A book that will leave you curious to know the ending! First book by the author that I have read and I intend to read more!

This was so good, and I flew through it in a little over a day! I liked Eden, although I went back and forth between feeling sorry for her and being frustrated with her for being oblivious to all the red flags that were flying around! There were so many good twists in this one, and I liked the mystery and suspense.

Thank you, @netgalley, @amazonpublishing, and @sbaileybooks for the #gifted e-arc!

Who among us hasn’t had a moment in life where we felt a bit lost and sought solace in someone from our past? Samantha M. Bailey’s newest psychological thriller A Friend in the Dark explores this very concept with a digital-age twist.

My first thought while reading this book was “Oh, Eden, you sweet summer child…” Eden seems to be on a crash course that she can’t get off of. But let’s back up a bit—how did she get here?

Eden’s life is shattered

Eden Miller is a real estate and mother to a college-aged daughter, Ava. Her husband Dave asked for a divorce a few months before the book starts. Dave and Eden were together since college and have had a wonderful marriage and life together, so Eden was blindsided by the divorce. Dave broke the news to her the day they dropped Ava off at college.

Eden seeks out an old flame

Eden is feeling pretty sorry for herself on her birthday, and after a few too many solo glasses of prosecco she sends a facebook friend request to Justin Ward. Justin is a musician she dated in college and was the first person to shatter her heart, opening the door for nerdy law student Dave to swoop in. Twenty-three years later, Dave will be the one to shatter her heart all over again, so naturally in the wake of that Eden finds herself thinking about Justin.

Eden begins a digital romance

Not only does Justin quickly accept her friend request, but the two begin messaging. The messages quickly turn steamy, and Eden begins to spiral out of control. Is it grief, lust, helplessness, or anger that cause her to act so out of her character with Justin? Perhaps all of them. Either way, Eden slowly begins to wreck her own life. She has phone sex with Justin outside of one of her real estate showings and her boss puts her on leave when a neighbor calls to report it. Not long after, Eden tracks Justin down in person, but he acts like he isn’t sure who she is. He calls right after to apologize, but it was weird…

Eden has a harsh wake up

The leave from work seems to finally awaken Eden from whatever love spell she was living in, because she suddenly starts to think through things in her life. The window that was left open in her house, the spare key that went missing then reappeared a few days later, and the fact that Justin seems to know more about her life than makes sense. Eden searches for answers, but she may not like what she finds…

Review | A Friend in the Dark

This book definitely caught me by surprise. It starts out with the online romance between Eden and Justin, but that escalates quickly and all signs point towards this being a story about Justin becoming obsessed with and stalking Eden. But before the halfway point, the story swerves and it becomes about something more bizarre and twisted (not to imply that stalking an ex isn’t twisted).

The beginning is a bit of a slow burn and that was where I really questioned if Eden was okay. I felt for what she went through with her husband Dave—it sounds like he gave basically no explanation for the sudden divorce. And then as Eden thinks it through, she realizes it may not have been so sudden. Dave already purchased a condo that he moved into the next day, suggesting that he had been planning this for some time.

This lack of answers and closure on a relationship that had dominated over half of Eden’s life is frustrating, to say the least. At the same time, Eden is so naïve and self-destructive. We’ve all done the social media invite after a broken heart and a few too many beverages. Maybe we have even exchanged a few messages with the person, only to ghost them in the light of day when we cringe at our behavior. The problem with Eden is—she never reaches that cringe point because she continues to engage.

To say that Eden quickly becomes obsessed with Justin is an understatement. She can’t stop thinking about him. She shows up to an open house for work and sneaks into the bathroom to send a naughty picture to him. She asks him to call as soon as she leaves. When he calls, she gets intimate with herself in her car outside of the house she was just showing while talking to him. Her company’s name is on the sign in the front yard! I wanted to shake this woman.

In her defense, Justin seems as interested in continuing the connection as she does. But when she identifies and drives to multiple job sites of his construction company to track him down (while she is supposed to be visiting her daughter at college; she does this in Dave’s car while he stays at the dorm with Ava!), things truly begin to get strange. She finds Justin at the last site she drives to. She gets out of her car as if to approach him. Justin squints at her but doesn’t show signs of recognition, then goes inside the house. He calls her to tell her he’s sorry but his wife is inside.

