I had to DNF this one. I just wasn’t able to connect with the story line or characters and found myself skimming too much.

Actual rating: 1.5 stars

Attorney Sibley Sawyer's life comes crashing down around her when her drinking finally catches up with her. She is forced to take a leave of absence from her law firm, so she decided to reconnect with the source of her all problems: her mother.

The two have been estranged since Sibley fled home in her teens 16 years after her father died. When she returns home to the farm she grew up on, her mother is acting a bit strange. Sibley chalks this up to the fact her mother got attacked by an intruder but there is no way to be sure. As Sibley tries to make peace with Deborah and learn more about the truth behind her father's death, she starts to remember why she left in the first place and uncovers even more shocking secrets about long ago happenings on the farm.

This book was an absolute nonsensical mess. There was no real plot at all and everything was just chalked up to the characters not being sane. I honestly didn't understand a lot of what was going on because of how nonsensical it was. Both of the characters were extremely unlikable and while I usually like unlikeable characters in a thriller, this book didn't have the plot backing it to redeem it.

It had some really bizarre twists that did end up shocking me but it felt like trying to piece together a puzzle that's pieces didn't match up correctly. The conclusion at the end was so obvious you could see it from a mile away so it has bad characters, no plot, confusing twists and writing, and an ending that was extremely obvious. I didn't enjoy this book at all.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer, Marin Montgomery, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Great book. Highly recommend and will most defiantly read more by this author and suggest to others!

I really wanted to enjoy this book, especially because I was gifted the digital copy by the author. I don’t like negative reviews and hate writing them. For me this book was just too full of characters. There were too many to keep up with. The ones that I could keep up with, drove me crazy. Ummmm Sibley for example. She was awful, didn’t come across as an attorney and seemed rather juvenile. It was a “You cant sit with us.” kinda situation. Why Deborah put up with her is beyond me. I did like Deborah and felt she came across as real. The rest of the characters….I don’t know.

This book was not one that I wanted to finish, though I forced myself to. It just was not the book for me and that’s ok. I’m sure others will love it.

This psychological thriller was very intense and a quick, fast-paced read. It started a bit slow for me, but once I got into it, it certainly picked up.

I loved this slow burn suspense told in alternating points of view. While a dark depressing read which I love it’s also full of hope. There’s secrets and lies and some mystery that you’ll have to read to find out and you will be pneasantkybdurorised with this book .

Content warning: alcoholism, drug misuse, domestic violence and loss of a child.

This story follows Sibley, an addict who doesn't have insight into just how serious her problem is. She just wants to go home and get the answers she needs and to mend the relationship with her estranged Mother. But her husband wants her to go to rehab.

I enjoyed the alternating POV's between Sibley and Deborah, it really gave me an insight into both of their thoughts and feelings (despite them being extremely unlikeable).

I found this book slightly hard to get in to. It was slow paced at the start. But when I got to the halfway point I was gripped and I couldn't put it down. I am slightly sad that it took 50% of the book to get down to the nitty and gritty bit but hey, it was worth the wait in a way! And the last section of the book?! Wooow!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

It's been a long time, but Sibley Sawyer, a successful attorney, feels it's time. Unable to move on from the circumstances that caused her to leave home, she now wants to reunite with her mother and bury the past.

Being asked to take a time-out from her boss, due to her little alcohol problem, Sibley decides that now is the time to re-visit her hazy memories. She remembers her father dying ... maybe. But maybe it wasn't her father. She's never had a sister.. but she 'thinks' she has a twin. And wasn't her mother supposed to be ill and dying?

As she reenters the life she left behind, she realizes her mother isn’t the same person she remembers, and she’s not the same daughter either.

Long buried lies and secrets are at the heart of this well-crafted novel. Sibley and her mother, Deborah, are unreliable witnesses as they make the reader stop and take a closer look at both past and present events. Somewhat difficult to follow at times, as memories seem to dim and then brighten. There's lot of action filled with twists and turns. I am a little ambivalent about the conclusion ... it felt a little disconnected, and rushed.

