First of all, I loved that this book was set in Birmingham, Alabama. As a native of North Alabama, the setting created an instant connection with the story and characters. I will admit the story had some flaws and even questionable plausibility at times. The tension, however, was so electric that I wasn’t thinking about the likelihood of what was happening, I was just along for the ride.

I LOVE all of Emily's books -- but this one takes it to another level!! The mother/daughter relationship - which I believe is the central part of this book was done beautifully!! What happens to a family when the father dies suddenly? This is the question she answers perfectly!! The tension of the story kept me turning the pages. And, the ending was totally SHOCKING!!

Until the Day I Die is my first book by this author.

The book alternates between a mother and daughter's POVs (1st person). Erin is the mother and Shorie is her college aged daughter. We also get to see some journal entries from Perry (deceased husband/father).

Erin and Shorie's family home is in Birmingham, Alabama. Erin, Perry and two of their friends invented the hottest budget app called Jax.

Erin and Shorie are both struggling since Perry's death. I would definitely categorize this book as a suspense/mystery with a little bit of Women's Fiction. But there is a big mystery to solve involving Jax and that is the focus of the story.

The story alternates between where Erin is and what Shorie is doing and I found both POVs equally interesting.

My only issue with the book is that part of Erin's story seemed way too out there. I would have preferred sketchiness but not to the extent we got. I feel like the author went a bit too far. Also I wish that Perry's journal had been more interesting. It barely made sense.

I really liked Shorie's roommate and I liked that there was a bit of romance in one of the POVs.

Overall, this was a really intriguing enjoyable mystery.

This was a fun read in that it moved at a clipped, whodunit pace and kept me guessing until I arrived toward the end. I couldn't put the book down! When I did, I found my thoughts drifting toward trying to figure out the mystery and counting down the moments until I could pick up the book again.
There is some language, if you're sensitive to that, but not excessively so.
I would definitely recommend this book to a friend or mystery fan.

*I received an e-book of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review on my own words.

Emily Carpenter book until the day I die is a slow burner mystery novel that doesn't disappoint. I think the book really picked up halfway for me I was engaged throughout , however I did not find it as addicting as her previous novel every single secret. I enjoy the writing style and the story but it was predicable for me and no wow factor or twists ..

Until the Day I Die is the first book I have ready by Emily Carpenter. It is a thriller that had me turning pages until late at night. I could not turn the pages fast enough.

Erin has lost her husband Perry in an accident and has disengaged from her daughter Shorie and her friends. Erin and Perry own a tech company with their friends. Now that Perry is gone, Erin wants to see the company. The friends convince Erin to take a relaxing vacation on a remote Caribbean island resort. But the resort is not what she expected.

Shorie is grieving the passing of her Dad. She wants to work at the family owned company but Erin wants her to go to college as planned. While attending college Shorie realizes someone is stealing from the company and her mother and herself might be in danger.

The story has a realistic love/hate mother daughter relationship. How well do you really know your friends? Plenty of plot twists and an OMG ending that makes a great thriller A must read! Thank you to Netgalley, Emily Carpenter, and Lake Union Publishers for a copy of this book and this is my honest review.

Erin is grieving the loss of her husband and Shorie is grieving the loss of her father. Erin is trying to be a good mother to Shorie all while keeping the family business going. Shorie is going off to college and Erin is considering selling the business that her and her husband started with their best friends. Erin keeps finding herself in strange situations where she has been drinking with bizarre behavior. Her family and friends decide to have an intervention on her behalf. They believe with all of her strange behavior lately that she needs a break so she goes along with their request to be sent to Hidden Sands where she will have no communication with the real world and can relax. Once she gets to Hidden Sands, very strange and dangerous activity starts. She has no way out at this point! Shorie starts putting some missing pieces together and realizes what has happened. She has to get to her mother!
I really enjoyed this exciting thriller! Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC!

I started Until The Day I Die by Emily Carpenter last night and am hooked. She has a writing style that pulls you in right away and throws you into what’s happening.

Erin’s husband has died and she’s barely able to hold it all together. She’s living in a world of grief while trying to stay involved in the app/tech company called Jax, she built with her husband and their two friends. Her daughter Shorie, an incredibly smart young college student, rather be home working at Jax than living the college life. She was always following her dad around and learning about the company, she probably knows more than Erin. She is frustrated by her mother and also very worried.

Okay, that’s as far as I got and I cannot wait to read more!

Here’s the full synopsis:

If there’s a healthy way to grieve, Erin Gaines hasn’t found it. After her husband’s sudden death, the runaway success of the tech company they built with their best friends has become overwhelming. Her nerves are frayed, she’s disengaged, and her frustrated daughter, Shorie, is pulling away from her. Maybe Erin’s friends and family are right. Maybe a few weeks at a spa resort in the Caribbean islands is just what she needs to hit the reset button…

Shorie is not only worried about her mother’s mental state but also for the future of her parents’ company. Especially when she begins to suspect that not all of Erin’s colleagues can be trusted. It seems someone is spinning an intricate web of deception—the foundation for a conspiracy that is putting everything, and everyone she loves, at risk. And she may be the only one who can stop it.

