The Stillwater Girls, my first book by Minka Kent, is a solid 3 star: a good read, interesting, but quite flawed.

Stillwater is a forest in upstate New York in which two girls, Sage and Wren, have lived with their mother and younger sister, Evie, for their entire lives. They, quite literally, have had no contact with civilization. There are no cell phones, radios, televisions, internet - nothing. They never have seen another human being outside of the women in their cabin. At least, not that they can remember. Their mother occasionally meets up with a "supply man" who sells their homemade soaps and brings them supplies but, for the most part, they are self sufficient and adequately living off of the land around them. Until the night that Evie falls ill and their mother leaves the cabin to take her to find medical help. Wren and Sage wait....and wait.... Wren carefully marking off the days on her homemade calendar, weeks, then a month and then two. Then a man arrives at their cabin and their lives change forever.

Stillwater Girls completely had me hooked for the majority of the book. Kent is an amazing writer and the story of these girls, how they survived, their meager happiness and their fears, were palpable. I absolutely loved them. Until the final stage of the book. It was as though I was watching a ball of yarn unraveling. The storyline itself began to come apart string by string. While I appreciate plot twists and surprises, those in Stillwater Girls, felt so contrived and unbelievable that I wanted to back up and re-read it all again hoping for a different outcome. Surely all of the great writing at the beginning couldn't fall apart like this at the end, could it? But, sadly, it did. That's not to say that as whole the book wasn't good because it was. It could have been terrific, though, and it wasn't.

I appreciate the advanced copy given to me by #Netgalley, #Thomas&Mercer and #MinkaKent. I have read such great things about Kent's books and definitely will read one of her other works.

I was admittedly excited to start this book you didn't know nothing about the description or anything really except bells ringing in my head that said it was okay I'm not upset I read it.

I am a huge fan of Minka Kent and have devoured all her books. I was so excited to read The Stillwater Girls and it did not disappoint.
This is a wonderful story with great characters that kept me completely captivated.

The Stillwater Girls is a fast read. The chapters are short which makes the narrative flow quickly. Two young women are left alone in their remote cabin after their mother leaves with the youngest daughter who is ill. Months pass and they don't return. A strange man breaks into the cabin and desperate, the young women flee. They find refuge at Nicolette's house who has always longed for children. Secrets are revealed that are hard to bear, but the story comes together nicely. THe one aspect of the story that I found far fetched, even for fiction, is how one of the girls was taken.

This book was phenomenal. Told back and forth by a rich, trust fund wife trying to understand the changes in her life and a poor 18 year old left for dead in a cabin in the woods. The only thing they share is the fact that they live in Stillwater. This story is told so well and is woven beautifully. I ended the book perfectly satisfied!

4.5/5 stars

I really liked this book!

This book is a psychological thriller/suspense/mystery. It is my fourth book by this author. I have read: The Memory Watcher, The Perfect Roommate and The Thinnest Air. The author also writes under the name Winter Renshaw.

This book has two 1st person POVs: Wren (19 year old girl) and Nicolette (30 something year old woman).

The story starts off with what seems like two completely separate stories. We have Wren and her sister Sage living alone in a remote cabin. And we have Nicolette who desperately wants to have kids. She lives with her husband who is a famous photographer.

Both of these stories were compelling. And I was dying to know how the stories would become connected.

This story had some very interesting aspects. I was fascinated by Wren and her sister living in a remote cabin and being unaware of the rest of the world. I was captivated by Nic and her suspicions about her husband.

There were some very interesting twists and reveals. And overall I thought that this was a wonderful mystery. I really enjoyed this book!

Nineteen-year-old Wren lives in the woods with her two sisters, Sage and Evie, and their mother. They are living off-the-grid and are ignorant of civilization and taught that the world is full of evils. When the youngest, Evie, grows ill, their mother leaves with Evie to the nearest town to get help. They never return. Months pass and Wren and Sage have lost hope. They are running out of food and supplies and winter is coming. A strange man comes to their cabin looking for their mother and refuses to leave without the girls. If Wren and Sage want to escape, they will have to break the main rule and go beyond the forest. What they find will test their loyalties to their mother and discover secrets that have been hidden from them their whole lives.

