I enjoyed this book but there are several places where it is a bit confusing because of the time jumping. I usually do not mind a novel which has several time periods throughout the story. But, this one has a tendency to do it so quickly you are not sure which part of the story the main character is in.
However, I did love the intensity and the revenge! I always love a good revenge novel and boy does this one take revenge to a different level

This is a great read and a well-detailed plot that kept me engaged from the very start. I really liked the well-thought-out characters and found them to be believable. I cannot wait to read what the author publishes next.

The only book I’ve read from Lisa Unger is Confessions on the 7:45 and I absolutely loved that book!
This one was pretty good! I am definitely a Lisa Unger fan and will continue to pick up her books.

Rain, who used to be a journalist, is now a stay-at-home mom. She misses her work deeply, so she is lured back into a case when a suspected killer is found dead. Is this the work of a vigilante killer?!

To make matters even more complicated, the new murder is eerily similar to the murder of the man to which Rain had a personal connection. This leads Rain to become obsessed with the case.

This was quite an addictive thriller! Bonus, I am a huge fan of revenge stories, so this one got me! It was dark, gripping, engrossing!

Thank you to Net Galley for the advanced reader digital copy of this book. Lisa Unger is always a must read for me. Her thrillers are always twisty and well written. This book had me guessing throughout. 4 stars

Really enjoyed this one. Great characters and a very twisty plot! Rain was a little annoying at times but I did like her and found her relationships with the other characters interesting. Good read, recommend to mystery/thriller lovers.

Former journalist Rain Winter was only 12 years old, when she barely escaped being abucted whille taking a stroll to her friend's house. Eventually the abductor was found, sent to prison, but later on released. That's when the law was taking into someone's hand, but killing the abductee.

Fast forward and Rain is living the picture perfect life, spending her days home taking care of her child. Eerily another criminal who escaped the hands of the law is found dead, Rain is drawn into this case. Revisiting her past, whether she wants to or not. Can Rain let go of everything before her world comes tumbling down around her?



I

Lisa Unger is a great storyteller and this novel definitely didn’t disappoint. The pacing was great and kept the reader interested. Check out her other works. You won’t be disappointed.

Seriously good. I just watched a documentary about how serial killers generally have had trauma as a child. This is about child abuse and how it affects them even if brought up in a nice environment later.

The story switches from past to present, a style I happen to like very much. A few twists and turns, too.

All of Lisa Unger books are great and this is no exception. Highly recommend.

This was another good book by Lisa Unger. It is about 3 friends who get attacked and abducted by a stranger in the woods. One of them is killed by him. The book deals with the effects of abuse (whether physical, sexual or psychologically) on children and how that can affect their lives even if they are removed from the abuse and end up in a loving environment. Many interesting aspects, and still a good whodunnit that keeps you gripped until the end with many twists that I did not expect.

I love Lisa Unger, and every book that I have read of hers, I've enjoyed. The Stranger Inside was no different. Enjoyed the plot, enjoyed the twists and turns, enjoyed the writing style, enjoyed the characters, and I am so excited to say that I've loved every Unger book that I have read. I am anxiously awaiting more.

This was an ok book. I just couldn't get into it. The story goes back and forth between present day and the past when the three friends were chased and two were taken. One was brutally murdered. Another got away. There was so much going on in this book I just got lost. Maybe it was just me. I just never found myself connecting with the characters.

Rain Winter has put her career as a producer on hold to be a full time mom. She and her husband agreed. But the tug of the newsroom becomes too much to bear when Steve Markham is murdered.

Markham had been acquitted in the case of his wife's murder a year earlier. And Rain had been there to cover it. To say she'd been disappointed when the man was let go is an understatement. And Rain clearly wasn't the only one.

Rain's sources hint that officials believe the case is connected to at least one, if not two others. Two other cases where killers who didn't pay for their crimes were killed after the fact. One of them the man who changed Rain's life forever.

