This is my first Lucinda Berry book, and unfortunately it just didn't work for me. It started off with a bang, and had a ton of potential, but it really just fell flat at every turn. None of the characters felt real to me so I formed no connection to any of them.

I was trying to figure out if Nichole was supposed to be painted as an unreliable narrator, and admittedly her flashback chapters were the most intriguing of the book, but not enough to keep me engaged past the point of just finishing the book to see how it turned out. And that didn't even really happen, since it ends so abruptly I thought I was missing chapters. I've seen really great reviews on Ms. Berry's other books, so maybe this one just wasn't a good fit for me.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced review copy of this title in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ stars
This is only my second Lucinda Berry novel I read and really liked "The Best of Friends" and have been looking forward to this story.
This story features foster sisters Krystal and Nicole who lived a troubled childhood and are closer than most biological sisters.
Story is told the POV of both and additionally goes back and forth between then and now.
They have a sad childhood raised by a foster mother who has a mean daughter who can do no wrong.
Krystal and Nicole have each other and are able to cope.

Present day story is when Nicole has gone off the rails and tried to murder her husband by blocking the door to the bedroom and setting the house on fire.
I read enough psychological stories to expect twists and turns but I love to try to figure them out.
This was a great read and had me curious every page.
Found myself saying: Wait! What?

Want to thank NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer ~ Thomas & #38; Mercer for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me for an honest professional review.
Pub Date was June 1, 2021

Lucinda Berry is a one click author for me. Her writing is brilliant. Her past in psychology really shines.

“Not everyone’s like us. Lots of siblings hate each other for the same reasons we love each other.”

In this story, Nichole has been placed in a psych ward for trying to burn her house down with her husband that she adores locked inside. Why would she do something like this?

Krystal, an attorney and the closest person to Nichole, springs into action to defend her sister. These two have been through some dark times since early childhood. The book is from Nichole and Krystal’s POV and each are wonderful. I didn’t want to put the book down so be ready to be sucked in.

Thank you to Thomas Mercer and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Secrets between Us by Lucinda Berry is a thriller that will leave you wanting more! I could not put this book down! Eagerly turning the pages I read it in one sitting.

Krystal and Nichole went through some horrible experiences together as children and formed an unbreakable bond. When Krystal gets a phone call that Nichole was committed to a psych ward after attempting to kill her husband, Krystal drops everything to find out the truth. Secrets have a way of revealing themselves and what we discover in this twisty thriller will shock you!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher.

Hooked from start to finish!

I read this book in one day - I could not put it down. It alternates between the past and the present, and each time I would be on the edge of my seat. When she would switch to the past I would think "NO, dont leave me hanging". Then I would get sucked into the past, and when she would switch it was another "No".

I thought the writing was excellent. I saw a couple reviews that called it simplified, or that it had no depth. Who cares? Maybe it's not the next War and Peace.. But I totally escaped into the book and felt a part of the story - and isn't this what we want in a book?

II really enjoyed this book and will be recommending it.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and #netgalley for the ARC which did not impact my review (you should see some of my reviews.,lol)

✨Book Review: The Secrets of Us by Lucinda Berry✨

📖: Sisters Nichole and Krystal grew up in a foster home with an awful foster family but now they are successful adults. When a terrible tragedy strikes for Nichole and she lands in a psych ward, Krystal does everything possible to help. But will she be able to get to the bottom of it... through all the secrets? And who else has something to hide? The sisters must work together to save themselves from the life they left behind.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: MAJOR BOOK HANGOVER! I read this book in 16 hours (again, would have been quicker but something about being a mom... and to take care of my kids 🤷🏻‍♀️). I could NOT put it down! I was hooked from the very first page. Berry is an outstanding writer. She knows all the heart strings to pull at just the right times. It was deep, dark, addictive, and raw. The characters felt so reel and Berry was really able to dig into their emotions. There were twists and turns in all the right places and I just didn’t want it to end. If you are a psychological thriller fan, you NEED this book! If you aren’t a psychological thriller fan, you will be have you read this!

See more of my reviews on IG! @TheMom.Who.Reads

This is a slow burning mystery surrounding Nichole’s mental state. She’s admitted the psychiatric hospital after trying to kill her husband, Aiden. Aiden has been cheating on her with Marie Davenport, who died. Nichole’s only support is her foster sister/best friend, Krystal, and once she hears about Nichole’s situation she comes to her defense. But in doing so Krystal relives tragic events in their upbringing and digs up secrets. It picks up towards the end with a few twists. Thank you to Thomas and Mercer and NetGalley for a gifted copy. This is my honest review.

