Cover Image: One Little Secret

One Little Secret

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Member Reviews

I actually really enjoyed this book! This is about three couples who rent an expensive private beach house. They are supposed to be relaxing and having a great time, but instead, there are a bunch of secrets that are being spilled. One of the wives is found dead on the beach, and everyone starts to get frantic (they had all been drinking).
If you love domestic thrillers about lies, secrets, and irresponsible adults, this one is for you.

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At the beginning of the book I found it hard to keep straight who was married to who and which kids belonged to each family. Just as I finally got it sorted out, the twists and turns made things even harder :D But it didn't take away any enjoyment from the book, I'm just terrible at remembering names when books have a few characters. I'm sure that same issue doesn't plague everyone! The writing was so engaging and the twists and turns just kept coming the whole way through. The slow release of information made guessing the outcome much harder and there was even a seemingly irrelevant storyline that flawlessly joined the main one halfway through

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Three couples rent a beach house whilst their children are at summer camp. It's more a holiday of convenience to keep the cost down rather than a group of established friends going on holiday together. There are tensions right from the the start and there are secrets held.

One day a dead body is found on the private beach belonging to the holiday house. Detective Gabby Watkins is believes the killer is one of the occupants of the house. The story looks at each character and uncovers possible motives for each.

An enjoyable read

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Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. I will review this title at a different date.

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My first netgalley read and it was an absolute binge-worthy read! This is one of my top beach/summer reads... Still!

One Little Secret covered many facets are adult relationships; friendships, honesty, trust, selfless vs selfish, etc oh, and some aspects of physical abuse but I was impressed with how well rounded this book was. We got to know each character through this very unique timeline displayed in chapters and before the halfway mark, you're already loving and routing for one or more character hoping they don't turn out to be the killer!

It was quick to read, easy to digest and so addictive!

I was shocked to know this book didn't get even more love & hype!

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This would be a great read for the upcoming summer! Suspense and secrets and a dead body. The book follows the different perscpectives of the charaters, making it an interesting read full of surprises. I will definitely look for more from this author.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy.

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I tried really hard to absolutely 100% love this book...however, I found myself having trouble finishing it in spots.

I did finish it, and I'm glad I did. It just did not hold my attention sometimes, which made it hard for me to focus and continue at a rapid pace that I normally read in.

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I’m not sure what I was expecting from this book, or quite why it took me so long to get round to reading it, but I really enjoyed it. Three couples from the same neighbourhood head to the Hamptons for a summer vacation - little do they know each other’s secrets, or just how wrong their holiday can go. I really liked the relationships between the three couples and seeing how they were all interconnected. I also like the mystery surrounding the “whodunnit” that was there right up until the end of the book. My favourite character by far was Detective Sergeant Gabriella Watkins - I would love her to have her own series of books!

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I was looking to knock another book off my backlist of digital review copies, and in the mood for another mystery, which led to me picking up One Little Secret by Cate Holahan. I remember hearing about Holahan before, the premise of the story–about a group of friends who rent a beach house together and one of them ends up dead–intrigued me. The book itself was just okay. There’s really nothing wrong with it, but it doesn’t feel terribly original. It reminded me a lot of Big Little Lies, with wealthy friends and a dead body (although you do find out pretty early on who has been killed). There’s definitely more violence and drama than Big Little Lies, but I didn’t like the writing quite as much.

Holahan does a good job capturing the topic the toxic friendships and relationships in the book, and there are plenty of twists, although the big reveal didn’t surprise me (but I do read a decent number of mystery novels). Despite the large number of characters, it was always pretty easy to tell them apart, but they also often lacked depth. I understand have the neutral observer perspective in the form of the detective, but I found those portions the least interesting. Overall, One Little Secret was a decent read, and if you loved Big Little Lies and are looking for something similar, it’s worth checking out, it just ended up feeling a bit too much like something I’ve read before.

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I love Cate Holohan. I was wavering on whether to give this novel two or three stars because I just couldn't get into it. I decided on 3 stars because there is nothing at all wrong with it. When I did sit down to read it, I enjoyed it. It just didn't excite me enough to pick it up between sittings, so it literally took me months to actually complete. The premise sounded intriguing: Three couples on a trip together, each with secrets and one ends up dead. But their relationships didn't make sense to me. I didn't see why they were friends with each other or even how the couples necessarily were with each other. If a reader doesn't read many thrillers, then this one is a perfectly nice one to read. For someone like me, who reads probably TOO many thrillers, this one was just not unique enough to stand out in any way.

I see that Cate Holahan is going to write in a different genre next time, which I am excited about. It seems to me that the thriller market is so saturated that unless there is a killer plot, then maybe it is best to just go a different route for a few years. I will be all over anything this author writes and I am sad I was not more enthusiastic about One Little Secret.

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I enjoyed this book. I thought it was fast-paced enough to keep me interested and kept me wondering with plot twists. Three couples renting a beach house, that doesn't quite live up to its photos, throw in some drinking and there will certainly be a murder mystery. While I did figure out whodunnit before the end, the author did a great job keeping you wondering if you’ve chosen wisely.

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As is said in the synopsis, “Everyone has a secret. For some, it’s worth dying to protect. For others, it’s worth killing.”

Susan is eager to help her family settle into their new town and decides to invite their new neighbors to join her and her husband on a week-long vacation while all of the children are off at summer camp. However, it doesn’t take long for the three couples to pick up on each other’s marital problems and more. With alcohol involved everyone is bound to talk a little looser than normal, right?

Everything comes to a head when they discover one of the women dead on the beach the next morning. Was it someone staying with them? Or was it a random killing by someone passing by? Now, this is when things get juicy…well as juicy as they are going to get in this book.

The reader starts to find out details about each of the six people who were staying in the rental property. Some of the details show motive for the killing.

