The Empty Bed was a suspenseful thriller that caught my eye on Netgalley. I did not read the first one and was not aware until I started reading that this was part of a series.
Eva Lombard is convinced that someone is following her and her husband Peter. Peter takes her on a romantic getaway inspired by his coworkers to Hong Kong. Once there, suspenseful madness ensues. Catherine, the head of the Burial Society, agrees to help an old friend by sending two of her employees to assist in finding Eva, who is missing in Hong Kong.
This was an entertaining story to say the least. I was invested in finding out what was going to happen with Eva, Peter and the cast of characters throughout the story. I really enjoyed the multiple points of view throughout the story and found them to be well done (not confusing or jumpy through the timeline). Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable but unfortunately not super memorable read.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest opinion.

In all fairness I didn’t realize this was the second book in a series until I logged into Goodreads to review it. I was kind of lost with what The Burial Society actually was and I felt like that took something away from the story.

However, even without fully knowing the backstory in book one it kept me interested. I didn’t want to put the book down - I wanted to find out what happened to Eva. Eva mysteriously disappears while on a trip to Hong Kong with her husband. She is sure she is being followed. Was someone after her or was her husband involved? There were many twists and turns leading us to an ending I didn’t see coming. This was a solid 3.5 star read for me.

What an exciting follow-up to the first book in the Burial Society series! Using a team of people with dubious marketable skills, Catherine and her shadowy organization exist to help those who need protection or other types of favors that allow them to vanish from dangerous situations. This thriller takes the reader from the USA to London to Hong Kong to Mexico City while Catherine juggles her latest clients. There is a very complicated operation involving many different characters who are desperate for the assistance of the Burial Society. NO SPOILERS.

Told in alternating points of view, this features a couple of the same characters from the first book, but is set three years after those events. I think it essential to have read the previous one before starting this just so you have all the history and backstory. There's lots of action and many different story lines going on simultaneously that eventually come together in a very satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed this and hope that Ms. Sadowsky is planning on a third installment. Catherine is a very interesting protagonist and we are still learning bits and pieces of her past and I'm eager to see what cause and clients she takes on next. This would make a fabulous adaptation to film or TV show.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend.

I am so happy I stumbled upon this series. I first found out about this book, which is the second in the series. I decided to read the first book prior to this one and I was instantly hooked. It was super fast paced and I was constantly finding time to read more.

I loved it, so I was excited to read the second book. While this one was just as fast paced, it followed a slightly different set of characters. Due to that, I don’t think it is necessary to read the books in order to get an idea of back stories - but I highly suggest the first book.

The only thing that took me back a bit was that this book followed three different stories with three sets of characters. The stories had very little that intertwined, so was not sure why, until everything wrapped up nicely in the end.

I can’t wait for another in this series!

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

I didn't read The Burial Society and apart from not immediately understanding what the Burial Society was I didn't find myself lost. It may have helped some of the backstory but that wasn't as important as the rest of the story.

This is definitely a complex mystery with many moving parts and seemingly no connections. From London to Hong Kong, and Mexico this book is a little confusing at first but it all starts coming together in the end and is extremely well done. I really appreciated the different story lines and how they converge. The action is fast and definitely something that keeps you on your toes. The characters were interesting and very engaging. The breakdown of Eva's marriage and the craziness that follows is well played. I really enjoyed this book even when I was scratching my head trying to figure out how these seemingly two unrelated stories fit together.

I am very interested in The Burial Society and the background of Catherine and how and why she formed this organization so I will be looking to purchase the first book in this series.

Truth be told, I have not read the first book in this series and I think that may be a mistake. I think I would have a better understanding of the characters and situations having read the first book The Burial Society. Oh so many characters. Too many and I started losing track of who was important and who had a role to play. It was a rough second half of the book for me. 3 stars. I do think if I had read the fist book, I would have possibly rated higher.

A solid addition to the crime genre. A nice addition to collections where thrillers are particularly popular.

This book had a lot of characters and stories that intertwined with each other which made some parts hard to follow. While it was hard to follow at sometimes it was still an enjoyable read.

The Empty Bed by Nina Sadowsky is about a woman named Catherine who excels at helping desperate people disappear. But now she must use her unique skill set to find a missing woman in this electrifying novel from the author of The Burial Society. I found this book confusing as it jumped back and forth between two stories. If you like espionage, you may really enjoy this book. The characters were well written but the intertwining story lines occasionally pulled me out of the story.