I read The Best of Friends by Lucinda Berry and loved it so I was very excited to get to read The Secrets of Us, and once again I was not disappointed!

The story centers around two foster sisters, Krystal and Nichole who had a very rough childhood and relied on their close bond to get them through it. They have grown into adults with an even closer relationship. Krystal is a successful lawyer and Nichole is the wife of seemingly perfect Aiden. The story starts out with Krystal being called out of court to go to the hospital where Nichole is in the psych ward after having burnt down her house with her husband trapped inside.

From there the story goes from Krystal's present day POV, to Nichole's "THEN" growing up in foster care.. There is a secret they are hiding from their childhood and Krystal is trying to protect it at all costs.

There were so many twists and turns in this book. I changed my opinions on characters multiple times and really had no idea where it was going, (in the best way). Nichole is in the psych ward for pretty much the entire book but throughout it I kept going back and forth - is she crazy? did she know exactly what she was doing? wait, no she's crazy...! but wait maaaybe... up until literally the last page.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to like this one more, but they can't all be winners.

If found the writing to be slightly novice and hoped for a few more twists and turns.

As always, thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read and report honest feedback!

Krystal and Nichole are extremely close foster sisters who have managed to build successful and happy lives until Nichole is charged with setting her house on fire and attempting to kill her husband whom she barricaded in their bedroom. Krystal can't believe the charges, and when finally allowed to visit her sister in the hospital, she finds Nichole in an extremely bad way. She's drugged up on numerous medications as the doctors work to figure out what's going on - when found at the scene of the fire, she was singing and dancing on the lawn, clearly not in her right state of mind. But the more Krystal hears from Nichole, the more she starts thinking that she just might be guilty after all.

We learn about their years growing up with a strict and unloving foster mother and sister. They enjoyed school and were popular students, but their life at home on the farm was unbearable. A terrible accident changed the course of their lives and caused Nichole to slowly lose touch with reality until Krystal was able to help her reach some sense of stability. Krystal can't believe it's happened again and sees now that something truly horrible must have pushed Nichole over the edge. She's determined to figure out what led Nichole to commit such atrocities before she loses her sister forever.

A definite page-turner, the story is set alternately in the past and present so that just when you're left with a cliff hanger in one time period, you switch back and have to wait through another chapter or so until you get the resolution. It works for building suspense, but gets frustrating after awhile. And the conclusion of the story leaves you with so many questions. Almost like it was too hard to determine the consequences of so many people due to various legal and ethical grey areas that the author just didn't address any of it. Readers invest considerable time and energy with these characters, so a little closure shouldn't be too much to ask for!

Lucinda Berry did it again!
This is the story of foster sisters Krystal and Nichole whose lives turned out in completely different ways. Krystal is a lawyer in the middle of an important trial when she rushes off to be there for Nichole who is committed to a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill her husband.

So what happened in her live to make Nichole commit such a horrible crime?
The story is told form Krystal’s point of view in the present Nichole’s in the past. I always enjoy this writing style since the development of the characters feels so vital.
Both, Krystal and Nicole are very strong women who had to life through tragic events.
Thanks #NetGalley and # Thomas & Mercer for and ARC of this fantastic book

I liked The Best of Friends by Lucinda Berry so much that I could not wait to read the Secrets of Us. If you crave psychological thrillers as much as I do, then this book will certainly satisfy that craving. I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Lucinda Berry does a fabulous job of keeping you on the edge of your seat with twists , turns and the uncovering of secrets that will literally make you gasp out loud as you read them. She really knows how to get deep into her characters' minds and develop her books into page-turning masterpieces.

Foster sisters Krystal and Nichole share so many dark secrets from their past that eventually come back to haunt them. Nichole has not carried the burden of her secrets as well as Krystal and she is seriously messed up. Pretty much every character in this book is messed up in some way or another.

I know this is an uncorrected proof but how is this book so unedited that “300 acres” is seen as prestigious?

This is my second Lucinda Berry book. I really enjoyed The Best of Friends and I liked The Secrets of Us even more. The story is told in alternating viewpoints of the main characters - Krystal and Nichole - and it goes back and forth between current and their childhood. They met as foster children on the same farm where their foster mother and her daughter made their lives miserable. In the present, Nichole is in a psychiatric hospital after she set her home on fire with her husband in it. The book unravels the secrets of Krystal and Nichole’s childhood and Nichole’s marriage to find out what would drive her to this act. Thanks to #netgalley and #thomas&mercer for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Reading Between the Wines book review #62/115 for 2021:
Rating: 3.5 🍷 🍷 🍷 ROUNDED UP TO 4
Book📱: The Secrets of Us
Author: Lucinda Berry
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
RELEASES on June 1 2021!!! GRAB YOUR COPY TODAY!!
Recommended to readers who loves a mystery inside of a mystery.

