Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Marin Machado has it all.  She’s the owner of a chain of high-end hair salons, her husband, Derek, is wildly successful and their four-year-old son, Sebastian, is the light of their lives.  Until it is all snatched away.  In just 240 seconds.  The family is at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and Marin and Sebastian are on their way to the food trucks to meet Derek. Derek sends Marin a text asking for their ETA, and in the time it takes her to respond, Sebastian is gone.

Over a year later, Marin is barely holding on to her sanity.  Sebastian is still missing and the trail has gone cold. His disappearance and the aftermath have taken a toll on Marin and Derek’s marriage, and that is confirmed when Marin learns Derek is having an affair with Kenzie Li.  Kenzie is young, beautiful and deeply in debt. What will she do for money?

As for Marin, the thought of losing her husband too fills her with another kind of anger.  What will she do to keep what’s left of her family together?

The story is gripping, and there are a few plot twists you just won’t see coming.  Even though the premise is child abduction, it’s a page turner you can’t put down.  Marin bares her soul to the reader in such a way that you almost feel like you are conversing with Marin.  Stories with such a heavy subject are sometimes overwhelming and need to be taken in small doses.  I couldn’t put this one down!

The characters are petty, pretentious, jealous and self-serving, yet they are indeed well-developed.  Much as you might not like them, you keep reading to make sure they get their comeuppance. And it just keeps getting better and better.

That being said, let talk about the time it took for Sebastian to disappear.  The book blurb indicates 480 seconds, or 8 minutes, which is an awfully long time to have your eyes off a four-year-old child.  The book indicates 240 seconds, or 4 minutes, which I still have a hard time with.  Marin is walking through a crowd of people at the Pike Place Market, her son at her side, when she feels his hand slip out of hers.  She figures, it’s okay, I need my other hand to text, and continues across the street?! I have to say I started out with an intense dislike for Marin. Anyone else feel the same way?

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This was my first Jennifer Hillier book and absolutely won't be my last!

The story opens with Marin and her young son Sebastian at a shopping center picking up some final Christmas gifts. One moment Sebastian is right beside her and the next he's gone. Sixteen months later, Marin's life barely resembles her previous life when there is still no trace of her son. She will never stop looking.

Filled with secrets, deception and so many twists and turns, this book kept me riveted! I's fast-paced and tension filled. It's crazy the lengths that Marin will go to in order to return to her previously happy life. So many secrets and lies that keep you on the edge of your seat.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely loved this book!!! I can't even imagine what Marin went through, loosing a child is one of the worst things that could happen to a parent. This book weaves an amazing, thrilling, suspenseful story of what her and her husband go through. The choices they make, lies told, mistakes made, it's all so good. The ending had me on the edge of my seat trying to put it all together. Another great book by Jennifer Hillier that I've read!!!!!

This freaking book!! Holy cow. It has definitely taken the spot of my favorite read in 2020 and it’s going to have some tough competition to be replaced! This is a book you forget to breathe during, you look at the time and bedtime was 3 hours ago but you can’t stop and won’t stop.


Thank you so much Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur books and author Jennifer Hillier for this ARC!

4.5 stars.

Now THAT’S how you do a thriller.

It was a crazy day shopping at Pike Place Market since it was just before the holidays. Marin’s young son Sebastian was whining that he wanted a fancy lollipop from their favorite candy store, and she’ll get it for him as soon as she buys one last gift.

One second he’s right next to her and when she goes to reply to a text, in a split second, he is gone. Someone has taken Sebastian, and the two essentially have disappeared into thin air.

More than a year later, after an exhaustive search and an enormous promised reward, there’s been no sign of him. Marin can still barely go through the motions of daily life. She and her husband Derek barely speak and he’s rarely home. This isn’t a life but it’s the only one she can handle, although she knows what she’ll do if she ever learns Sebastian is dead.

One day she gets a call from the PI she hired when the FBI’s search turned up nothing. The PI has news—but it’s about Derek: he’s been having an affair with a much-younger woman.

