<u>Her Pretty Face</u> was a great read! The story is told from 3 different characters’ point of view, but each was well-developed and unique. It kept me hooked from beginning to end. I really liked how DJ’s point of view from the past and in the midst of the criminal proceedings. It helped to break up the story. I thought that Frances’ character was so relatable! Semi-introverted mother lacking in self-confidence – I’ll be your friend Frances! Great storytelling that kept you guessing!

You need this book if you are looking for a intensely readable domestic drama in the vein of Liane Moriarty, but perhaps a little darker.

<i>Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review</i>.

Her Pretty Face is a page turner, and I read it in one shot. I couldn’t put it down. The format of the story kept it compelling for me- the blending of weaving in and out of the past into the present and multiple POVs from the major characters. The book is dark but not too much so. I’m super sensitive but this story kept me too interested “in what will happen next” to dwell on details of crimes committed. I think you will find the same. It’s intriguing but I was able to predict a few of the plot twists. And then there were a couple of real surprises. Reading a book that actually wraps up the story is a nice change of pace for me.

Whoa. What a rollercoaster ride of a read! As soon as the story started it began to pick up speed, heading for the top and then a thrill of a drop to the conclusion. What an interesting friendship Frances and Kate formed. It wad so intricate, detailed and scary in its closeness. I was pulled in from the first page and literally just out it down. This would make a great movie!! I would love to read a second book in this storyline, with Kate/Amber's daughter Daisy as the lead character.

*I would like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review*

The Party is one of my all time favorite books. So when I noticed that Robyn Harding was releasing a new one, I jumped at the chance to get my grabby hands on it. And I was NOT disappointed. Robyn writes some of the best domestic dramas around and I think all that enjoy the genre need her books (this one included) in their lives. I highly recommend it!

A compelling story of a woman struggling with self-loathing and regrets for past actions. The narrative oscillates between "then" and "now" as 2 separate storylines gradually and satisfyingly converge. Each chapter, told from alternating character points of view, advances the story and draws the reader deeper into each character's psyche. While the events in the story are not commony experienced by readers, the resulting emotional turmoil is universally relatable.

I enjoyed this fast read and am anxious to read more by this author.

Robyn Harding has a winner on her hands!

This book is told through the perspectives of 3 characters: Frances, a stay-at-home mom who does anything to help her troubled son make friends and be accepted; Daisy, a neglected teen who is the daughter of Frances's beautiful and classy friend Kate; and DJ, a young man tortured by a horrific past crime that tore his family apart. How the characters' stories come together in the end is amazing and will keep you guessing until the end.

A domestic suspense novel that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty!

My review can be found on my GoodReads page at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1335387-kelly. Thanks!

A creepy thriller that introduces two mothers who become friends and one of them is the killer and torturer of a fifteen year old girl. Part of the story is finding out which one of the women was involved in the killing when she was twenty. The actual trial is told in flashbacks from the perspective of the victim's daughter. The other part of the story is what happens when the true identity is revealed. A smart yet scary look at what it means to be safe and whether you really know who your friends are.

Copy Provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

Absolutely one of the best thrillers I have read all year. It was written so phenomenally. Characters done with such precision, you felt like you were living their life's and experiencing what they did. Full of excellent twists and turns and a complete psychological thriller! Hard to put down.,
Will be recommending highly in Chapter Chatter Pub, closer to the publish date!

This book is a completely engrossing story about inner demons, darkness, reckless behavior, and flawed, tortured characters. All of the characters in this story are unhappy and have dark secrets. They all have major issues. Each have unresolved conflict within themselves. There are no healthy relationships in this book. Each person is a lone sailor in the storm of life. Each is tortured by their past, which affects their present life and their ability to lead a normal existence.

I spent a lot of time thinking about these characters and how their storylines would eventually converge. I did guess some of it, and other twists were a surprise. I was bracing for murder, kidnapping, revenge, and violence, and held my breath waiting for this to happen, because each character was acting like a ticking time bomb and it was only a matter of time before someone exploded. I loved how the storylines came together, and all of the connections were revealed by the end. There was even some healing and coming to terms by the end, which makes this a great story.

The writing style is descriptive, engaging, and fast paced. Each chapter flew by, and this was a quick read for me. This is my first read of Robyn Harding's work, and I really enjoyed it. This book reminds me of Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier. If you like that book, you'll like this one too!

Her Pretty Face is our first book from author Robyn Harding. But we were quickly grabbed by this story; although we will admit, the cover is what first got us! What an amazing cover!!