Eva Lombard is being followed. Or so she suspects. . . .

Eva and her husband, Peter, are in Hong Kong on a romantic getaway from London when Peter wakes up in their hotel room to an empty bed, his wife gone without a trace. His worst fears are confirmed: Eva wasn’t imagining things. Suddenly, he finds himself the number one suspect in his wife’s disappearance, trapped in a foreign country with no one to turn to. He calls his boss, Forrest “Holly” Holcomb, who enlists the help of Catherine, his ex-flame and the enigmatic operator behind the darknet witness-protection program known as the Burial Society.

As a favor to Holly, Catherine sends her team of highly trained Society members on a dangerous chase through Hong Kong to find Eva—while Catherine takes care of pressing business at home. Not only is she tasked with a mission in Mexico City, protecting a family that knows too much from a vengeful pharmaceutical company, but an FBI agent tracking down the missing wife and child of a charismatic businessman is about to come dangerously close to exposing the Society’s secrets.

In these intertwining story lines that converge in unexpected ways, not everyone is who they appear to be—and not everyone who is lost wants to be found.

This book was so confusing. It felt like I was reading several stories simultaneously. It was odd and hard to comprehend. I can't recommend this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book for an honest opinion.

There are many stories out there that have multiple facets including many different characters and diverging storylines and they don’t always hold together well, I am glad to say this isn’t one of those stories. While there is a fairly complex story here with many different aspects, it holds together well. I do find the concept of the Burial Society fascinating. Led by Catherine, this secret society stands up for the abused and disadvantaged, giving these vulnerable people a fresh start anonymously. Their latest case comes as a favor to a very old friend of Catherine’s. An employee of his has a missing wife in Hong Kong and her husband, Peter, suspects foul play in her sudden disappearance. Catherine sends in 2 of her associates to track the missing wife, Eva, and their search yields a web of treachery and deceit that will circle around and become personal for Catherine. This story keeps unraveling down to the last page. As a second book in an ongoing series there are some missing pieces that may leave small holes in the plot if you haven’t read book 1. I have not read book 1, but I didn’t feel too lost, it is mostly small plot points that may be missing. An fun follow up novel in the series. Review posted to Amazon and Goodreads

Maybe I would have done better if I had read the Burial Society first. I was confused by characters. As I read I did become caught up in the suspense. Feel free to ignore this review. I needed to have read the first book.

I must have set this book aside at least a dozen times in the course of reading it, which is a shame because I loved the premise. It's kind of like a free-lance witness protection program, or maybe that should be a witness relocation program. Whichever, I ended up liking the thought of this one much better than the reality of it. It started off well enough, but it quickly becomes convoluted and confusing. The best way I can think to describe this one is that it was just too much. Too many characters, way too much flowery prose, too much going on. Just too much and it ended up being more trouble than it was worth, at least for me. That's not to say that I couldn't keep up. It's just that with so much going on, and so much back and forth between characters, I didn't feel like there was enough time to settle, to get a feel for the characters and become invested in their story. As far as the descriptive, or flowery as I call it, language, I'm all for a thorough description to set a scene or even to give a picture of a character, but really, some things can be left to the imagination. Adjectives and adverbs are important, no doubt about it, but there is such a thing as overkill, and this one had a healthy dose of it. I will admit that I didn't realize this was a series until I'd already started reading, and I honestly don't know if that would've made a difference for me. I can say that if the writing style and flowery language are the same, and since it's the same author, I suspect they are, then I probably wouldn't have made it to this second book.

Oops! I jumped into this book not knowing it was the second book in the Burial Society series. Still I was able to enjoy the read without feeling like I was missing too much of the history. Don't lock me up book police, I will go back and read book one! Admittedly, perhaps having book one under my belt would increase my rating. I'll have to reassess in the future.

This is a 3.5 stars for me. It almost felt like reading two books because of the multiple storylines. I usually take character notes just so I can remember who did what, so for this one, I had three different sections of notes. Then once the stories really took off, I didn't need my notes at all.

I look forward to following Catherine's story in the future.

