I loved Caroline B Cooney books when I was a kid and was excited to try out this adult book of hers. I was a little disappointed. I think the author must be older so these issues probably weigh on her but I was a little disappointed the main character was an older woman. I've read other books with elderly women as the main character but this one didn't seem to be elderly so much as out of touch with the modern world. It seemed jarring and a bit unrealistic. I liked the murder and the neighborhood setting but this one was hard for me to get into--I put it down many times--and I didn't love it the way I hoped.

When I started reading this quirky book, set in a retirement community, I thought it was going to be a cozy mystery and therefore perhaps not my style. As I continued to turn the pages, however, I was pulled further and further into the mystery of Clemmie/Helen and her story and I really wanted to know which one of her neighbors was a killer.

I ended up loving gritty Clemmie and rooting so hard for this little overcomer who gets pulled into the shenanigans against her will, always fearing her story which is revealed to us over time, will be exposed.

The murders were just a bonus!

Thank you to Caroline B. Cooney, Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fast read for me. I was initially intrigued by it because it's set in a retirement community located about 30 minutes from me. A storyline that centers on secrets and how one little slip can derail the secret quickly. I did enjoyed this book, felt that it dragged a bit in the middle, but finished it being overall happy with the story. I do wish that there had been more locations in this book and that the protagonist wasn't so befuddled by technology.

I would like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I have always been a fan of Caroline B. Cooney and read all her books when I was young so I wanted to read this book as soon as I saw it on here. I was a bit confused by it though, I figured it would be about someone maybe not a teen but someone my age, who read those books back then, instead it was about someone older who seemed confused about technology, drugs, and many other things. The plot lines didn't seem to meld well for me, there was too much back and forth.

I am confused by this book - there has definitely been a trend in authors that wrote YA in the 1980s-2000s writing follow up books for the age group the teens of the 1980s-2000s are in now, but this really felt like a book for people in the age range of the parents of that age group. Not only because it focused on a retirement community, but because of how confused the characters were by technology, and how shocked they were by marijuana, and by both the implicit and explicit stance the book took against abortion. However, it doesn't fall into the cozy mystery genre that I would've expected it to fall into if it was meant to be aimed at middle aged people - it has some fairly intense sexual assault content. So I guess I just really don't understand who this book is for? Also the plot was wild and the resolution to one major mystery was out of nowhere and the solution to the other major mystery was too much of a cop out.

The horrible things about secrets is that they always want to come out. No matter how desperately you want to keep things quiet, all it takes is one quick, impulsive action to start pulling the thread that will unravel the whole thing.

One good deed by one neighbor looking out for another begins a chain of events that races out of control and threatens to reveal secrets that had been kept for many years.

Fast read, give it a chance.

Clemmie has created a new life for herself. No one knows who she really is, or what she did. That all changes when she pops next door to check on her grumpy neighbor Dom. He’s not there, but she takes a picture of what is with her cell phone and then forwards it. The picture explodes online and Clemmie’s carefully constructed life begins to fray at the edges. Because what Clemmie sees as an object of beauty and awe, what the cops find is a body….and Clemmie’s fingerprints – the key to her true identity