While this news shakes Marin to her core, this time she’s not going to fall apart. Now she has an enemy she can fight to save her family. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Little Secrets was so good!! I really was captivated by this new book by Jennifer Hillier. It was full of twists and turns and emotional poignancy. While I figured stuff out before the end, I really kept waiting for another shoe to drop, and I was totally hooked. I was a huge fan of Hillier’s last book, Jar of Hearts, and this was equally great.

NetGalley and Minotaur Books provided me with an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

This book publishes April 21.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

Marin's son was taken from her right before her very eyes 2 years ago and she's still simultaneously dealing with the grief of losing her only child and the hope that he's still out there somewhere. To add to her cocktail of emotions, she's just discovered her husband has been having an affair with a 24 year old art student. At her emotional wit's end, she hires a professional hit man to solve her problems. However, her biggest problem is that someone keeps taking her family from her and she isn't sure who that someone is.

As Marin bounces around the many emotions that come with child loss and spousal betrayal, she also bounces her finger around who is guilty for it all. She jumps from blaming herself, to blaming the kidnapper, to blaming her husband, to blaming the young woman he's having an affair with. For this reason, I gave it 3.5 stars. I found it hard to focus on her motivations and relate to her feelings through-out the story. Otherwise, it was a great suspenseful thriller! I was so hooked into the story that I read until my bath water turned cold!

Listen up thriller fans because I have a must read book for you guys! I don’t say that lightly because I’ve been very picky about thrillers for the past year or so and it takes a really amazing book for me to call it a must read. This one sucks you in from page one and doesn’t let you go until you’ve turned the last page, it’s a nonstop, fast paced read with killer twists and top notch writing, what more do you need?! Maybe a few plot details to convince you? Marin is living every parents worst nightmare, her son goes missing on her watch when she gets distracted for seconds by a text. Jump to over a year later and her marriage to Derek is in shambles and then she finds out he’s been cheating on her. The other woman is younger and Instagram famous, does it get any juicier? Yes, but that’s all I’ll say. This one is out next month and while you wait if you haven’t read Jar of Hearts go download it now!

Thank you to NetGalley, Jennifer Hillier and St Martin’s Press for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

All I’ve been reading this month is thrillers, so why not read one by the queen of thrilling! I was super interested in the storyline to this one and I really felt for the characters in this novel. I really enjoyed the dark and dismal atmosphere of this novel and I found myself reading as quick as I could to find out what happens to everyone! I was so confused on how this novel was going to wrap up, but man the twist was good! I was shocked and totally thrown off balance by the twist! I actually really liked most of the characters and was completely flabbergasted at which one was guilty! Definitely a must read!

Out April 21st!

Right from the first page, I was hooked. After a little boy is taken, a woman's life is changed permanently. We wonder along with her what happened to her son and what will happen next. Then, a while later, a PI finds out this woman's husband is cheating on her. So the woman finds the adulteress, and from there....it gets a little crazy. And of course, I loved all the moments. You know, because the drama. There were plenty of thins I wasn't expecting and twists and turns are my favorite. I can't wait for this book to be released so I can hear others' perspective. For me, it's pretty solid.

Little Secrets publishes 4.21.2020.

5/5 Stars

Another great book by Jennifer Hillier! It's a pager turner, you will not want to put it down! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

Thanks to @netgalley and @minotaur_books for a copy to read and review! I’ve heard great things about this book and it did not disappoint! I loved it. I read this book in like 12 hours throughout the day and couldn’t put it down. One day Marin is at the Seattle fish market. She let’s go of her sons hand to text her husband and seconds later her 4 year old is gone. Now over a year later, Marin is in a deep depression, has a PI looking into her sons kidnapping with no leads and learns her husband is having an affair. This was a 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 read for me. Comes out April 21!

Marin and Derek’s little boy was kidnapped, the case has grown cold and 16 months on they’ve grown apart and their marriage is on the rocks. Marin hires a private investigator to look for their son but instead she finds that Derek is having an affair and Marin decides to take some extreme action to ensure she keeps her man. I was really looking forward to this one after hearing a lot of buzz about it and I wasn’t disappointed! I found the characters to be really well developed and I felt very invested in Marin’s story from early on. This is the first book I’ve read by this author but it definitely won’t be the last! Thanks so much to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the advanced copy!