After some explaining, Eden believes him and agrees to continue their romance. But then she hears from her boss that a neighbor saw what she was doing in the car outside of the showing and called to report it. Eden is embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as I think she should be. I would have faked my own death and moved to Canada, but maybe that’s just me! Eden actually isn’t too worried about it (or about the missing key to her home or the window that was mysteriously left open) because she has a date with Justin and she must go shopping for a new outfit.

It's around this point where the first of several swerves comes into play. I have to say that I was grateful for the twists because the first part was good but somewhat forgettable. There is also a second narrator that will enter the book at some point and that really livened things up. I always enjoy when a book uses a second narrator effectively by going back to some events we’ve already seen and offering context or a different perspective.

This is a tense and quick read. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the story. I will say we eventually get a bit more detail on Dave and why he seemingly divorced Eden out of nowhere and let’s just say Eden was much more forgiving of this behavior than I would be. When it was revealed I thought… really??? And it wasn’t just what caused him to pull out of their marriage, but also his justifying that it was because he was so in love with Eden that he had to do this. I really lost respect for Dave (not for the reason itself, but for divorcing his wife over…talking about it with her first). But then again, I also didn’t have a ton of respect for Eden! Neither did her daughter, Ava, it would seem.

I digress—this is a great, quick thriller to pick up if you’re an Amazon First Reads subscriber or a Kindle Unlimited subscriber! I certainly plan to keep an eye on Samantha M. Bailey’s work after this. I love an easy breezy twisted thriller to get lost in for an afternoon!

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer for my copy. Opinions are my own.

This book was great and quick read, it is under 300 pages and it is packed with so much action and plenty of twists throughout and at the end that will shock you. Overall a great thriller that you will enjoy, this was my first book by Samantha Bailey and I will definitely have to check out her other work.

I really enjoyed this book. I love the different POVs and all of the drama that had me hooked! Definitely a fast read and I loved the twist!

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for this ARC of ‘A Friend in the Dark’ by Samantha M. Bailey.

Well I have read my fair share of thrillers but I absolutely did not see the twist in this. This was fast paced and a really enjoyable read. Not a single moment in this book did I find boring. I’d definitely love to read some more from this author!

I really enjoyed the twist in this book that I didn’t see coming. I thought I had it figured out halfway through and then I was way wrong.

At first I thought this was going to be more of a love story and I wanted to not like it but I’m so glad I stuck with it!

3.5 stars So many twists and turns! This was an enjoyable, thrilling, fast-paced read. Excellent misdirection! The ending didn’t quite do it for me though.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC

I thought this was fun. The pacing was fast and I never had any moments of boredom. There were lots of twists and turns that I never correctly predicted. The characters were developed well. I thought Eden was especially relatable.

My only issue was the formatting with the flashbacks in my ebook. They were not separated from the rest of the text so it was a bit confusing. They just happened in the middle of the story or paragraph with no way to clearly understand we jumped in time. This caused me to have to reread the passages. This could have been an ARC issue, but I got mine after publication date

I would read from this author again.

Thank you to @netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC!

After dropping off her daughter Olivia at college and being blindsided by her husband Dave's request for a divorce in the parking lot, Eden Miller is on her own. On a whim, she sends a friend request to an old flame from her own college days and is immediately swept up in a sordid sexting affair that has her feeling desirable again. But after 20 years has passed, how well does she really know Justin Ward?

This thriller pushes along at a pretty quick pace, and there is very little downtime (which is great). I finished this one in about a day and it did keep my interest the whole time. I do, unfortunately, have some major issues with it.

I have never met a character with less regard for her personal safety than Eden Miller. Your spare key is missing, a window to your house is open and your fire alarm is going off in the middle of the night when you know you turned the stove off?

These are not normal occurances, my friend. Please do SOMETHING other than continuing on like normal. You just starting sexting a stranger when these things popped up? It might be the stranger. Just saying.

***
SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE

One of the reveals felt completely overblown to me, especially in 2024, in a book that takes place in the present. The big reason Eden's husband's left her without explanation, the horrible awful secret he was keeping from her... is that he discovered he was interested in BDSM.