This book is a dramatic story about two women whose deep friendship is threatened by dark, long-buried secret and lots of twists and turns to their story. We were literally on the edge of our seats while reading this book and it had us guessing what was going on, throughout the entire book.

We will keep our review to a minimum, to avoid spoilers, but man this book is filled with lies, deceit, and betrayal-- it will hold your interest for sure!

I read this book in one sitting..After the emotional few books I read last this was exactly what I needed to escape and get enthralled into a domestic suspense thriller.. I enjoyed Robyn 's characters and actually felt myself empathic to the cold disturbing Kate and wanting her to redeem herself . Not only did she create a book about motherhood that was filled with humor she created a creepy story that could happened in anywhere USA and the effects of secrets and family > great fast paced summer thriller

I read this book in a day. I really love this author. She makes reading fun. I liked Frances a lot and I also liked Kate. I loved Daisy though. I loved her resiliency. She was stronger than any of the other characters and I could really relate to her relationship with her mom. I had a lot of sympathy for Frances and the way she viewed herself throughout the book. I figured out a lot of stuff before the ending, but this did not take away from the journey and path that led to the conclusions. There were also things I was completely wrong about. I don't want to say too much because I hate people who spoil books, but I thought this was a great read. The cover is also gorgeous.
I want to talk about this following The Party. I liked The Party better, but I thought this one was darker and better written. I liked the focus on Marcus and his challenges. Many parents can relate to how overwhelmed Frances felt at times and many women can relate to the worry about not being as attractive as they once were. I give this 4 stars and i will read anything Robyn Harding writes. Thanks for the ARC!

Thank you to Gallery Books for the sending me an advanced copy of Her Pretty Face by Robyn Harding. First of all, can we talk about this cover?! Amazing! This was a very fast read for me. The story is told in three different POVs with short chapters which is always nice! Most of the chapters are in present time but we also have flashbacks.

Frances Metcalfe is a wife and a protective mother. Her son, Marcus, has just been accepted to the private Forrester School. Her awkward son is big and is being bullied right away. Frances can feel the judgey vibes coming from “the cool moms”. She feels like an outcast until she meets Kate.

Kate is everything! She’s beautiful, skinny and has a beautiful clean house. The two woman quickly become friends. It also helps that Kate’s son becomes friends with Marcus. Kate also has a daughter named Daisy. She’s in high school and goes through all the ups and downs of a teenage girl.

The flashback chapters are mostly from DJ. We learn that his sister was murdered. Everything about the crime was gruesome. I enjoyed the whole court setting and trying to figure out who “Amber” was.

As the two women get to know each other more, dark secrets from both of their pasts are close to being revealed and it will change their lives forever.

Lies, secrets, murder, betrayal ooo so good! I give this 4.5 stars! I definitely recommend!

A friend of mine runs a movie review blog called Every Movie Has a Lesson. As you undoubtedly deduced by the blog name, he — a teacher by trade — feels that every movie, no matter how seemingly trivial, imparts some type of life lesson.

Though I haven’t adopted as on-the-nose a name for this blog — opting instead for something that communicates how near and dear alcohol is to my heart — I feel the same about books.

Rarely do I walk away from a book without feeling like I’ve learned something. And Her Pretty Face, Robyn Harding’s second novel, is no exception to this rule.

Interestingly enough, this book has cemented a lesson that I learned when reading Robyn Harding’s first book, The Party.

And that lesson is this:

Teenagers do stupid, risky shit. And this stupid, risky shit can result in one of them losing an eye — In the best case — or fucking dying — In the worst.

And any time losing an eye is the better of two possible scenarios, you know things are pretty fucked up.

The protagonist of this lesson-teaching novel is a suburban stay-at-home mom named Frances.

Although it may appear that Frances has an idyllic life, living in a relatively wealthy community, married to an enviably handsome man and responsible only for the raising of her son, on the inside, her life is far from perfect for a number of reasons.

Her beloved son, Marcus, who has always struggled socially, has found himself even further relegated to the outskirts of his peer group, thanks to a rather disgusting act of retaliation against a girl who was mean to him. Frances has felt the blowback from her son’s behavior as it’s resulted in other mothers at the hoity-toity private school questioning Frances’ skills as a mother and value as a person.

Because, in case you’ve never experienced it yourself, the core group of stay-at-home-moms at any school — particularly a wealthy one — is eerily similar in composition and social power to The Plastics.

Additionally, Frances is chubby — a character trait that I can totally empathize with. And, although she’s not My-600-lb-life level of fat, she’s always felt like this extra layer of padding has kept her from connecting with other mothers and further distinguished her from the super-mom herd — but not in a good way.