3.5-4 stars

I enjoyed this book for the most part. It was definitely suspenseful and kept my attention throughout the entire story, but at times there were parts that just got on my nerves.

I really felt for Marin. Between losing her son and finding out her husband was having an affair, it came as no surprise that she had been experiencing a slew of emotions, from sadness to jealousy to rage. Her whole world was crumbling around her, but through it all, she refused to lose her husband.

Now that’s where the story got on my nerves. I liked Marin in the beginning of this book and understood that she loved her husband, but after he cheated on her (twice), it just didn’t sit well with me that she was more upset with her husband’s mistress. And the secrets that he kept from her...that would have been the breaking point for me. I know everyone reacts differently in these situations, but it made me like her a lot less by the end of the story.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3243271225

This story was WOW! I am totally pissed at myself because I didn't realize what the twist was until it happened. The story was so fast paced that I could not put this one down. This is one thriller that will make you think and just keep turning the pages.

Oh. My. Gosh. This was everything. I thought books I had read before had twists and turns but nothing like “Little Secrets” by Jennifer Hillier. I was awed by the complexity of the situation at hand but it was written so well that I was never confused. In her acknowledgements, she writes that it was hard to get through this book and you can tell the thoughtfulness of her writing as you read. I can not wait to buy a physical copy!

This was such a refreshing, thrilling read. I have become a bit bored by many suspense novels recently but this was such a unique story. Maren loses her son, Sebastian, while shopping in a crowded market right before Christmas. This story explores a mother’s love and the depths she will go to find her son. But, it’s also so much more. It explores desperation, class, and infidelity. This book kept me guessing and I truly had no idea who to trust until the very end. Highly recommend.

I really wanted to love this and maybe I would have a few years ago, but it was just so so for me. It has all the makings of a really great story, which is clear from the rave reviews. I am not even really sure what about it didn't win me over but I had a hard time getting into it, I think part of it was numerous really unlikeable characters. Overall I think a lot of people will really love this book, it just wasn't for me.

Little Secrets By Jennifer Hillier

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis: “Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They're admired in their community and are a loving family—until their world falls apart the day their son Sebastian is taken. A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding Sebastian, she learns that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman. This discovery sparks Marin back to life. She's lost her son; she's not about to lose her husband, too. Kenzie is an enemy with a face, which means this is a problem Marin can fix. Permanently.”

Review: First off, let me start by saying “Thank You” to NetGalley for approving me for this ARC, very thankful to get a chance to read books and give my honest reviews before they are published. Secondly, WOW. What. A. Suspenseful. Book.

This book blew me away. I had no idea where the book was going to go but man am I glad that it went where it did. I laughed, I cried, and I felt every emotion of this book. From the second Sebastian was taken I couldn’t stop thinking about who took him and what happened to him. I don’t have children and I’m not married but I really felt for Marin throughout this whole book. I didn’t have the whodunit pegged until close to the end so I was continuously guessing throughout the book and I absolutely loved that. This is the kind of suspense that you love to hate. I’ll admit, while you won’t like some of what our characters do with their lives, but most of them are relatable. You won’t hate them, but you’ll hate what they do.

I’m so disappointed that this book is over, this is my second Jennifer Hillier book and I’m so excited to read some of her other work. She’s slowly becoming one of my favorite artists, Jar Of Hearts blew me away as well.

What are some of your other favorites from Jennifer Hillier? Or just favorites (books/authors) in general?

I LOVED this book. There were so many twists; I couldn't;t put it down. I was so invested in Marin's story. The way that everything played out was really creative and I loved every second of it. The webs that were weaved between the characters were enticing. Hillier took the time to develop the characters and I felt for every single one of the at some point in the story, despite the roles that some of them play. I would say that this is my top thriller of 2020 so far!

I would like to thank both NetGalley and Minotaur Books for allowing me to have this arc for review. I would also like to thank Jennifer Hillard for writing this high action packed story. I was immediately sucked into this story from page one. I enjoyed all the aspects of this story. The kidnapping, the affair, and even seeing Kenzie’s side of the story. Although I do think the synopsis gives too much away and the big reveal was something I saw coming, the story was what kept me turning the page and not being able to put it down. I would highly recommend this author and this book because it was worth it.