Now, thousands of miles away in a remote, and oftentimes menacing, tropical jungle, Erin is beginning to have similar fears. Things at the resort aren’t exactly how the brochure described, and unless she’s losing her mind, Erin’s pretty sure she wasn’t sent there to recover—she was sent to disappear.

I wonder what’s going to happen next. I’m bracing myself for a breakdown from Erin that will send her away to this jungle. Told in a dual perspective, we see things unfold from both mother and daughter, which I like because it feels like the story keeps moving quickly.

My plans tonight are a yoga session and then the rest of the night is for reading!

Erin is a grieving wife, whose husband died suddenly leaving a successful tech company in her hands, as well as a daughter, Shorie.
Both are struggling to cope with their grief as well as maintain their relationship.

The tech company is fascinating as it is built on the creation of an intuitive App that manages personal budget and spend - I can’t be the only one who thought it was amazing?

This is an entertaining read, it’s just missing something for me to really love it. Worth a read though as it’s got twists and turns and interesting characters.

Thanks to Netgalley, Lake Union Publishing and Erin Carpenter for the opportunity to preview in exchange for this honest review.

I had a little bit of a hard time connecting with the storyline of Until The Day I Die by Emily Carpenter. I have to say even with not connecting with the book, the writing was good and I look forward to reading more from Emily.

Quick and Forgettable. I didn’t love this book and I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t make a big impression on me. This is the kind of book you read in an airport or plane as a distraction and way to occupy your mind to pass the time. It feels a little like women’s fiction, a little like action, and a little bit like a thriller. There is a mystery to solve of who is embezzling from the app company and conniving to send a recently widowed co-owner sent away to a “resort” for nefarious purposes. The part I liked best was the fictional budgeting app and the technology surrounding it. If you think too hard about the plot, it feels contrived.
Thanks to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and the author Emily Carpenter for an electronic review copy. Book published March 12, 2019.

Once again Emily Carpenter has written a thriller that kept me guessing from beginning to end. She leads you one way and then twists you around. Nothing is what it seems.

Upon sudden the death of her husband, Erin Gaines’ life seems to be spinning out of control. She seems unable to focus and handle daily life, her daughter, or the company she, her husband and two friends started. Her family and friends gather for an intervention to make Erin see that she needs to take time to get her life in order. Erin reluctantly agrees to go to Hidden Sands to get back to herself. You won’t believe what happens next.

The story is well written and the characters are very relatable. There are many emotions rushing through this story but fear and uncertainty are primary. There is another layer to the story, the relationship between mother and daughter.

If you like thrillers, mystery, and suspense, then you have to read this book. I recommend this book to everyone that wants to read a good book.
Thank you to #Netgalley and #LakeUnionPublishing for approving my request. The opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.

I'll be reading more from Emily Carpenter after thiz. Wow! Nonstop action and twists ga!ore. With an ending i did not see coming.

I really didn’t know what to expect with this one as I haven’t read anything by this author, and I didn’t read any summaries. It was a crazy adventure, a bit implausible in parts, but with a few good twists thrown in.

Erin is the CEO of a tech company trying to recover from the death of her husband. She really seems to be falling apart and is sent to a spa. I immediately thought of “Nine Perfect Strangers” and I wondered what sort of adventure this spa would be for Erin.

The other main character is Erin’s daughter, Shorie, and I really liked her character. She’s deeply involved in the tech company, but her parents wanted her to attend college and experience that part of life. She heads off to college but starts to have worries about the company while her mother is away.

Full of intrigue, conspiracy, and online crime – this was a quick easy read. I will definitely read more from Emily Carpenter.

3.5 stars

Emily Carpenter has become one of my favorite new authors, so I was really excited when I saw she was coming out with a new book. Carpenter has become synonymous with words like creepy, gothic, chilling and suspenseful. However, Until the Day I Die was really none of those things. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the book, but it was just “lighter” than her other works. Dare I say this was more Women’s Fiction than anything else? I say “yes”.

While the story is engaging and Carpenters writing is spot on, the whole thing just felt… unbelievable? Far-fetched? Typically I do not have any issues suspending belief when it comes to stories regarding time travel, the supernatural and fantasy. However, this story was so current and “actual” that I found myself really having a hard time believing L’elu Trois and everything else that revolved around it.

Please do not mistake this review for a bad one; I read this book in 3 sittings, the pace moved along and the story had me fully engaged. I just don’t think it is on par with Carpenter’s other works.

Erin hasn’t been herself ever since her husband died in a car accident. But as a mother to a smart 18-year-old, a CEO of a multimillion startup, and a recent widow, who wouldn’t be? Well, her in-laws and best-friends-slash-business-partners think otherwise: she needs some rest. She needs a retreat. A retreat as far away and secluded as a private Caribbean island. A retreat from which she’ll have to prove she’s well enough before they’ll enable her to leave. But is their concern the real reason they all seem to want her away?