I thought that the first half of this book was interesting but the second half, and the ending, were wrapped up just too perfect. It would have been interesting to read more about their mother and how they came to live in the woods but there was just a brief explanation for this. There were some parts of the story that I found hard to believe so it took some of the enjoyment out of the story for me. This was my first novel by Minka Kent but I'd be open to checking out more of her work.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC.

ARC provided generously by NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

Talk about a way to ruin a good book with a horrible ending. The twist...was absolutely terrible. It wouldn't even be that bad if it wasn't also entirely predictable. In order to truly enjoy a mystery/thriller nowadays, the mystery has to be pretty intricate or else I have a pretty good chance of unraveling it before the author does. Nothing ruins a mystery quite like figuring out the secrets on your own - it takes away the magic of the book. That is what this novel did for me, unfortunately.

LOVED this! Read it in around 6 hours! Couldn't put it down!! I've read one other of this author's books and I'm obviously going to be checking out her others!

Did you ever just want to throw a book against the wall in sheer frustration? That is how I feel now having literally just finished The Stillwater Girls. Starting off in alternating narratives between Wren and Nicolette, the book is gripping, engaging and fast moving. Wren and her sisters have been brought up in a remote cabin in the woods. When their 9 year old sister gets sick their mother is forced to bring her to town for medicine but unfortunately never returns.

Nicolette is a wealthy privileged upper class young woman who suspects her husband to be cheating on her.
When Wren and her sister, Sage escape the cabin and land on Nicolette's doorstep, the truth emerges.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book up to about 70%, in fact I was raving about it to my co-workers. Then at the 70% or so mark, a bombshell is dropped, something so farcical and nonsensical that I struggled to continue. I skimmed the last 25% of the book and characters I had previously warmed to, I was now completely disbelieving of. Unfortunately the outrageous explanations for everything ruined for me what had been a very enjoyable book

I really liked this book. There were twists that I did not see coming, which is great because I find a lot of things to be predictible

SPOILERS

I would’ve liked to see a chapter detailing the actual exchange when Nicolette gave away her child. Something that explains the very thoughts she had to get to that point. I also would’ve loved to see something from the kidnappers perspective-both the “mama” and brother. Especially brother because I wanted to see more motive for him.

I've read a couple Minka Kent books in the past, so I was excited to give this one a try.

This book tells two stories: the life of two girls living in isolation, never having really experienced life outside their cabin, and the struggles of a woman who desperately wants a baby and fears her marriage is falling apart. The way the story jumped back and forth between two major characters made it compulsively readable. I zipped through it quickly, interested to see how their stories would ultimately intersect. I enjoy Kent's writing style and I'm typically happy to get on board with plotlines that seem a bit outlandish. The big reveal at the end of this one, however, felt like a stretch to me. I had a hard time suspending disbelief to fully enjoy how the story wrapped up.

I would gladly recommend Kent's books to a friend looking for something quick and fun to read, but I probably wouldn't encourage them to start with this particular novel.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing the early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I loved this book until the very end. Don’t get me wrong, I still really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. The characters and writing are so very good. Great premise and execution, delivered by the two vastly different narrators.

I didn’t see where this was headed. I thought a few different, much darker, scenarios. This is a bit crazy but really more sad. The conclusion wasn’t bad but somewhat abrupt. I didn’t understand why Wren stayed versus going to Texas??

This is my second book by this author and I have enjoyed both very much, look forward to the next! Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Thomas & Mercer for a copy in exchange for a review.

I really enjoyed this book. The author's writing just flows along and draws you right into the story. The best part is definitely the much disputed twist at the end, but I, for one, loved it. The part of the story told by Wren's point of view was captivating and you can just picture her and her family living off of the land deep in the forest. It was expertly tied in to the other narrative of Nicolette who is dealing with her own struggles and hardships. This book is a real page turner and I found myself reading it all in one sitting because I couldn't wait to get to the end and see how everything resolved. You really don't want to miss out on this one!

Thank you to Thomas and Mercer, NetGalley and Minka Kent for the chance to read and review this book.

I tore through this compelling thriller in less than 24 hours. It was my first read by this author but it won’t be my last.