Sipping thoughts: Lucinda Berry puts the PSYCHOLOGICAL in thrillers. I am never disappointed with the psychological background she brings to each character in her books. This is no different in the 2 characters Nichole and Krystal who are foster children in a system that is abusive, cyclical and uncaring and grow into women trying to forget and forgive their past.
The plot stems on something that happened while in foster care that seems to break Nichole's psyche and causes her to do something Krystal thinks is uncharacteristic. I find myself feeling sorry for both women and hoping for the best.
The one thing I would change/add was the ending. I figured out the final twist about 75% in but was hoping and desperately needing an epilogue. I don't like epilogues just for the sake of them but the way TSOU ended, I felt readers needed a little more closure of what happened next. As always, I look forward to Berry's next book!

I received an ARC copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest review of it. Another great book by this author! The title is perfect because there are so many secrets and twists up to the last page. Highly recommend.

This was a wonderful book and I thoroughly enjoyed my it. There were multiple storylines that were all related in one way or another. There were many surprises throughout the book. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

If you haven’t read anything by Lucinda Berry, go check out her books now. Every single book has been excellent. You know you are in good hands when you pick up a book that she’s written. And The Secrets of Us was no different.

Krystal is fiercely loyal to her sister (they are foster care sisters) Nichole. And when Nichole is committed to a hospital and has a psychotic breakdown, Krystal is desperate to get through to her, to figure out what has happened in Nichole’s brain to cause her to nearly murder her husband.

Synopsis

Foster sisters Krystal and Nichole have always been there for each other, so when Nichole is committed to a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill her husband, Krystal drops everything to defend her.

Scarred by a hard upbringing, Nichole and Krystal managed to construct comfortable lives for themselves. Krystal became a respected lawyer, and Nichole was happily married to an architect—until Nichole starts raving that her husband isn’t her husband, believing that he’s an imposter.

Driven by fierce loyalty, Krystal starts asking questions, but she’s not sure she can bear the answers. Her investigation leads to the sisters’ dark shared past…to a horrible tragedy and a well-guarded lie that cemented their sisterly bond.

But that lie can’t kill the truth—the battered, gasping, clawing truth that’s coming for them both. Now Krystal and Nichole must both fight for the lives they’ve built before they’re consumed by the one they left behind.

WOW. The writing, the pace, the story… all very, very good! A must-read. This book is out now so get it today and start reading!

I really enjoyed everything about this book. I cannot believe this is my first time reading from this author. I will be reading others from her. Love her writing on psychological thrillers and love her knowledge/background in psychology too!!! Thanks for the e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this one!

I love the history between the two main characters, the story of them meeting in foster care and becoming basically like sisters was done well and it was really believable. You like them from the start. I also loved the idea that with each other's help they both made nice lives for themselves. It was a really sweet story that I wish were the reality for more foster kids.

My favorite thing about this story was that are you're reading you're not really 100% sure if Nicole is crazy, or if Aiden is a murder, or both, neither, you're just not sure.' However, my least favorite thing about this book was that even the end, you're not really sure. Clearly Nicole is a murderer, but is she crazy, too, or was she just driven to it by the reemergence of Veronica? I guess I wanted it to lean one way or the other, but I'm sure that there's also a good subset of readers who love that it's never really decided for them.

The only criticism I have is that I love the Texas setting, but I wish there would have been a touch or two of local tidbits. This story said outright twice it's set in Texas (when talking about Aiden's family's money) but you don't really get any sense of the place and I thought the story might have been a bit more grounded had the setting been fleshed out. But admittedly I'm partial-- I happen to live in the North Texas area part of the year for several years and in the last 5-10 it's gone from being cow country to being an amazingly affordable place with safe neighborhoods, nice houses and it has all of the little Texas touches (the outdoor bars with the string lights, the local vodkas and small businesses, while at the same time having all the conveniences of suburbia. It's truly one of my favorite places in the country and every time I read books set there I wonder why the author's don't help show off the area to readers who haven't been,

Anyway, this wasn't my favorite Lucinda Berry ("Best of Friends" is), it was a quick read with good characters and I'm really looking forward to more stories from her!