🤔

And instead of trying to broach the subject at all, talk to the woman he's been married to for 20 years, he ghosts her in a college parking lot. I cannot make it make sense. Maybe my sensibilities are too liberal but talking about your sexual desires... to your WIFE... feels like a natural thing to do?

Moving past that, there was a lazy reveal that one of the characters had borderline personality disorder the entire time and that's part of why they were acting the way they did... mental illnesses being used as a plot point in novels is very quickly rising on my Literature Icks bingo card.

I unfortunately can't recommend this one.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for providing an honest and unbiased review.
"A Friend in the Dark" by Samantha Bailey is scheduled to be released in March 2024.

Eden was married to Dave for 20 years and has a daughter named Ava. Ava leaves for College, Dave leaves Eden. Eden is super depressed and gets drunk on her birthday because everyone hates her. Eden sends a friend request to her semi-ex from college who immediately approves her request. They start chatting and sexting (I mean really, “I haven’t spoken to you in 20 years, what are you wearing? You’re so damn hot” *GAG*) and her semi-ex (Justin) is a creep and knows way too much personal info about Eden and her family. (Stalker much?) Then Olivia comes into the picture and there’s a bunch of drama and twists and I’ll stop there because I don’t want to spoil it all for those that haven’t started this book…

SO.

I wanted to love this book because Samantha Bailey comes highly recommended from some of my favorite authors (Jennifer Hillier- I mean she’s WONDERful!) but “A Friend in the Dark” fell short. Very short.

The plot was just lacking. The writing felt rushed and amateur. It felt more like a diary or opening a DM with a lot of sexting and bad decisions. It wasn’t a thriller. The characters were easy to hate, extremely naive and of course, avoids all of the 🚩 red flags 🚩… really, this is why Dave left Eden, she’s an idiot.

Like all books, reviews will be extremely mixed. For someone that reads A LOT and enjoys thrillers and suspense, this just doesn’t cut it. There’s no “edge of your seat, heart racing, holy sh*t WTF did I just read” here whatsoever. *SAD*

2 ⭐️

Samantha Bailey is a new author for me. I really enjoyed this dark and twisty thriller! It was non-stop, and I couldn't put it down. While the choices of the characters made me cringe, I loved how flawed they were. As for the twists, I figured out one of them, but I did not see the rest of it coming!! So good. A solid four stars for me, and I will checkout her other books.

I was already sold by the plot of this book and empathized with the main characters right away. I loved the writing of this story and how personal and close we were inside the minds, emotions, and reactions of the FMC. I just enjoyed the journey of how reconnecting with the past can make you feel so alive in the present. I will absolutely read more from this author and highly recommend this book!

A Friend in the Dark is another hit for Samantha Bailey. It follows Eden, a recently separated realtor as she reconnects with her former college crush Justin. Things, however, aren't always what they seem. This book contained a ton of plot twists that left me guessing until the very end. Overall, a fun read!

It did take me a little bit to get into this book because of the cringy texting back and forth in the beginning but it all made sense in the end. I also thought I had the entire plot figured out in the first 10% of the book but I was wrong. This thriller is FULL of twists. Every time I thought I had it figured out Samatha Bailey threw in another curve ball. This was a fun quick read. Definitely worth picking up.

I read this quickly and was entertained. I didn't quite have an idea what to expect, because the summary seems to encompass pretty much all of part 1. When part 2 came with a change in narrator, I was annoyed. But I think the book actually got better after that. Eden made dumb choices, yet she was sympathetic, and Olivia was a really intriguing character. I would read another book by this author.

OMG this book. You need to pick it up ASAP!

Eden and her husband are recently separated. It's Edens first birthday alone. Her 17 year old daughter is in college and her soon to be ex husband Dave moved to his own place. Eden has a couple of drinks and ends up adding her crush from college on facebook. This book will take you on a wild ride that will have you invested in the drama, lies, and secrets. I loved that it was a quick read, with multiple POVs, and plenty of suspence and twists.
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

This book was just over the top. 😂entertaining but insane. It was a lot to follow but a quick read. Started off strong then just went off the rocker

A book that definitely gets your head reeling. So much going on but easy to follow. A must read thriller. It has so many twist and turns made for a brilliant read. I throughly enjoy this book.


Thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an early release of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the eARC.

This was 100% not for me. I finished it out of spite.