Unfortunately I was unable to finish this title therefore I will not be providing an online review

A great fun read! Sloane Harper is my kind of heroine. Every line comes across with a funny undertone. The authors sense of humor is in full force and easily contagious in this book. This book will have you laughing even while your are mad at the heroine. An entertaining read! The synopsis does not convey this book very well, I think. I did not think I was going to like this book by what I read on the synopsis, but I loved it.

A good read, took a wee while to get into this book but I did really enjoy it and want to read until the end. A good read.

Great book. Extremely easy to read. Loved it. Kept my interest from the beginning

Secrets of Southern Girls is an intersting story about a woman named Jules who is still haunted by the death of her childhood friend Reba, a death she believes she may be responsible for. Jules returns to her hometown with her friend's former boyfriend August to find answers on what happened to her. The novel cuts back and forth between August and Jules' quest and diary entries from Reba.

I initially wanted to put this novel down when I realized there was a race-related element to it, as I wasn't sure it would be in my particular taste. However, I was relieved the story acknowledged southern racism but didn't attempt to tie a neat bow over it. The plot and pacing was good although I struggled at time with the diary element, as the viewpoints of Reba and Jules read almost too similar.

Additionally, there were a couple of unneccessary twists at the end that I just didn't care for, but I was pleased with the overall resolution of this book. Thanks to NetGalley for the early copy!

I quite enjoyed this novel, but would consider it more of a suspense than a thriller. The quest to uncover the diary of a long dead friend in an effort to learn the truth about how she died. Rather simplistic on the surface, yet beneath this was a whole lot of emotional baggage for the characters and entrenched misunderstanding about the events from long ago.
The four main characters, Jules, Reba, Toby, and August, were all interesting in their own way, although I found August rather insubstantial, only getting a glimpse of the real man towards the end of the novel, when it was really too late. Reba we met through her diary entries, as well as in the memories and flashbacks of Toby, Jules, and August. Jules and Toby were perhaps the most interesting characters. I liked both of them equally and felt their motivations for hurting each other, while grounded in selfish immaturity, were quite convincing.
The arrangement of this novel was at times a little messy. I felt that Reba's diary chapters did not read at all like a diary. I enjoyed her perspective, but think it might have worked better if we were simply propelled back in time to her point of view, without the guise of reading her diary. The flashback scenes were perhaps the messiest. I prefer a clear this is then, this is now arrangement. Much of what I found to fault in this novel would have been avoided if the structure was more tidy. Nevertheless, I was engaged with this novel right from the beginning, finding myself glued to the pages in the second half, keen to find out who Reba was and why she ended up dead. There's no great mystery in this novel, nor is there a twist that leaves you reeling. But it is a good story, rather character driven, and well worth the read.
Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for this pre-release copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC in exchange for this review.

I was not able to finish this. I tried. I just could not get into it. Maybe it was me.
There's a lot of potential in the author's writing, but the diary parts just didn't do it for me. I had a hard time getting through them, then at one point, I started another book and haven't looked back. I tried. Maybe with some revision this book can come back and live up to the potential that is hiding under there.

The secrets we keep are often the most destructive to our own emotional health and ability to embrace a happy, well-balanced life. As this story unfolds, we relive the past and feel the impact on the present while we follow Julie’s story about her friendship with Reba, interwoven with twists and turns from start to finish. It is a story about turbulent teenage years, families who are vastly different, racial division, first love… and lust. After being contacted by Reba’s first boyfriend, August, Julie agrees to return with him to the small southern town where her best friend died. Ten years later, they both still grieve for Reba, each carrying the blame for her death. Are there others who know what really happened? The only way for Julie to confront the truth and find redemption is to accompany August back to Mississippi to find Reba’s diary, which they both hope will set them free.

This is the story of Jules and Reba who were best friends from the small town of Lawrence in Mississippi. After Julie’s parents are killed in an accident, she moves to Mississippi and befriends Reba from next door. The story alternates between Reba with events from her diary to Jule’s story where she is trying to find out the events behind Reba’s death. Whilst slow to start, the story has potential. You are left to wonder if Jule’s was involved in the tragedy or whether she wasn’t.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

10 years ago Julie fled her hometown thinking she killed her best friend Reba. She now lives in New York with her 5 year old daughter. Julie vows never to return to Mississippi. Reba's boyfriend August comes to see Julie and beg her to return to Mississippi with him to find Reba's diary and finally figure out the truth of what happened to Reba. Julie goes with August to find out the truth. The book is told from the past and the present and we see Reba through her diary. It was a good book about friendship and secrets and lies. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for allowing me to read and review this book. I received an ARC of the book for an honest review.

I was intrigued by the premise so I went in with high hopes. Harrigan overall seems to have a great talent at writing through vivid descriptions that really make you feel like you are there. The storyline itself is a good one but whilst the descriptive writing about time and place was lovely the dialogue was clunky and not at all believable in places. My other gripe was that parts of the book are supposed to be diary extracts from the time that the main characters were teenagers and yet the reader finds themselves flitting from a first person account to other characters’ thoughts at the time – very confusing

This is a promising debut novel by author Haley Harrigan, although I think it needs a bit of work in order to be as wonderful as it could be. With that being said, it is pretty clear that the author has a flair for writing, and plot is there where it should be. The dialogue needs a bit of work though and once the book is published (with any changes that are hopefully made) I would certainly purchase a copy for myself and others.

