⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This story is told in dual POVs by two unreliable narrators. It follows Sibley, an alcoholic attorney and her mother. Past and present collide, secrets and lies are uncovered. This one was a bit of a mess for me. At the halfway point I liked it but it just fell apart after that. I feel like the plot relied too heavily on the unreliable narration and suffered because of it. It wasn’t terrible, just not my favorite

I thought I would love this book. It sounds like an interesting story, but unfortunately, it didn't live up to expectations.
I like reading flawed characters, which Sibley is, but I just didn't like her and the things she did didn't make sense. The same goes for Deborah.
I also didn't like how the story swung back and forth between the characters. Usually I like this, but on this occasion it just annoyed me. This is because something could happen within one character's story, and then in the next chapter it was as if nothing happened, or something could be cleared up by the characters speaking to each other!
I thought the book dragged on, and there was a lot of nothing in it; things and conversations that didn't need to happen, repeating dialogue etc. I think the author also tried to create suspense by doing things like: Sibley having a conversation with someone about something that happened, but not mentioning names or specifics; trying to get us to be intrigued. This backfired on me and just annoyed and bored me.
By the end I didn't really care about what happened, and everything was wrapped up quickly. I probably wouldn't read another book by this author unfortunately.

This didn't make sense. I get that it is a ARC but this book read like a rambly bunch of nothing. The characters don't make sense, the scenery was blah and it was just bad.

Unfortunately this was not the thriller for me. It was not my cup of tea. I just was not invested in the storyline and sadly got bored. For me, I need the story to grip me from the beginning and it did not do that. I didn't feel the story was progressing the way I wanted it to after reading a third of the book. I truly try to power through books, but this just wasn't my cup of tea and that's okay. I know many others will enjoy this book.

This book sounded right up my alley. I love mysteries with plot twists. I did struggle getting into it a bit because Deborah was the first character intro. I struggled with her at first. Then once things started coming together, I couldn’t put this book down. I did figure out who the culprit was in the very beginning and why but as the book progressed it was a swing back and forth between the two main characters on who was seeing things clearer than the other. I wasn’t sure whose point of view was true during several parts of this book. It truly was a roller coaster for a bit. I honestly read this whole book in 2 days. Highly recommend.

Wow. Talk about an unreliable narrator! Both of them were very unreliable. I’m still not sure what was real and what wasn’t. I am really glad, though, that the epilogue cleared up some of my questions.
I wanted to grab both of these women and just shake them. Sibley, with her drinking and stealing pills. Deborah with her popping pills. It always seemed like they were messed up in something and going to sleep.
The one thing I wasn’t a fan of was how time wasn’t really addressed. Everything was just later. Maybe it was to add to the unreliability. I’m not sure.
This book reminded me of one of the lifetime mystery movies.

Unfortunately, this one was a DNF @40%
Ok, I'm done. Maybe I'll pick it back up some other time, but probably not.
Almost half way into it and it just feels like a convoluted hot mess.

I had a hard time following the story. At times, it was confusing, annoying and creepy. We have two main characters in the story. Deborah and Sibley, the mother-daughter pair. The story alternates between the two. Deborah's story is a little on the creepy side while Sibley's is a little on the annoying side. (People treat her like trash and she feels helpless!)

The last 5 chapters are good - this is where the twist in the story lies. Unfortunately, this twist did not help in making me like the story more than I wanted to.

As much as I wanted to like this one, it was ultimately a DNF for me. I typically get about 1/3 of the way through a book before I decide to give up, but this wasn't the book for me.

2/5 Stars

When Sibley's life starts taking going on a downhill spiral she makes an impulse decision to go back home to get some closure on her childhood trauma. What comes next is a series of events she never expects. Lies, murder and a handful of unreliable characters? What else could a psychological thriller need?

Sibley seems like she has the perfect life. She is a successful divorce attorney and has a wonderful marriage, except she has a major drinking problem on the side that stands to risk it all. After being forced to take a leave of absence from work, she decides to reconcile with her estranged mother to resolve her childhood trauma. What she finds is a confused Deborah who leaves her with more questions that answers.

