was able to read this book thanks to NetGalley. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it. It was suspenseful and I was quite invested in the story. I will be recommending it to my friends. I hope to see future books from this author in the future. Thanks again to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Such a good book it was so hard to put down and was really captivating. Thank you for sending me a copy of this book to read.

I could not finish. I don't know why but this book did not keep my attention at all. I tried several times, but it just wasn't for me.

I am glad that I kept reading this one. It got better and better as I kept reading it. The characters were interesting, they came with a lot of twists. I almost quit reading this book. I am glad that I didn't. The end was unexpected and left me thinking about it all.

Kate feels guilty about the death of her brother in law and best friend and lives a solitary life until a chance encounter leads her to a mysterious stranger. Is it too good to be true? What starts out as a love story turns into an unexpected thriller. An intense read, great story!

The ‘80’s hair and clothing styles bring a sense of nostalgia, I could almost smell the White Rain ❤️

Thank you NetGalley and Sally Saylor DeSmet for this edition and hearing my honest review. Looking forward to reading more with you
#partner

Katherine Hallaway is plagued by the death of her brother in law, a death she blames herself for. Her sister, Stacie, has moved on with a new husband and family but still, Katie cannot move past it. Within months, Katie has come to realize that her new boss is incompetent and has no idea what a publishing firm does or how it works. Katie starts to suspect that there is something more going on with her boss and what he is doing. When Gunner, the man of her dreams and too good to be true, shows back up in her life unexpectedly, Katie falls head over heels for him. Finally, she seems to have overcome the depression that her brother in laws death caused her.

Katie's life is certainly on the upswing, even her sister's digs and bites fall off her shoulders easier with Gunner around. Little does she know that Gunner is hiding a huge secret from her. Between the secret, her mother's illness, and her sister's issues with her happiness, how will Katie navigate through these challenges?

I feel that this book has great potential but the author did not cash in on that. For having the female lead character, she just seems more of a floozy and a loser. No matter how the author wrote her, throughout the story she comes off that way. There is no moment where you can read the character has a moment of epiphany and says, enough is enough. The one time she did that was literally at the end, and it was extremely anticlimatic. The storyline involving her sister and the murders was interesting but there just seemed too much rambling and useless writing. I kept reading this book hoping that it would get better and be deserving of a higher rating, but I was disappointed.

Brooklyn Bitters by Sally Saylor De Smet is a fuul length, standalone, contemporary romance novel. The storyline is set in the eighties of the last century.
Katherine Hathaway is a successful single woman in her fourties. She loves her family. When she attends a conference in NY she meets her soul mate, Gunner.
Gunner Baldwin is a 38 year old man with a past. He's driven by revenge, but he loves his Kate.
What starts as romance turns into a breathstealing thriller.
Brooklyn Bitters is not a book with a hea, it's excrutiating, heart-wrenching and at the end of the story I was a sobbing mess.
Brooklyn Bitters is told in a single POV, it's a slow burn, excellent written and beautifully thought out and beautifully told.
I recommend this book 5 Stars.

I wanted to like this book, but I didn't. I started it at least 3 times, and then kept putting it down. I found it interesting in an intellectual way, but emotionally I had no investment in it and just wanted to get through it.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Brooklyn Bittes by Sally Saylor De Smet.
A terrible accident changes the course of a young woman's life. Her brother in law is dead and now she has to start over. That is till a stranger enters her life and nothing is the same again.
Not sure if this is a mystery or a drama, but there were some editing issues and the characteres were difficult to relate to. This one for me was just ok.

I just could not get into the book. From the beginning. Everyone was one dimensional and could not even connect with anyone. I did not finish.
Thank you, NetGalley for the advance copy to review.

Sometimes I pick my authors the same way I pick my horses - by name alone regardless of any possible chance of a winner or any knowledge of previous outings. This authors name alone is worth a couple of stars to me and although I was expecting more of a psychological thriller/mystery it wasn't a difficult read for me but there too many one dimensional characters I really wasn’t invested in. Once it got going, it got better for me.

DNF @ 43%

I tried to push through this just to see if it would improve it all but I eventually had to give up. The writing and editing for this book could stand some serious improvements. The writing did not flow well for me, and the pacing of the book was extremely odd. I could not stand any of the characters, as they were all extremely two-dimensional and felt very rigid. There was also an excess of misogyny in this, and I thought that it may have existed for the irony, but I got almost half way through the book and it never seemed that anyone noticed how ridiculous it was. Physical appearances were held to a high importance throughout the book (EX: "Men love it when women wear clothes to show off their body. If they have the goods, of course" and "At five-foot-two, she had a toned body, enormous breasts, and milky skin. Her face, at thirty-seven, was unlined and girlish, with delicate features and a spray of freckles across her rounded nose"). Because that's super realistic, for a 37 year old woman to look like a little girl, right? *inserts eyeroll here*. It's insinuated that the MC, who is middle aged, will never find a man because she's too old and ugly (EX: "It was flattering to be called a girl at forty. As for the beautiful part, I was no Stacey. My face wore the signs of too much reading; I had fine lines between my eyebrows and the beginnings of crow's feet. My dark hair touched my shoulders with a touch of gray at the temple. At least I got Ma's high cheekbones, full lips, and a slender, five-foot-nine frame. My father always called Stacey "the beauty" and me "the athlete"). There is also a scene of (TRIGGER WARNING) attempted rape and immediately afterwards the author features some good old-fashioned victim blaming (EX: "What were you thinking, getting in the cad's pickup? It was clear you didn't know him" FYI, she was forced into the pickup, she did not choose to get into it. It would not have been OK to have blamed her even if she had gotten into the truck voluntarily, but I just wanted to point it out).

I went into this thinking that I was gonna get an adult mystery/thriller (since the synopsis kind of insinuates that) but up to 43%, I had gotten none of that. Instead, this lacked any real structure (there were multiple existing plot lines and I could not figure out how they all mattered to one another whatsoever). I guess this type of story and writing works for some readers, but I am not among them.

The author wrote a thriller that started with a bang and just kept going! The twists kept coming, so I couldn't put it down. I cannot wait to read more from this author!

I enjoyed this book—it was a mix of family relationships intertwined with several mysteries. I especially like the main character as I found her to be quite relatable. This book is a different style than what I normally read but overall, I enjoyed it!