One Little Secret is a fun, summer vacation gone wrong. The downside for me was that it was just like every other domestic violence book out there. I knew where it was going before it even got there…

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You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

The kids are all going off to summer camp, this is the perfect time for three neighbouring couples to get together and get away for a little while. It gives Susan the perfect chance to get to know the couples around her and really make some new friends. What starts out as a get-to-know-you feel good vacation, soon devolves into something unrecognisable as the secrets, lies and truths are all let out into the open. Just because someone seems like they have the perfect life, doesn't make it so, and this time, it will end it murder.

I've had this one sitting in my Netgalley to be read pile for a good while now (like majority of my Netgalley pile), and I'm a little sad that I didn't read it sooner. This was an absolutely gripping page turner, and I did not want to put it down.

We're first introduced to the families that neighbour each other as they're all dropping their children off so they can be bussed out to summer camp. We get a glimpse into the adults and their relationships with their children, but we don't really get a good feel for who they are as people and to each other, this comes as the story progresses and I feel it did a fabulous job. We have Jenny and Louis, the power couple, a sports reporter (I think that's right) and an ER doctor; Susan and Nadal, the new kids on the block, she's a stay at home mum who used to be a criminal lawyer, and he's CEO of a start-up company that he's nurtured and built from the ground up; Ben and Rachel, she's a lawyer, and I'm honestly not sure what Ben does...I can't remember. So Susan booked this little beach getaway for the three couples so they could spend some times together, and so that her and Nadal could get to know their neighbours, fairly innocent. However, everything goes sideways when Susan's insecurities highlight issues that she's been having in her relationship and her insecurities that her husband may be looking for something a bit more interesting in the neighbouring houses, the truth about Jenny and Louis' relationship comes to light, and Rachel ends up dead on the first night.

Detective Gabby Watkins, has to try and work out which one of these possible suspects is responsible for Rachel's death and she needs to do it fast. There was another case that Detective Watkins is working on in the beginning of the book where we first meet her, and while it did sort of add a bit of filler to the story itself, I kind of understand the point in including it, but I'm also thinking that the story didn't really NEED this other case in it, as it sort of trickles off into nothing and I didn't get closure from it. I feel like the book would have been better focusing on this main story and case line, the other case didn't really detract from the main one, and it did have some uses in the plot itself, it just seemed unnecessary to me.

The characters were each incredibly individual and I felt that the author did an amazing job of giving them each their own voice and flaws, which made them three dimensional. The characters were so relateable, and they really touched on some real world things. Business between friends, domestic abuse and all the worries and fear that goes along with it are the main two, and this is where I will add a trigger warning, there is detailed scenes of domestic abuse between two characters, so if you struggle with this sort of thing, I would suggest maybe giving this book a miss, it was much more in depth than I originally thought it was going to be.

The mystery of whodunit? was well thought out and well executed. I had my suspicions, but nothing was confirmed obviously until the big reveal, so I didn't feel like I had worked everything out near the beginning and had to trawl through the rest of the book waiting for the characters to catch up. Things were not all revealed at one time, and we learnt more and more about the characters and their situations as the story progressed, giving us more and more ideas of who could have killed Rachel.

All in all, this book was actually a lot better than I anticipated it to be, and I'm so happy that I got a chance to read it. If you like a thriller, with a mystery and a hint of soap opera drama thrown in, then this is your book.

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I didn't love this. Too many silly secrets and unlikable characters. Didn't capture my interest at all.

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It was a little confusing between all of the couples, I did spend a lot of my reading time distinguishing between them. A good read with a pleasant ending.

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Susan and her family are new to the neighborhood and she thought it would be fun to get away for an adults only vacation with the neighbors. She and her husband could sure use a little rest and relaxation. The house is picturesque with windows all around and right on the beach. They're a close group as far as neighbors go. As soon as they all start arriving the alcohol comes out and cheers all around. As soon as the liquor starts to settle, things are said that normally wouldn't be shared. Perhaps there's a little animosity bubbling under the surface that even Susan was unaware of and then one of them is found dead on the beach the next morning.

The novel really picks up speed from here and accusations fly. The one person who has to pull apart the tangled web of people and stories is detective Gabby Watkins and slowly but surely she may have her suspect, but is she in time? Lies have a way of catching up to a person in the most unexpected ways and like hot gossip this was a shockingly fun read.

Thank you NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books, and Cate Holahan for the arc

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This was another book that I just couldn't get into. It started slow and it simply didn't take off for me. I was bummed because many of these thrillers seem to disappoint nowadays.

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I'm a bit of a sucker for thrillers and always like to challenge myself to try to figure out who the culprit is before the end - but at the same time I don't want to figure it out by page ten because that's no fun. This book, which follows a group of neighbours setting out for a nice little getaway that goes awry when one of them turns up dead did not give it away right out of the gate. With the changing time line and different POV it kept me on my toes trying to figure it out.

If you enjoy a good "whodunit" mystery, this is a great choice.

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Three neighbor couples rent a beach house in the Hamptons while their kids are at summer camp together.
As they spend the first evening with each other, alcohol fuels the tensions. Secrets and lies are uncovered. A lawsuit, domestic violence, jealousy and infidelity are all exposed.
The next day, one of them is found dead on the beach.
Detective Gabby Watkins is assigned to the case. She begins to discover connections between them and each one becomes a suspect.
Chapters alternate in three parts: The Day Before, The Day Of and The Day After.
This domestic thriller/mystery was outstanding. The characters were not consistently likable, but they were always interesting!
This book kept me guessing till the very end!
Thank you to Crooked Lane Books for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

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This book looked great when I first saw it but now I am realizing it just wasn’t for me. I think that this will be great for many people but not for me at this time.

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