This book had so many twist and turns. The characters were all the perfect example of unreliable characters. It was a quick and easy read. I had no idea what to expect from Marin Montgomery as this was my first read from her. Overall a 3.5 rounded to a 4 star for me. There were a few parts where the story rambled a bit but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it! Thank you NetGalley and Marin for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!

Mother.
Daughter.
Imposter.

After a horrific attack, Deborah is understandably rattled and paranoid every day. Living alone on an isolated farm can be frightening enough, especially when there is a prison nearby that inmates keep escaping from, and people in town care more about your past than they do about your safety. When Deborah's daughter, Sibley, comes ripping into town with her own demons in tow, the two estranged women must finally face one another for the first time in decades. The only question is, is Sibley really who she claims to be? And can either woman be trusted?
In this dual-perspective thriller, ghosts from the past and family feuds are a staple in a small farming town. I found myself constantly questioning characters and events, wondering who could be trusted and what was real or imagined. Every time I thought I had things figured out, new information would be thrown into the story and I had to try and piece things together again. I would like to thank Marin Montgomery for reaching out to me and inviting me to read this novel, as I enjoyed The Imposter and look forward to reading more of her work. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a quick read and a twisty-turny thriller.

In the beginning we're introduced to SIbley, a prominent lawyer with a secret and a few vices. Then, we're introduced Deborah, an older lady who we later find out is Sibley's mother. Then, they come together when Sibley tries visiting Deborah after many years in order to heal from her past. The story is told from Sibley and Deborah's perspective. At this point I was looking forward to seeing what happens from there. However, in many of the sections, there were flashbacks of stories that happened in the past and it was challenging to keep straight whether we were reading about past tense, or present tense. This made it extremely confusing for me to follow what was happening in the story, what was real and what was imagined, etc. The ending was super twisty though and I appreciated the craziness of the ending. It was wrapped together nicely, but I spent most of the book being confused.

This story is told from dual POVs - that of Sibley and her mother. This makes it a bit hard to follow. Overall, I did enjoy the story. It had lots of twists and turns and was well-paced. Every time I thought I had figured it out, there was another twist that kept me guessing.

The Imposter follows the story of a mother and daughter, reunited after a long estrangement. Both of their lives are falling apart; Sibley is looking to heal from her past and Deborah is looking to move-on from and forget that same past.

I've seen a lot of posts about this one, and most of them were not great, so going into it, I was a little bit uncertain what I was getting in to. The story is definitely confusing and hard to follow, but I figured there was a reason for that, and I hoped the pieces would all come together. Most of the characters are pretty unlikeable, which I always think is a testament to the author's writing ability; I assume it has to be hard to make someone come across as so compellingly unlikeable, you're not sure you want resolution for their lives. When the big reveal does happen for why the storytelling is occurring the way it is, I do definitely understand the author's choice, and it made it more bearable while we sorted out the last few unanswered questions. That being said, I'm not totally happy with the overall resolution.

Overall, I give this one ⭐⭐.75 stars. I was engaged in the book, mostly because I really wanted to figure it out, and I would definitely try something from Montgomery again; I think with the right story, her voice for thrillers could be excellent and engaging. And, while it may not totally sound like it, I did enjoy this one more than I expected. But, all of that just didn't make up for an unsatisfying story and reader experience.

CW: Alocholism, drugs, death, sexual harassment

Thank you NetGalley & Thomas & Mercer, books for this e-book in exchange for an honest review.
*
OK so I really did want to like this book- and I power read the whole thing. I will say it does get better.