Many thanks to the author / Amazon Publishing / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

3.5 STARS

The Imposter by Marin Montgomery
1 Star.

*CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS*

(Pretty scathing… sorry)

Firstly I would like to thank NetGalley and the author for offering me this ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

So in all honesty…

I didn’t like this book. At all.

I felt that the plot was patchy and mismatched. While I understand this is presumably to show both the characters’ addled mental states, I feel it falls back on itself too much and becomes incredibly repetitive throughout: Deborah tries to be motherly, Sibley asks her about the past, Deborah becomes distressed and goes to her room, Deborah believes Sibley isn’t who she says she is and becomes violent and/or defensive.

I also felt no attachment to the characters whatsoever. To me a page turning thriller should have people gripped to turn the page, fearing that their beloved character is walking directly into the antagonist’s clutches.

Unfortunately with this book, I had none of those feelings. Very early on and right to the very end I felt no drive to care about these characters or any of the ‘mysteries’ that were trying to be conveyed. Every chapter was a slog between give up or keep reading in the hopes the story would start to slowly unravel but it just became more and more entangled with very few moments of clarity. It becomes very repetitive and tedious for the reader.

One aspect that really brought this book down from a 2 star to a very low 1 star was the conclusion. The end felt incredibly rushed considering how slow the rest of the plot carried on. One chapter Deborah is arrested and it looks like the antagonists are going to prevail and then within the span of 5 pages suddenly there is a detective that uncovers the whole operation off scene and simple retells it to Sibley and her husband, leaving the reader entirely out of the equation. A very poor act for someone loyal enough to stay till the end. This retelling also contains details that were never even hinted to the reader in any way eg the fact that Jonathan did not in fact die from a fall but from a mysterious bullet wound or the police chief’s gambling addiction or the fact that he is Robert Fletcher, Miles Fletcher’s father. This fact Sibley completely and unnaturally glosses over in her meeting with him, going as far as to point out a picture of his wife and kids (which seems unusual considering the tension regarding her family and his wife) this completely blindsides her character from the self narration we see throughout the rest of the book.

Can we also talk about how odd it is that one of the main pieces of ‘evidence’ Deborah has to prove Sibley is an ‘imposter’ is her missing mole. Which again is barely ever mentioned as an aspect to pay attention to and not mentioned by Deborah at all until this ‘reveal’ and is just as quickly rationalised by Sibley’s husband. I know they are estranged but like maybe ask??

The second conflict was the biggest disappointment of all. I don’t see the point in having a second conflict (Sibley’s assumed affair and betrayal by her coworker), and then for it to only be used as an excuse to move your character to the setting you want, then mentioned briefly every few chapters with no evolution to only being ‘resolved’ in the epilogue of ‘oh don’t worry we handled it completely without you having to do anything - I won’t tell you how, we just did. He’s arrested’. Once again, the best part of a mystery - the conclusion/resolution! This is done completely off screen and then just recounted to both the characters and the reader. There was no time constraint or pressure before her bosses found out she had fled, no blackmail from the coworker, no more mention of the ‘offending’ client - it played basically no part in the story whatsoever.

Pretty disappointed as I had really hoped for a page turning thriller and I was left wanting so much more then I was given.

However I highly commend the author for getting published and thank them again for reaching out to offer me an ARC - I’m truely sorry this one just wasn’t for me.

If psychological thrillers are your thing, then this book is for you.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out which of the main characters was the crazy one. Maybe they’re all a little crazy honestly. 🤣 With dual perspectives, quite a few twists and lots of years of family secrets unraveling throughout, it held my attention and kept me guessing until the very last page.