Rain was only twelve when she narrowly avoided being kidnapped. Her two best friends weren't so lucky. One of them escaped, the other was killed. Rain knows she's never fully healed from the trauma and believes diving back into work—diving into Markham's murder—could finally offer her some peace. But balancing motherhood and career isn't the only challenge she'll face.

Lisa Unger's latest is a deep dive into childhood trauma, motherhood, and the current true crime obsession. And it's a dark dive indeed!

Rain and her husband have agreed that one of them should be home with their new baby. So Rain puts her career aside to do just that. But as pretty much any new mom who's had a career can attest, setting aside one chunk of yourself to devote yourself to being mom is hard! And the Markham case is unfinished business.

But she can't quite return to the newsroom. So she toys with the idea of a podcast, something that gets enthusiastic support from her old colleagues.

There's just one problem: she isn't sure how to broach the subject with her husband. She is sure, though,—convinced, in fact—that seeing the case to its conclusion and analyzing her own past will be cathartic. Will offer some release of the pain and guilt she's felt at avoiding her own abductor's hands. He was, after all, targeting her when he took her friends instead. And she's never been able to forget.

There is another POV featured in the book: Hank, the other survivor. Hank, who was once Rain's friend, is now a psychologist working with patients who've experienced trauma. Hank is helping people like himself heal and move on. Except we learn pretty quickly that Hank didn't heal and definitely hasn't moved on! So while some of Rain's biggest questions in any story—who, what, where, when, why, and how—may be known to the reader (and, at least in some small part, Rain), there are still a lot of questions that drive The Stranger Inside.

Different things strike different chords for every reader and for me, the strongest chord this one hit was motherhood. The guilt that goes with wanting to be an individual beyond "mom," the terror at trying to protect your child and keep them safe from the outside world, the uncertainty and fear that every step you take is the wrong one. Unger perfectly illustrates these feelings and more in Rain.

As I mentioned, this is a dark one. If cozies are your bag, The Stranger Inside is probably not at the top of your TBR. But if you're a fan of Mindhunter and true crime podcasts, Unger's latest should absolutely be on your radar!

This was a great psychological thriller - kept me reading until I was done - even at 2AM!
It contains the underlying theme of revenge and has you questioning where the line is drawn between right and wrong.
Thanks to Lisa Unger, Harlequin and NetGalley for the ARC of this thrilling book!

Love, love, love Lisa Unger. She is one author that seems to know exactly what I like to read. Keep them coming!

I enjoyed this thriller that follows two children assaulted and terrorized in their childhood to adulthood when the perpetrator is released from jail. I thought the character development of the children/adults was believable. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys justice being served.

Bestselling author Lisa Unger never fails to deliver a first-rate psychological thriller and with The Stranger Inside she further elevates the genre.

Someone is murdering murderers or, in the case of Steve Markham, an accused murderer who was acquitted by a jury. A year later, Markham has lost his job, friends, and lover, and is on the verge of losing his house after insisting that he did not kill his wife and unborn child, whose bodies were found in a shallow grave a few miles from his home. And then he loses his life. It is a cold-blooded, calculated, well-planned execution detailed through a first-person narrative from the killer who reveals that "he died the way Laney Markham died. Bound, gagged, and stabbed more than twenty times with a serrated hunting knife."

The killing rattles Rain, who has given up her own career as an investigative journalist while her husband, Greg, continues his work as local television news producer. He wants her to wean their thirteen-month-old daughter, Lily. "How much longer are you going to nurse her?" he asks. "I want you back." When Rain tells him, "I want me back, too," her response is about much more than breast-feeding. Unger deftly and compassionately portrays Rain's ongoing struggle to balance marriage, motherhood, her changed body and psyche, missing her career, and the need to find and embrace a new normal. Rain is damaged as a result of the trauma she suffered in the woods on that fateful day, making her effort to manage her life and relationships even more challenging than for most first-time mothers. Unger conveys Rain's story through a third-person narrative.