This is the story of two small town girls, Reba and Jules, who grow up in rural Mississippi. Jules tends to be the wild one and Reba the good girl, but secrets and lies start to develop between them and neither girl is quite what the other thinks. Reba gets caught between two boys, August and Toby, and the secrets start to mount, ultimately leading to the death of Reba and Jules' guilt and responsibility for the Reba's death. It has a little suspense and a coming of age story, which intermingles with Jules' adult life and the choices she makes based on the guilt she feels for what happened when she was a kid.

However, this book started really slowly for me and I was having a hard time connecting with the characters, almost to the point that I quit reading and I would have if I hadn't received a free copy in exchange for a review. but I'm glad I stuck with it, as it starts to get going about halfway through and I was slightly intrigued again, though a full connection with any character in the book was never realized. It turns out Reba wasn't the girl everyone thought they knew. I didn't care much for the chapters that were from Reba's diary - they didn't seem like diary writings at all, just more narrative from Reba's perspective. They could have been more like she was actually writing them. Overall, I give this book 2 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

She only has lovers in wintertime.

In summer, the days stretch long like lazy animals, and the sun’s rays reach like warm fingers down between the buildings and slide gently across her face and arms. It’s harder, then, to think of dark things.



Just what are the dark things in Julie Portland’s past? The haunting knowledge she carries and the fear that she has her best friend’s blood on her hands, and her guilty conscience. Now a single mother, she struggles to raise her little girl and keep her life afloat. The problem is, you can’t bury the past- somehow truth has a way of surfacing. Though living in in Manhattan, far from Mississippi, there is something corroded about her present circumstances. She has never recovered from the loss of Reba a decade ago.

Reba’s first, secret love August is a reminder of everything that went wrong. Though he never really knew Julie, he has come to beg her to help him find Reba’s missing diary but this means returning to the chilling past, her hometown. What if, in finding the diary, things left unknown are better buried? Could there be redemption or just more blame?

Through the diary entries, the sweet Reba isn’t the southern innocent her loved ones believed her to be. What does Julie’s screwed up brother know about that night, what did he really witness? How much have each of them carried with them through the years, poisoning their relationships, tainting their futures? August has carried Reba in his heart for so long, that no one can compare to that first blush of youth. But did Reba truly love as deeply as he?

There is racism on the periphery, but in a place where there is a great race divide, there isn’t a citizen alive that isn’t aware of it. If it is in a novel, it needs to be an ominous presence, as racism is. I had a hard time with a few things. The journal entries could have been darker, and at times I couldn’t see Reba as a real girl. I’ve read a plethora of novels with ‘diaries’, also many diaries that are non-fiction, and Reba’s thoughts didn’t have the feel of diary entries to me. I expected in a racist town for Reba to have a much bigger struggle over her feelings towards August. The sneaking around made sense but it wasn’t complicated enough. That Reba wasn’t exactly the sort of person her best friend figured her to be wasn’t a shock, but the problem I had was that I don’t think the reader feels Reba ever became a person we cared for. Diaries are intimate, they can endear, repulse, horrify, expose… it didn’t happen for me, this is the place the character breathes life, particularly in a story of a dead girl, but she never came alive.

Maybe I have read far too many journals, and as an avid diarist myself my expectations were too high and unforgiving. I expected childish, outlandish nonsense, because even the most gifted teenagers exaggerate the importance of every incident of their lives. “NO one has ever loved as great as me” you know, feelings running away with you, passions setting them afire. I don’t like to skip when reading, it’s a form of sacrilege but I was tempted when Reba’s diary entries appeared. The other thing, I was hoping with the title being about southern girls there’d be a more southern flavor, and I don’t mean racism for you cynical people! Julie is the wild one, having lost her parents she lives with an Aunt she never knew and didn’t seem to really have any parental boundaries set. I was waiting for some crazy southern nights, seeing as she’s the wild child. There’s a heap of trouble southern girls get up to, the ‘wild ones’ you know, I am surprised the author didn’t run with that. It was a good enough read and this is an advanced reader’s edition. I wonder if maybe young adults would enjoy it more than my old dusty self.

Publication Date: June 1, 2017

Sourcebooks Landmark

The story starts a little slowly but then begins to pique my interest. The writing flows nicely with broad use of metaphors and similes in a pleasing way. There is superb character development and excellent use of first person/third person narrative. Once I “got into it”, I hated to put the book down and looked forward to getting back to reading it once again.

The twists and turns along the way kept me surprised with no accompanying eye-rolling.

The only weak premise for me is that Julie believed what she believed all those years with no proof.

The story is a reminder to me that much of life is an illusion we create for ourselves and that our lies, untold truths, should-haves, what-ifs and blame-games dictate our future.

Nicely done, Ms. Harrigan. I look forward to more to come.