Thanks I’m so much to @marinmontgomery for sending me an e-ARC of her latest book, The Imposter, in exchange for my thoughts. ✨

I wanted to read this book because I love good, creepy stories. I also love stories that take place in an area similar to my hometown. This story takes place in a rural Midwestern town. Sibley returns home after many years of estrangement from her mother. But her mother isn't the same person she remembers.

Sibley and her mother start untangling lies and secrets, which makes for a great story. I didn't want to put this book down!

This one was a strange, sometimes confusing thriller. While I really enjoyed the overall story and trying to guess which of our unreliable narrators were the most believable, it was a bit of a clunky read at times. There were too many descriptions, or places where the continuity didn't match up. However, the story is what kept me reading and overall, I enjoyed this one.

I was looking forward to reading this book but it disappointed me. It was my first book by this author and I didn’t like the writing style in this book.
Even the book was MEH to me I like some things inside like: kept me on the edge, characters are fine and that kept me entertained until the end. Some elements are a little predictable but that’s normal.
I will definitely read other books by this author because I love giving second chance!

Thank you for providing me with eARC!

Thank you to Netgally, the publisher Thomas&Mercer, and the author of this digit ARC.

- SYNOPSIS -
From the outside looking in, Sibley Sawyer has a perfect life. As a successful attorney, she’s worked hard to get to the top of her game—but when her personal and professional lives implode, Sibley looks for a way to turn the page. Unable to shake the tragic circumstances that caused her to flee her rural Midwestern hometown, Sibley wants nothing more than to reunite with her estranged mother, Deborah, and bury their past tensions. But as she reenters the life she left behind, she realizes her mother isn’t the same person she remembers, and she’s not the same daughter either. As both women struggle to piece together a tangled web of deceit and lies, and the shocking circumstances that caused Sibley to leave in the first place, it becomes clear there are secrets rooted deeper than either mother or daughter could ever have imagined. Can you really deceive your past and those around you?

- MY REVIEW-
The Imposter by Marin Montgomery is a kind of confusing psychological thriller that is told from a dual POV. I have to admit that I found the main characters highly unlikable no matter how hard I tried to relate the story back to them. I feel as though it took the book for ever to build, and found myself getting confused by the plot quite often. However, once I got more toward the end of the novel, I started to put things together and began to get a better understanding of the storyline. After this point, in the story the rest of the novel was thoroughly enjoyable.

I am really disappointed in this particular book, mainly due to the POV's. I thought, at first, that Sibley's disjointed POV was due to her mental state and that it was part of Montgomery illustrating that; however, as I read on and got into Deborah's POV I felt the same disjointed and confusing thoughts. I tried to get in to the mother/daughter relationship and understand both of their POV's but it just didn't work for me. I am sure that others will read this one and view it differently than I did, but I simply didn't care a lot for this one.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for my honest opinion, which I have given.

#TheImposter #NetGalley

I hate to say it, but this book was confusing for me. The synopsis drew me in to the book. However, I felt like it was all over the place. I continued on because I did want to find out how the story ended. Daughter and estranged mother— I truly wanted to love this thriller. Overall I would give this book 3 stars.

I enjoyed this book. Although some of the twists were predictable, I was pulled into the story and wanted to find out how it ended. This was a good psychological thriller.

To be honest this book was very confusing - I could not make it to the end of the book and ended up DNF'ing it about 1/2 way through. The characters seemed to unbelievable to be real story. The synopsis intriqued me but unfortunately the book didn't live up to the hype.

The Imposter by Marin Montgomery is a psychological thriller about a reunion between an estranged mother and daughter. This was a slow read for me, but I did enjoy it. #TheImposter #NetGalley

Thank you NetGalley and Author Marin Montgomery for the ARC of this book. My review can also be seen on my Instagram @whatwouldkatread

I really enjoyed all the twists in this book. However, I did find some predictable and some a little far fetched which is why I settled at 4 stars instead of 5. I wasn't sure what to expect with this read and I definitely think it met my expectations of a good psychological thriller.

Heads up that this book does include addiction which could be a sensitive topic for some.