This is the second book in the Burial Society. I was able to pick this one up without reading the first book, but I am sure I would have enjoyed this one even more if I had read the first book in this series. I thought that Nina Sadowsky did a wonderful job keeping all of the story line straight with all the characters that she introduced to us. Well thought out and well written.

Peter has planned a trip for he and Eva, his wife, to try and rekindle their marriage. When they get into an argument on the long flight because Eva claims that she is being followed by someone, things just keep getting worse instead of better. When Peter and Eva get to their hotel, they argue in the lobby in front of everyone. Little does Peter know, but that will come back to haunt him later.

When Peter and Eva finally make it to their room, Eva decides to take advantage of the bath tub and locks herself in the bathroom to enjoy her bath without Peter. Peter decides that he just needs some sleep so he take two of his sleeping pills and is dead to the world when Eva gets out of the bath. When Peter finally does wake, Eva is gone. Peter doesn't really think anything of it at first and he goes shopping to get some new clothes since his bag has gotten lost on the flight over. Peter begins to worry when after two days Eva hasn't returned to the room at all. Now he knows that he has to report her missing and it is going to look bad that he waited so long to report it, especially in a foreign country.

Eva is not a stranger to Hong Kong. She had stayed a stint in Hong Kong before she and Peter married. When Eva decides to go out on her own, she never dreamed that the guy from the airport that she thought was following her would show up. Guess what, he really was following her! Eva knows that she has to do something because if he is following her then there are others out there that are looking for her as well.

Peter ends up calling an old flame to get some help finding Eva. Will they be able to track her down or is Eva really able to go off the grid even for some of the most well trained trackers, the Burial Society? You will get lost in this book and it will be over before you know it. I enjoyed going on this adventure with Eva and the Burial Society!

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book!

In all fairness I didn’t realize this was the second book in a series until I logged into Goodreads to review it. I was kind of lost with what The Burial Society actually was and I felt like that took something away from the story.

However, even without fully knowing the backstory in book one it kept me interested. I didn’t want to put the book down - I wanted to find out what happened to Eva. Eva mysteriously disappears while on a trip to Hong Kong with her husband. She is sure she is being followed. Was someone after her or was her husband involved? There were many twists and turns leading us to an ending I didn’t see coming. This was a solid 3.5 star read for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy to review.

The Empty Bed: A Novel (The Burial Society Series)
Author : Nina Sadowsky
293 pages
3 ⭐⭐⭐

First off this is the second book in the Burial Society series. The Empty Bed picks up where The Burial Society left off. I have not read book one so I was missing a lot of background which would have made it more understandable. It was not til I got to the end of the book did I realize it was the second book in the series.

While the story was interesting there was a lot of unbelievable parts to it. I also found it hard to keep up with everything. There was way too many characters and three storylines going at the same time. This caused me to be confused and just not caring about ANY of the characters. So my advice if you are interested in this book would be to read the Burial Society first.

Thank you to the author and the publisher for a ARC of this book! All opinions are my own.

#BallantineBooks
#Theemptybed

The Empty Bed begins with a bang: Eva Lombard is being followed. At least, that is what she tells her husband on their long flight from London to Hong Kong. Their getaway is supposed to be romantic, allow the two to reconnect and rebuild their relationship, but when Peter wakes up, Eva is gone. Peter enlists the help of a witness protection program known as the Burial Society to find out exactly what happened to his wife, but is he ready for the answers?

Overall, I was very intrigued from the outset of this book, despite it being a sequel. However, we are also given different perspectives and I found that this caused too much confusion for me to follow or even care about. Great premise, but I definitely felt as if I were missing things by not reading the first book.

*Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

My rating of this book depends on what you are looking for. If you want fast paced spine tingling suspense, it is a 5. But if you want characters with depth that you can cheer for and become entwined in their story, this book is a 3. I felt like I only got to see the surface of all the many characters that are part of this story. Perhaps I would not feel this way if I had read the first book in the series?

A satisfying follow-up to the first book in the series (The Burial Society). Catherine remains one of the most intriguing, enigmatic leads I've ever encountered in a mystery/suspense series. It was wonderful to get a bit more information about her past and how she became the woman at the center of these stories. The main plot was clever and compelling, and, as I came to expect from The Burial Society, it was full of well-timed turns and character wrinkles. Nina Sadowsky is brilliant.