We also learn pretty quickly that something happened in Frances’s past that continues to haunt her to this day, further eroding any confidence she may have.

So, when beautiful, put-together and pretty much universally admired Kate turns her attentions towards Frances, it seems almost too good to be true. Unlike Frances, Kate fits comfortably into the mom group. Her son Charles is well- behaved, cooperative and well-balanced — pretty much everything Frances’ son Marcus is not.

Despite the differences between these two boys, Charles and Marcus form a friendship, making the development of a relationship between Frances and Kate if not natural, at least mutually convenient.

But as Frances gets closer to Kate, developing an increasing dependence on, and affinity for, this socially powerful woman, she begins to learn things about her friend that belie the admirable persona.

This leaves Frances wondering. Could everything she believes to be true about Kate be but a collection of lies? And, if they are, is Frances really ready to extricate herself from Kate, socially, and stand on her own in a way she has never been able to before?

From this start, this novel reminded me — in the best kinds of ways — of the wave-making Big Little Lies. As a mom and an educator, I find the natural dynamics of the parent social groups incredibly interesting. Just sitting back in the car-rider-pick-up-line, sipping on a coffee and watching the moms and dads interact like ants in a colony, constantly vying for a new position in the social order, is intriguing to see the least — and, honestly, overwhelming.

The dynamics portrayed in this novel, while catty, were, in my opinion, entirely realistic. And, seeing them from this angle, was engaging if not enjoyable.

But, ultimately, this novel wasn’t just a commentary on how shitty power-moms can be. That was just one layer in a complicated, dare I say onionesque, plot.

Underneath all of the social drama was a tightly-woven thriller that was authentically suspenseful, legitimately surprising and, above all, extremely believable.

One critique I commonly have of contemporary thrillers is that they lack of character development. That was not the case here. Harding invested time and effort into developing her characters, making them lifelike people who we legitimately care about by the book’s end.

Ultimately, it was the combination of this naturally compelling plot and the genuinely engaging characters that made this a novel I couldn’t help but power through.

And, what’s more, even when I wasn’t reading the book, I found myself thinking about it. I found the plot and theme seeping into my everyday life, invading my thoughts and distracting me from my reality.

My reading of this book so pervaded my life that, as I sat in Panera, finishing the novel and apprehensively alternating between sips of hazelnut coffee and nibbles of my gel polish covered nails, I found myself becoming alarmed.

The source of my alarm - realizing that my 8-year-old was scheduled to attend a birthday spend the night that evening and would be under the watchful eye of Amanda, a woman who I befriended largely because our boys had an affinity for each other — God, the scenario sounded familiar.

Too familiar, in fact.

*Spoilers Ahead*

So, seeking reassurance, I did what any normal mom would do. I texted her, pretty much straight out asking if she was a murderer — which, I mean, might not have been the way to go.

As I read her — hopefully — tongue-in-cheek responses, I realized that I was wrong. The lesson that this book in particular, and Robyn Harding’s books in general, have taught me is not what could happen. I knew that long ago for I was once a teen. I moved though that distinctly dangerous epoch in which, despite the fact that I was woefully unaware of the realities of life, I was filled with the misguided belief that I knew all there was to know.

No, what I have come to understand better after reading these books is what my role is now. As a parent..

Despite the fact that I may at times want to invest in the development of an age-progression-stunting serum for my own sons — currently 8 years old and just under 2 — I have to allow them to grow. I have no real choice but to give them space and just hope that they don’t engage in any hijinks that result in the loss of an eye or, worse yet, death.

And, as legitimately scary as this thriller is, that realization is even scarier.

Because this book wasn’t just terrifying, it was also terrifyingly good, I give it 5 out of 5 cocktails.

Since I loved Harding's first novel, The Party, I was delighted to get approved for her second book and it did not disappoint! When Frances gets her troubled son into an elite school, she is desperate to make friends with the other mothers but is soon ostracized when her son acts out against another student. Then "cool mom" Kate befriends her and their sons bond as well. Everything seems perfect. But of course, nothing ever is as it seems, and dark secrets from each of their pasts threaten to disrupt their lives and change the course of their friendship. Lies, betrayals, deceptions all come to light as Harding weaves a tale of two families in turmoil because of the past. Can people ever change? And who is collateral damage when secrets come to light? This novel is a thrill ride up until the end, and Harding's writing is a delight to read as she knows teen angst as well as adult apprehension. I simply loved it!