This story got me so edgy and paranoid that every single character, save for Erin and her daughter Shorie, was suspicious. Every last one of them. It’s action-packed and fast-raced, suspenseful and very hard to put down—and the chapters alternating between Erin and Shorie being only a few pages long makes it even easier for you to think, “Okay, just one more chapter”—but i was a bit disappointed by the ending, which made no sense to me mostly because there had been ZERO hint pointing toward the villain du jour. That and other overlooked details that I can’t discuss because spoilers made me fell the ending had been rushed.
I will however look into Emily Carpenter’s other books because I was thoroughly entertained. Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the advance copy.

As a rule, I don’t read thrillers. The ones I’ve read so far were not enjoyable, either absolutely terrifying or completely boring, and some even gave me actual nightmares. But Until the day I die, written by Emily Carpenter and published today (March 12) is the exception to this rule. With half the book set in a beautiful spa resort in the middle of the Caribbean, and two women protagonists who deal with loss and grief in the only ways they can, I just had to give this story a chance.

It did not disappoint me.

The story begins pretty simply : Erin, her husband, and their two friends designed and created a revolutionary app that helps millions of people around the world budget their expanses, send money, check their savings accounts and plan for the future – and the future is bright. Until the day Perry, Erin’s husband, dies tragically in a car crash. Four months later, Erin is barely holding on, and her friends and family convince her that some time away from work would be the best for her.

Through the points of view of both Erin and her daughter Shorie, the author takes us on a thrilling adventure filled with suspense and unpredictable twists. Some parts are, as other reviewers have noted, a little more difficult to believe than others, but by this point, the reader is already immersed into the story, and it doesn’t ruin the final surprise at all. The way the mother-daughter relationship is depicted feels real, intimate and personal, and it’s what really pushes this book from a 3 stars rating to a 4/5 for me.

If you like colorful thrillers, family dynamics and stressful races against time (and through the jungle), don’t hesitate to give this book a chance !

Between the cover and the premise this one sold me. A story about a tropical oasis turning deadly and betrayal from your closest allies? I couldn’t wait to get into this story. The quick pace, complex characters, and connected mysteries made for a fast and rewarding read.

I really liked how these characters were developed and I would love to get to know them even more in a sequel (that isn’t needed at all but I’d definitely spend more time with these characters if I got the chance). Erin and Shorie have depth, are trying to get to know themselves better, and over time end up bonding and trusting each other more than ever. The secondary characters had depth as well which helped to round the story out, create many potential villains, and played into the idea that you can’t always trust friends and family.

My favorite aspect of this book was the underlying creepy tones at the end of the chapters. Erin goes to a tropical island to a spa resort and at first it seems like a great opportunity to relax, but it quickly becomes weird and not at all relaxing. I loved this because it felt like a horror movie, it starts out nice and peaceful but a little weird and quickly turns into a nightmare. This gave the reader a great opportunity to get to know Erin and see her true colors surface.

I also really enjoyed getting to know Shorie. She’s a super smart young woman and it was fun seeing her embrace the college experience while growing up to handle some adult situations. I appreciated the tech geekiness of her coding and hacking, along with her crushing on a guy and questioning everyone’s motives.

The mystery of the story is slow building which is great. The pace of the story is fast, but the mystery creeps up on you. It’s a lot like a horror movie in that respect too. You know something weird is going on but don’t have enough information to piece the puzzle together until it’s almost too late. The mystery is full of twists and lets the reader play detective along with the characters, which is one of my favorite pieces of the mystery and thriller genre.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of fast-paced mysteries with thrilling elements. It’s a great suspense feeling story with solid characters, good plot, and twists through the end. I am definitely picking up more from this author and looking forward to her future works.

Until the Day I Die is a story that kept me wondering and guessing until the end. And then there was the ending that I wasn't expecting. All the deceit, conniving, and suspense I felt throughout the whole story made this a definite page turner. Then there was the 'drop my jaw' conclusion. Genus!

Erin gets sent away to a retreat facility when her family decides she is not handling her husband's sudden death. But things are not what they seem there and it's anything but a restful retreat. Some of the things Erin had to deal with definitely got my heart racing.

And Shoire, Erin's daughter—what a strong, smart person she is. She knows something isn't right with her mom and the company her parents founded and she just keeps digging and never gives up, even when she doesn't know who to trust.

Emily Carpenter has once again written a story that I won't soon forget. This is one you need to read!

What a thrill ride! Until The Day I Die is a slow burn of a thriller. It’s hard to pin a specific genre to this book, as there are elements of both thriller and women’s fiction interwoven. Luckily, I’m not one the needs a specific label on my books—give me a good book and that’s all I need.

We start out with a mom leaving her (reluctant, stubborn) daughter at college against her will. We’re lead to believer there is tension between the mother and daughter after the loss of the father.

As the book progresses, we witness a (literal) fight for survival and a coming of age story for the mom and daughter. Who can you trust? Is family who you thought they were? Who has motivation for murder? All these questions are answered through the final pages of Until the Day I Die by Emily Carpenter.

I received an advance copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.