The Perfect Stranger, by author Megan Miranda, is the follow up to All the Missing Girls. To be honest and fair, although I read All the Missing Girls earlier this year, I can't for the life of me remember Leah Stevens. So, here's what I do know thanks to the author putting a few things together for us readers. Leah is a former reporter whose name is tied to a series of events that she's ready to leave behind and start over. She has a restraining order against her from her former best friend Paige. She was under a threat of a lawsuit which led to her losing her job and moving from Boston to Pennsylvania where she is now a teacher on probation.

Leah's roommate is Emmy Grey who was her friend about 8 years ago. We know nothing about her except for Leah's flashbacks to the time when they were roommates. Let's start with a young woman named Bethany Jarvitz who is found close to where Leah's lives. Someone apparently hit her and left her near a lake. Police start by investigating an anonymous source who claims that one of Leah's co-workers might have been involved with Bethany, which leads to the arrival of Detective Kyle Donovan in Leah's life.

Leah discovers that the victim could be her doppelganger.
Then, Emmy disappears without a trace which opens a whole new box of worms and troubles for Leah since she is the only person who has seen Emmy around. Leah and Kyle attempt to put together what they know not only about Emmy, but her possible connection to the events that have landed Leah in the spotlight. One could say that Leah is a weak character who finds her strength and her courage to put one foot in front of the other. The more that Leah digs, the more that things just don't make sense.

Who is Emmy really? Where did she go? What's really puzzling for Leah is how quickly trouble seems to find her no matter if she was actually involved, or whether someone is attempting to pull a quick one over her, or if she is trying to help a friend discover something horrible about a loved one. What if Emmy had something to do with the attempted murder? What if Emmy has been stringing Leah along all this time? What if Emmy has found herself in more trouble than she could handle and fled to avoid being discovered?

Without going too far into detail about the book itself, which I have a tendency of doing, there is so much happening that you really must pay attention to even the smallest details. You know that there are going to be twists, and shocking revelations, and even more stunning circumstances that put our protagonist back on her feet struggling to understand all that is happening to, and around her. But, the one good thing that comes out of all of this is perhaps Kyle. I appreciated that the author wrapped up things pretty nicely and doesn't leave the reader standing one foot on, and off a ledge ready to jump off if she doesn't tell you what really happened and why.

The Perfect Stranger is my first read by author, Megan Miranda. This is a story about secrets, lies, and past lives. I do love the author’s writing style. Megan Miranda is good at weaving a tale of suspenseful mystery. The cover art for this book was very cool.

I felt the pace was good but throughout most of the book I was just confused. Maybe it was just me but I struggled to keep everything straight. I didn’t care for any of the characters which makes it hard for me to get into a story. Overall I thought the book was okay and I would read more written by the author.

Three out of five stars for The Perfect Stranger!!!

Thank you Megan Miranda, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book to read.

The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Simon & Schuster for the ebook ARC of The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda in exchange for an honest review.

Leah Stevens is a failed journalist from Boston, she has a restraining order and is being threatened by a lawsuit. She ends up running into her old friend and college roommate, Emmy Grey, who had just left a troubled relationship.
Emmy suggests that they both move to rural Pennsylvania so they can both have a fresh start. Leah ends up getting a teaching position in a high school.
Everything is going well until Leah notices one day that she hasn’t seen her roommate Emmy in a few days, so she reports her missing to the police. And as the investigation begins to unravel, it seems that Emmy never even existed. Leah needs to find out what Emmy was hiding before someone else does.
And as all this seems to be going on, a couple of people are found murdered at a nearby lake, and Leah seems to be in the midst of all of this.
Kyle Donovan is the detective on the case. And Leah begins having some relations with him.

I found this book to be a very good mystery, even though I did not read Megan Miranda's first book, The Missing Girls.
At first I found it a bit hard to get into but as I read on and I found it very hard to put down. 
I rate this book 4 stars and would recommend that you read it. It is a very good mystery novel.

I am having such a hard time getting into this book. I start and stop so many times. It is just not grabbing my attention and I feel lost.

I’ve been trying to get into this one for months now and it’s just not holding my attention. Super bummed because I loved All the Missing Girls but this one just isn’t for me unfortunately.

Running from a sketchy past as a journalist in the crisp confines of Boston, Leah Stevens is searching for a fresh start. Things turned ugly when she went too far on a story concerning suicides at the local college, and she found herself needing to get out of town fast. After hooking up with an old friend she knew from school, the two women decide to start over in the sleepy suburbs of western Pennsylvania.