From small southern town Lawrence Hill, Mississippi, Julie Portland has moved to New York city to pursue her lifelong dream of being an actress. However, dark secrets of her past have followed her, wiggling themselves into Julie's new life. Ten years might have passed since the tragic event that's casting shadows in every corner of Julie's mind, overpowering and shattering her. Forced to face the past she's been running for, Julie goes back to Lawrence Hill, a place where she swore she'd never set foot again.

3 Stars

Harrigan's first novel has an interesting premise, but it was unfortunately badly executed. The writing was pretty good and the potential was there for Harrigan to pen a good novel, but the characters are cliché which affect the quality of Secrets of Southern Girls. The lack of motivation for Harrigan's characters is a direct consequence of the lack of characterization altogether.

The timeline and the use of Reba's diary entries are cohesive. I personally was much more interested in Reba's diary than I was in the rest of the book, which was a bit repetitive and dull, at times. I also thought that Reba's diary was unrealistic for a sixteen year old. The amount of detailed descriptions and the language used was a bit far fetched for any teenager, no matter how bright they are.


From small southern town Lawrence Hill, Mississippi, Julie Portland has moved to New York city to pursue her lifelong dream of being an actress. However, dark secrets of her past have followed her, wiggling themselves into Julie's new life. Ten years might have passed since the tragic event that's casting shadows in every corner of Julie's mind, overpowering and shattering her. Forced to face the past she's been running for, Julie goes back to Lawrence Hill, a place where she swore she'd never set foot again.

3 Stars

Harrigan's first novel has an interesting premise, but it was unfortunately badly executed. The writing was pretty good and the potential was there for Harrigan to pen a good novel, but the characters are cliché which affect the quality of Secrets of Southern Girls. The lack of motivation for Harrigan's characters is a direct consequence of the lack of characterization altogether.

The timeline and the use of Reba's diary entries are cohesive. I personally was much more interested in Reba's diary than I was in the rest of the book, which was a bit repetitive and dull, at times. I also thought that Reba's diary was unrealistic for a sixteen year old. The amount of detailed descriptions and the language used was a bit far fetched for any teenager, no matter how bright they are.

Contrasting with the diary, the dialogue between the characters was either awkward or too juvenile for the adult version of Julie or August.

Mostly, I was confused by the constant abrupt change of narration from one character to the other. It was quite messy and, to be honest, annoying.

I've read many books like Secrets of Southern Girls. Characters like Julie, the troubled teenage girl, I've read a hundred-time. Pure, idealized girls like Reba and bad seed like Toby, as well. There is nothing that set these stereotypical characters apart, to elevated them to real, pulsing human beings instead of cardboard cut-outs. What a shame, considering the potential of this novel.

That being said, I'd read another book by Harrigan as I can see great potential in her writing. I enjoyed her descriptions and her ideas. I wish the book had been more polished, especially the dialogues and backstories of the characters, but nevertheless, I was intrigued by Harrigan's work.

great book! I could not put it down. It was well written, interesting, and made you think a lot about your own experiences growing up, how important and secretive friendships can be. Loved it! I hope this author continues to write< especially about the south. thank you netgalley

This book needs to get interesting long before it does! We spend a great deal of time with the main character in her head full of angst without really getting to know her or understand her current day or past relationships. All the while we are teased with this "mystery" and given no real nuggets of information to keep us interested as she looks for answers. And in the end, the secrets of these Southern girls aren't even large enough to hold the book together. Sorry, but this one is a clunker.

Harrigan wrote some beautiful descriptive scenes, but the dialogue was awkward and choppy. Jumping back and forth between time frames and characters did not work well in this novel. It felt quite disjointed. The characters were stereotypical and lacked true depth leaving the reader wanting more. The premise was there, but this novel just doesn't deliver.

I had high hopes for this book but have to say I was disappointed. The storyline itself is a good one but whilst the descriptive writing about time and place was lovely the dialogue was clunky and not at all believable in places. My other gripe was that parts of the book are supposed to be diary extracts from the time that the main characters were teenagers and yet the reader finds themselves flitting from a first person account to other characters’ thoughts at the time – very confusing and clearly not a diary entry – more like a parallel text written in the same style as the rest of the book. Sadly, the diary entries were also a bit too reflective to be believable i.e. they often didn’t really seem to come from a teenage mind. I would really like to have seen the characters developed a bit more as much time was given to going over the same events making the book quite slow going.
I will say though that Harrigan does a very good job of conjuring up the feel of a small southern town with all of the politics that go with that – particularly 20 years ago.
The story centres around the friendship of two girls, Jules and Reba, growing up in this small southern mill town. Jules is the outgoing and slightly wild one although we soon learn that Reba had her secrets and this is the basis for the book. Reba finds it increasingly hard to keep all of her plates spinning and comes to a tragic end leaving behind 3 people who each thought they knew her and loved her and who each thought they were the cause of her death. Reba’s death has haunted Jules since it happened and affected her own relationships so when Reba’s boyfriend turns up and suggests that they travel back to Lawrence to find Reba’s diary and discover the truth, she agrees.
Whilst I felt that the ending was inevitable, almost from the start, I am glad that it wasn’t completely clichéd and still leaves the reader wondering.