Wren and Sage have been alone since their Mama left with their sister Evie 63 days ago. Their supplies are dwindling and Wren isn’t sure they’ll survive the coming winter and is losing hope of Mama returning. The girls have never left their secluded cabin on the edge of Stillwater Forest, always cautioned to fear what lurks beyond it. But then a man knocks at their door claiming to be looking for their mother. He keeps asking questions and says he won’t leave without them so Wren decides they have to break Mama’s rule. They have to go into the forest. Gripping each other’s hands the sisters battle their overwhelming fear to escape and find help beyond the trees. But neither girl is prepared for what they find on the other side of the forest and for their whole lives to be turned upside down. Long hidden secrets are revealed and lies uncovered as the authorities try to discover the girl’s identities and search for their missing mother and sister.

I don’t like putting spoilers in my reviews which makes it difficult to say much about what happens after the sister’s leave their home. I was gripped from the first page and though I didn’t have any inkling of the twists, turns and revelations that would leave me reeling, I could tell this was going to be a book that saw seemingly unrelated things converge.

Wren and Sage are two of the most innocent characters I’ve ever read. They are oblivious to the real world, never having heard of electricity or a flushing, inside toilet. They are vulnerable, terrified, dazed and full of wonder at life outside the cabin. Wren in particular relishes the freedom to make simple choices and begins to see how dominating and deceitful her Mama had been. Having Wren as a narrator helped me connect to her and made the abnormal situations feel believable. I had a lot of empathy for the girls and I was rooting for them to have a happy ending after all they had gone through.

The Stillwater Girls is a thrilling, fast paced and compelling book that pulls you into the world of it’s characters. The author has the ability how to keep the reader in the dark about what’s coming but still keep them so emerged in the story that they can’t stop reading. The only downside for me is that it was over too quickly.

A thrilling story with great characters. Definitely a good read.

***

I really enjoyed this story. I flew through the pages in one sitting. The book starts with two completely different stories. One of, Nic, a wealthy woman who just figured out that her husband is cheating on her and one of Wren and Sage, two girls who were raised in a cabin in the woods.

Pretty much half of this book the two stories are completely separate. At first I thought I wouldn’t enjoy Nic’s story that much. On one hand you have this creepy cabin and the girls and a stranger and everything is super exiting. On the other you have this rich Nicolett woman, who has a lot of money and a unfaithful husband. But I was intrigued by her within few pages. Somehow Nic’s story was as interesting to me as the one of the girls.

Of cause you know that the stories will meet at some point. And that was actually happening quicker than I thought. But even though the strings where attached to each other, it took some time to figure out how exactly.

I did have a clue early on, which war partly correct. Still I had a blast reading till the very end.

The writing style suited me perfectly, I enjoyed jumping between the characters. Also this book is not very long, so I did not get bored at any point, due to the fast pace it was written in.

My first book by Minka Kent, and how great it was! It is told from two different perspectives. From the beginning, it is difficult to tell how the characters are connected, but in turn, that makes you invested to find out. Clever writing style to keep you hooked!

Pleasantly surprised with the way this one turned out, which is nothing like I expected. The final plot twists were a little unbelievable but I sure enjoyed the ride -- such great writing!

The Stillwater Girls is like if you took two different thrillers and tried weaving them into one. Both are fascinating stories in and of themselves, but combining them together just makes it way too melodramatic. I don't mean this to say that this is a bad novel because it's not. It's just a lot of drama that could have fit into two different novels. Is this a story about Wren and Sage, or is it a story about Nicolette and Brant? Their separate stories would have worked much better as their own standalone pieces.

Minka Kent's writing is easy to follow, and she does a good job of differentiating voices between the narrators. When Wren's speaking, the reader can clearly identify it just as when Nicolette is speaking, the reader picks up on it in a heartbeat, so Minka Kent is a skilled writer in handling a variety of narrative voices. The big plot twist, though? I didn't believe it for a moment. I don't mind the unreliable narrator trope, but there are just far too many loopholes for it to be written off as believable. Everything else before then, even as wild as it may seem, makes sense, but there are just way too many legal issues involved with the major plot twist that don't add up to make it plausible.

Overall, The Stillwater Girls is an interesting thriller that served as a quick read and made me curious enough to know what happens next. Would I watch it if it were made into a movie? Probably. Would I read it again, though? Probably not.

Strength. Resilience. A will to survive. The Stillwater Girls is a heart wrenching and heart warming tale. Nothing is what it seems. Everything is a lie. A mother’s love knows no bounds. This thriller is one that is for the big screen and I couldn’t put it down until I finished the last page.