It doesn't take long for trouble to follow Leah, but it doesn't come in any way that she expected. On her way to work as a schoolteacher at the local high school, she notices a barrage of police cars and onlookers clustered together like so many penguins huddling together against a cold winter storm. Curiosity has killed more than cat it seems, and Leah discovers the source of everyone's whispering gossip and craned necks -- a body has been found along the trail near the lake, and the body of the woman just happens to look a whole lot like Leah. The woman is still alive, but just barely, and has been beaten within an inch of her life.

With the cops sniffing around Leah's place of business and one of the suspects named is someone who she had previous contact with, Leah is in a panic. Things get even worse when Emmy, her roommate, doesn't turn up for a few days. It's not unusual for the gypsy spirit that is Emmy Grey to spend a few days off the grid, but when Leah probes into her friend's work and private life and seems to come up with nothing more than a few slivers of dead-end information, she begins to worry. What if Emmy had something to do with the attempted murder? What if she's been taken herself? And why can't anyone find anything concrete on this woman no matter how deep they dig? Police involved begin to question whether Emmy even exists, as there is literally no proof that she shares her life with Leah in the slightest.

Leah finds that Emmy's life is lie built upon lie in a veritable house of cards, and her desperation to find the truth before she is irrevocably wrapped up in something sinister means a race against time and logic.

The Perfect Stranger is the second adult thriller by Megan Miranda, an author previously best known for her work in the YA genre. A follow up to the popular All the Missing Girls (a thriller told in the reverse narrative), The Perfect Stranger keeps right in step with its predecessor. Unique twists on common thriller backdrops appears to be Miranda's new take on writing, and I am a fan. With flawed main characters and spellbindingly deviant villains, Miranda is making an impression of an author who is clever and successful in the art of creating an easy "must-read."

Miranda keeps her reader off-balance by creating false senses of calm in an otherwise dark storm. I was turning the pages as fast as I could read them with both of her psychological thriller novels, and I was not disappointed with the climax. The Perfect Stranger gave just the right amount of closure to make you feel as if you got the bulk of the story but also left an appropriate amount of room left for speculation. Giving the book 4.5 out of 5 stars, I recommend it to readers of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins, and lovers of an easy mystery read or readers who want to curl up with something that messes with your mind a bit during these chilly months of winter. This book is delightfully creepy and one that I can honestly promise won't disappoint.

This thriller was not what I was expecting. Leah is running from her old life when her housemate goes missing. Leah cannot help but try to figure out what’s going on herself. I had no idea who to trust in this book and that made it so intriguing! I still had some questions at the end, but overall I really liked this one! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy.

I've heard really great things about Megan Miranda and her unique writing style, but I don't think the thriller genre is for me.

It wasn't my favorite novel by the author but the book kept my attention

This was a suspenseful novel! I really enjoyed the way everything was written and twisted so that I started to doubt even what I thought was going on. I suspect this is what Megan wanted to accomplish. Leah has moved to a Pennsylvania town from Boston to start a new teaching job. She is sharing a house with Emmy, her old roommate from years ago. Very quickly, events start to happen that create more mysteries. Leah receives some calls and messages from an unidentified person. A local woman is found beaten by the lake. Then Leah’s roommate never comes home. Leah doesn’t know who she can talk to or trust. Everyone seems suspicious. It seems like there is always something missing, something more. Leah desperately wants to know what is going on. I can’t say much more without giving too much away. This novel is full of surprising twists and turns that leave you guessing all through to the end!

How is this part 2 How does it tie in......The story totally confused me I started to feel like there was just to much going on and I just couldn't keep up with all the bouncing back and forth with the story line. The ending totally fell flat and left me needed a bit more.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Leah Stevens, a disgraced journalist trying to reinvent herself, has a chance encounter with an old friend/roommate, that has her packing her bags and starting over in rural Pennsylvania with her old friend. Her life is on track for a new beginning until her mysterious friend disappears around the same time a girl who looks remarkably like Leah is assaulted and left for dead.
Things just get weirder when she reports Emmy missing, but it seems like Emmy didn't really exist at all. Nobody else can vouch for her in the town and there appears to be no trace of her in real life or online. She is like a ghost.
And so, down the rabbit hole you go. Is Emmy real? A figment of Leah's imagination? Are Emmy and Leah the same person?
Of all the ways l 'guessed' it could go, the scenario's, the twists, l wasn't even close!
This book is lots of fun to unravel and l wholeheartedly recommend it.
FYI though, this book is not All The Missing Girls 2.0, for anyone who is hoping it is. I adored All The Missing Girls, it was one of my top reads for 2016. The Perfect Stranger does not capture all the things l obsessed over with her Adult fiction debut, but that's ok.
The Perfect Stranger delivers a solid mystery, that had me speed reading through the pages trying figure out what the heck was going on. And though l did not love it quite as much as All The Missing Girls, l still think it was a solid 5 star read all on it's own.