This is a psychological thrilled told in the perspective of the two main characters; Sibley and her mother Deborah. Sibley is a 34 year old lawyer, with a major drinking problem. Such a big problem in fact the partners at the firm have ask she take a leave of absence to go to rehab. She felt beyond betrayed to know her husband had already spoken with the firm and was completely on board.
WELL- Sibley thought she needed to confront her past in order to actually start a healing process. Her past was confronting her mother. You see, Sibley left home right after graduating and never looked back; because her father died tragically and she had a horrible go at HS when everyone in town gossiped how her mother was a cheater.
Deborah lives out on the family farmland all by herself; has been that way since Sibley left and she distanced herself from everyone in town. She recently started dating someone from her past- who has convinced her to see a Dr. to help talk things out with. When Sibley shows up, Deborah seems to start losing grip with reality. Seeing people who aren’t there, seeing double, she can’t even tell if it’s Sibley or Soren in front of her. Things go from strange to even stranger the more that gets uncovered. By the end of the book everything wrapped in a pretty little bow- which was a bit of a letdown; I wish we could have gotten more of an epilogue and follow up.
*
Overall I’m not sure if I would classify this as a thriller, or psychological thriller. All I know is at points I was a bit too confused where I thought I was going crazy. As Marin continued to unravel her tale the more I needed to know what was happening to Deborah and the house.

The Imposter scared me to death. It's just so...PLAUSIBLE. This could totally happen, which lends to the shiver factor of the story. Will be ordering for the library's collection!

I went into this book not knowing what to expect. I had multiple friends DNF it, but I decided to push through because I just had to know if it got better...it did, but it didn’t.

The Imposter is a dual narrative, focusing on Sibley and her estranged mother, Deborah. After an unfortunate incident, Sibley must flee back to her small hometown and all the problems she left behind there. But both women have changed and neither are sure who they can trust.

Overall, I give this 2.5 stars out of 5. I rounded it up to 3 on Goodreads because I didn’t think it deserved only 2. Not to be a broken record from other reviews, but I can’t think of a better term than disjointed for this one. While the end was satisfying, the utter confusion I experienced reading this was insurmountable. As confused as I was, I had the culprits pegged early on. Also, the characters were so unlikeable. Every. Single. One. Really wish I was able to enjoy this one more.

Thank you to @netgalley and the author for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for this book and thank you to the author

Sibley a successful attorney seems to have the perfect life. She has everything the job, the husband and an alcohol problem that begins derailing both her personal and professional life. Estranged from her mother Deborah she decides it's finally time to get answers and goes back to her home town. But going back to the small town where she grew up gives her more than she bargained for.

Deborah still lives in the farm where she raised her family, where her husband died. But Sibley isn't the only one who's life appears to be derailing. Deborah is on edge all the time, with convicts breaking out of a nearby prison recently, she is scared of an intruder on her property, wary of her daughter who's come digging for the truth after all these years.

The Imposter switches between the narratives of both Sibley and Deborah unveiling years of history and secrets in this intense fast paced thriller. I enjoyed trying to figure out which way the story would take me, only to be taken in a completely different direction in the end. Both characters are unreliable and unstable for different circumstances leaving you unsure at what to believe.

This is the story of Deborah and Sibley, mother and daughter, who have been estranged for 16 years since Sibley's father died. Deborah has been living in the family home since then but has started seeing things and people and is mysteriously attacked one night at home.

Sibley is a prominent divorce attorney married to Holden. However, she has a drinking problem and has to go into rehab. She decides she is going to go home, unannounced, and visit her mother.

What transpires is a confusing journey through Deborah's forgetfulness (forgetting her daughter is in the house) and Sibley's drinking in an attempt to get away from her mom. Sibley also uncovers some hidden family secrets.

It was quite confusing and took me a while to get through this one. It was meh.

Sibley left her rural Midwestern hometown after a tragedy. Years later she returns to reconnect with her estranged mother, but both mother and daughter have their own issues and uncover family secrets along the way.

The story alternates from Sibley and her mother Deborah's perspectives, and both characters are so unreliable. I had a hard time trying to distinguish what was real and actually happening versus made up in their own heads. It got to be frustrating and felt a bit repetitive and I was tired of and confused by their unreliability.

By the latter half of the book the twists and revelations kept me engaged because you wanted to figure out what the heck was happening and tried piecing together the possibilities. There were a lot of moments of suspense and mystery and I was intrigued and surprised as it all unfolded in the end. I think it could have been a little shorter in some spots to keep it moving but would still recommend it for those who like slow burn psychological thrillers.