, and the first four days went much better than expected. And Lie by the Pool was a fun read to accompany my return to school. I read and enjoyed the author’s previous release, Over Her Dead Body, last fall. This one was quite enjoyable, too. The foreshadowing amped me up, even though my lingering sickness and the added exhaustion of the first week back at work meant I’d only get through a few pages nightly. But a few pages a day still makes progress!
I hate to give too much away when recommending a thriller, but I’ll tell you the mix of unknowns (Wait, who’s dead/alive?), secrets, money (the residential section of Rodeo Drive is the main setting), and even the FBI help make this an engaging read. Thanks to Lake Union Publishing for the ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. Lie by the Pool will be available everywhere this Tuesday!

A desperate woman.
An irresistible invitation.
An escalating nightmare of secrets, lies, and murder.

How could you not already be hooked by this tag line? I love action packed, bingeable thrill rides, and Susan Walter’s Lie by the Pool is all of that and more. It’s a one-sitting, must-finish read with unpredictable twists and reveals. Thanks so much for the opportunity to review!

What a fast paced page turner, I read this in two nights. So many twists and turns. The main protagonist gets herself involved in numerous jams that interact with the other characters in such a thrilling way. My first read from this Author and certainly won't be my last!
Thank you to Netgalley, Lake Union Publishing and the Author Susan Walter for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first book by this author and i quite enjoyed it,it was fast paced with plenty going on grabbed me from the beginning

Wow! What a story and page turner that you won't be able to put down. This is a fast paced thriller. Bree is down on her luck and is living in her car mostly. Bree teaches piano lessons to earn money and to survive. Bree returns to her house but can't go inside so she lives in the pool house until she meets Sophie who gives her a care package and invites her to a Halloween Pool Party. But the next morning, she wakes to find Sophie’s dead body floating in the pool. As the resident vagabond, she’s both the only witness and the prime murder suspect but she knows the killer is still out there and now after her. This is such a good book and very fast paced. thank you Net Galley for the ARC.

I love, love, loved this story! Impeccable writing, short chapters and multiple POV's all leading to a very fast paced, unputdownable read. The characters are all so well fleshed out that you just 'know' them. There are surprises around every corner with twists and turns I couldn't have imagined. The suspense at times is riveting and the need to know more is ever-present. When it ended I was finally able to breathe. If you had the choice to only read one book this month, this one would be it!

This was a great book with building suspense. It got a little long winded at the end but over all, I really enjoyed it.

I love a good pun in a title (or in any context really). This was a good story and on some days maybe I would rate it 4 stars. I loved the various parts of the characters that made this story work so well. Multiple points of view and timeline hops kept things both interesting but also led to an inconsistent pacing. Sometimes this works in keeping the reader off balance but here it just felt uncomfortable. Add to that the weird foreshadowing at the end of many of the chapters. It felt forced as though the author had just finished a how-to on writing suspense and had been told to add a cliffhanger to keep the reader turning the pages. Seems like a lot of complaining about the book, but I still really enjoyed the characters and the twists in the story. I didn't need the foreshadowing cliff hangers to get me to turn the page!

Thanks to @Netgalley, @susanwalterauthor, @thrillerbookloverspromotions, @amazonpublishing for access to this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Wow, what can I say ? For most of the beginning part of the book, I thought I knew what happened that caused Bree to be in this situation. The twists in this book shocked me so much ! It was a great book and I'm impatient to read more of this author !

{3.5 stars}

I'm not gonna give much of a summary here, because I think this one is worth going in blind (the publisher's blurb is really misleading and that frustrated me). Bree is newly "unhoused" as the young kids say and she finds herself squatting on the pool loungers of a fancy uninhabited house at night. When she is caught, she is brought into a complex web that she is unaware of until someone ends up dead.

This one is entertaining but I found it fairly predictable. Not really a thriller but a metered domestic mystery, it flips POVs amongst a group of people who all have some connection to the house. I feel like it could have been punchier if it were a bit shorter and just focused on Bree and Sophie's POVs. Those were the most compelling and easily gave us all of the information we needed to know. They were both smart, capable women and I enjoyed reading them. But the book often focused on inane details of going to the bathroom or what they ate and I'm ok with the main character being a musician but the passages about the actual music were a bit much for me. Still a quick read with an easy mystery that would be perfect for reading by the pool.

Thanks to Lake Union Publishing for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions above are my own.