Thanks to NetGalley for my advance copy (who hardly ever approve my requests!)

Leah is a journalist in Boston, but when she puts together a story without 100% proof she is faced with a restraining order. When she meets up with an old friend, Emmy, it seems like a great idea to get out town and move to rural Pennsylvania, where Emmy has heard Leah could get a job teaching. Things turn decidedly strange when she gets to the sleepy lakeside town. Emmy seems secretive and disappears a few days after a woman who looks a lot like her is found, left for dead near the lake. Leah starts going to the hospital to visit the woman, who is hooked up to machines, hoping the woman will wake and she'll learn more about a possible connection to Emmy. Leah meets a police office assigned to the case and the two become romantically involved, but continue to work on investigating Emmy's life. It seems Emmy may not be who Leah thought she was and she may not exist at all. Leah presses on at the risk of tarnishing her career further, opening up her own secrets in an effort to find out who she can trust and what is the truth.

I struggled with this one. It wasn't my favorite, but definitely not the worst book I've ever read. I would rate it 3.5 stars.

I will buy every Megan Miranda (or otherwise win a review copy) for as long as I am literate and she does not deign to insult me for some reason, This novel is NOT All the Missing Girls, but it is excellent, I was excited to see Miranda develop a new, but wholly 3-D protagonist. I've never met a character like her in fiction!

This book started out with a great plot, but it lost it's potential (in my opinion) pretty quick. It was a pretty difficult read for me. The story line dragged and dragged and. dragged. It took me a long time to finish reading this book. I really wanted to like it, but just couldn't.

I tapped out at 39%, I just felt like it kept repeating the same thing chapter after chapter, and I lost my focus and lost interest.

*I received an ARC of this book via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review*

This one doesn't quite pack the punch of All the Missing Girls, either in terms of storytelling prowess or ability to surprise, but it's a good book in its own right.

I'm still shaking my head at all the fuss over Girl on the Train (a mediocre book at best that offers nothing we haven't seen before), particularly when there are authors out there like Megan Miranda who get comparatively little attention.

This book follows a much more traditional mystery/thriller format than All the Missing Girls did, and the result is an accordingly lesser animal. But in the end, Miranda is losing critical comparisons only to herself. The Perfect Stranger is still a standout in the genre.

"As long as you end at the truth, all's fair." Leah is a journalist who will sacrifice herself to get to the truth. As Leah sets out to find her friend, Emmy, she realizes that her friend may not have existed at all. The Perfect Stranger is a must read. The writing was superb and I was totally into the story was the very beginning. However, the story could really trip you up if you fail to pay attention to detail. There was some parts in the story where I had to go back and re-read. This book gets compared a lot to its predecessor, All the Missing Girls, which was really good as well. Do not be put off by the mixed reviews on The Perfect Stranger. This book stands on its own and you should not pass up the chance to get into this story. Sincere thanks to the publisher, author and Netgalley for the advance reader's copy of this book.

I’m loving what Megan is doing with her adult novels! Last year’s All the Missing Girls was a ton of fun – and presented in such an original way (the story was told backwards) – that I couldn’t wait to dive into her follow-up! There was also another reason I was itching to read it: the main character has my name. It wasn’t until I grabbed the audiobook that I learned it’s also pronounced correctly how I pronounce it!

…hahaha, unfortunately, there were a few scenes where one of the other characters was being SUPER rude and condescending to Leah and listening to that put me into rage mode. Enough so that I actually had to stop listening, lest I destroy my phone at my desk. Oops.

Apart from that, The Perfect Stranger was another fast-paced, intense read from an author I’ve come to seriously enjoy. Unlike All the Missing Girls, however, The Perfect Stranger doesn’t offer up anything new to the genre, but I truly didn’t mind at all and am eagerly awaiting her next book!