"She couldn't let it go." So Markham's murder sends Rain back into action with the assistance of her colleague, Gillian, and the encouragement of her producer, who offers no apology for wanting Rain back at work. When she realizes that Markham's killing was "obviously planned and clearly executed," Rain cannot escape the pull into the investigation.

Unger gradually reveals what each of the three children endured. Tess was killed. Her mother, Sandy, still mourns her, but managed to forgive her killer, who was himself a victim of abuse and psychic trauma inflicted when he was a child. Forgiveness is a concept Rain cannot grasp, in part because Rain's memories and feelings are, at the outset, deeply submerged. It's the only way she can deal with her guilt about having disregarded her mother's warning and survived the ordeal. Rain is also haunted by her own role in how the abduction came about. Hank went on to became a successful psychiatrist with a thriving practice.

It becomes clear that Rain and Hank continue to be connected by their past and their shared status as survivors. To observers, both appear to be highly functioning, but appearances are, of course, deceiving. Unger takes readers on a frightening and absorbing journey into their innermost thoughts and feelings, demonstrating that even though they both survived, neither of them is healed. Both are deeply and, perhaps, irreparably, scarred by their experiences. And over the ensuring years, the damage inflicted upon them as children has manifested in disturbing ways.

The Stranger Inside is a tense and gripping study of the long-lasting impact of trauma, coupled with a compelling mystery. Unger has fashioned two layered, complex characters -- Rain and Hank -- at the center of the story and surrounded them with an equally plausible cast of supporting players, including Kreskey. The book's pace never lags and Unger's revelations of clues to the truth are expertly timed for maximum effectiveness. The result is a fascinating, haunting tale of lost innocence and the desire for justice to be served in the quest to find relief from suffering. Unger delivers a jaw-dropping conclusion to her dark, atmospheric, and emotionally rich character study.

*I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own.*

I read some of the other reviews before I started mine, and I was sort of surprised to see that it had mixed reviews, considering I really liked it. But then again, I'm an oddball and the idea that a serial killer could be made based on psychological traumas that a person has endured is both terrifying and interesting to me.

Our main character, Rain, is one of those people who survived a trauma but never managed to forgive herself for being the one who survived. She was a child in a desperate situation and her body did the only thing it knew how to: it shut down. Because of that, one of her friends was killed and the other was tortured, leading him to become the dark and fascinating character I thought he was.

Rain has trouble letting go of her past and feels as though she needs to "tell her story", and the rest of the book is about how her story connects to other murders that are happening in their area. Rain also struggles with wanting to be a stay at home mom and needing to work to feel like she doesn't lose a part of herself (can 110% relate). All in all, I thought the characters were interesting, I enjoyed the way the story wrapped itself up in a pretty neat little bow, and even though I saw the twist coming, I liked it. Would definitely recommend to some of our psychological drama enjoying patrons.

As a resident of Pinellas County, Florida, I’m lucky enough to share the area with some of the best crime fiction writers in the country, including Lori Roy, Michael Koryta, Gale Massey, and Lisa Unger. (We also have one of the best book reviewers around, Tampa Bay Times’s Colette Bancroft, who plays a pivotal role in organizing the area’s annual Festival of Reading.) With her recently released 17th novel, The Stranger Inside, Unger does much to cement her reputation as one of the most compelling writers in the genre.

To read the complete review, click on the link below.

The download of this book I received was not the same as the description - not sure where the problem was but I'm very disappointed because I'm a fan of Lisa Unger, but this was definitely not by her. I'm rating the book high because I expect it was good.

This seemed more of a character piece than a thriller or suspense novel. There was no real mystery to solve, and the only one I could see was a pretty obvious reveal. Yet, I still enjoyed it. I read it quickly and was engrossed the entire time. I did find Rain's story line of whether she could have it all, whether she was a good mother, etc.. to be repetitive. I wish the author had tried something else here. I enjoyed her as a character though. I also had a small issue with Hank's ending. Too happy and tidy.

All in all I really liked this one. Lisa Unger is always a reliable and easy read.