Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for gifting me a digital copy of this twisty thriller by Leah Konen - 4.5 stars!

Three friends, all going through separation from their husbands, have bonded over their situations. They decide to take a girls weekend to Saratoga Springs NY to get away from NYC and their troubles. But when car issues strand them in the Catskills, their trouble is really just beginning. When one of the friends doesn't come home after a night out, they realize that they may not know as much about each other as they thought.

I loved this author's debut book, All the Broken People, and I really liked this one too. It had me questioning everyone's motives and wondering about all the backstories. Nothing like a creepy story set in a cabin in the woods! Even when these women make questionable decisions, the storyline is tense with lots of twists and turns - especially that ending! Extra points because, even though these women never quite made it to Saratoga Springs, I love reading stories that take place where I live! Definitely an author to follow!

Very entertaining suspense novel with all the right ingredients -- friends who can't be entirely trusted, a car breakdown in a creepy remote town, a vengeful ex. I recommend reading this one straight through.

This book grabbed me from the very first page and it did not
let up. So many twists and turns that leave you saying "what?" And even
down to the last chapter there's a big twist. Loved it! Thanks to
NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my
honest review. To be published January 2022.

We read the POV between Margaret and Sam throughout the book (with one characters POV at the end) I THINK what got to me or more so was cringeworthy maybe.. I felt like I was watching a Lifetime Movie.. with the horrible acting of what has become of their situation. I just kept thinking, what on earth are they saying and doing and allowing?? (I’m looking at you Margaret and Alex🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ total High Schoolish vibes there)

Anywoot, and as usual with stories like this that start off ok, becomes meh and what?! only to bring up ONE minor little kick at the end, now THAT type of pacing is what I needed. but not at the end
Thank you @netgalley @putnambooks and author for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book is out January 4, 2022

What could go wrong when a group of friends with a lot of problems decide to unwind and go on the perfect girls weekend trip? A fun bonding weekend is just what they need! There’s trouble right from the start!

Multiple perspectives (Sam and Margaret) show the story in different views. The story picks up right away which is a huge bonus that keeps readers intrigued and guessing. The third friend Diana fails to come home after a night out and the other two realize they don’t even know Diana at all. There’s a lot to unpack here, secrets and betrayals.

Highly recommend this story for a fun book club read and discussion!

Four more dysfunctional females would (I hope) be hard to find. Finding four whose lives intertwined would be even harder. Toss in at least two men who themselves are in need serious psychological intervention and a murder, and you've got an entertaining story that reeled me in from the start.

The three main women are Sam, Margaret and Diana - New Yorkers who have met fairly recently but bonded mostly because of their trials and tribulations involving men. They decide to head off on a weekend getaway to be filled with a ton of commiserating and probably two tons of alcohol (not necessarily in that order). They rent a car, but when they stop for gas they encounter a problem with the vehicle; one of the women knows of a place to stay in the small town they're near. Reluctantly, the other two agree to make the unscheduled overnight pitstop and head out to their original destination the next morning.

Best-laid plans, though, have a way of, well, you know. After a quick settling in at the new rental house, they head out for a night on the town to get a head start on their to-do list for the rest of the weekend. One drink leads to another, and another as well as encounters with those aforementioned males and a third who may or may not be trustworthy. After the Triumvirate go their separate ways - supposedly to reconnoiter before leaving the next morning - Diana turns up missing. Sam and Margaret are frantic, understandably, but then reality intrudes, bringing with it thoughts that the stop they believed was a fluke may have been intentional.

But with Diana still out of the picture, who can the other two trust? Probably not their exes, who if they'd been trustworthy in the first place wouldn't be exes now - or the new guy on the block who seems too good to be true, or the fourth woman to enter the mix, the one who's now married to one of those exes and conveniently lives in the very same small town.

Once the local police get involved, though, the plot thickens even more. While the cops weren't too eager to get involved in the disappearance of an adult woman, especially one apparently drunk out of her gourd, that changes when a ton of blood turns up accompanied by a dead body. Add to that missing keys, missing wedding rings and a bunch of cold hard cash and you've got a hard-to-put-down book that works despite - or maybe because of - all the characters I hope I never meet. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy.

I really enjoyed this book! It's a fresh idea for a story. I enjoyed that it was told from the two main characters point of view. I really thought I knew what was going to happen but was shocked at the end. It kept me entertained and I couldn't wait to finish it to see what happened. I'll definitely read more from this author. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

T͜͡h͜͡e͜͡ P͜͡e͜͡r͜͡f͜͡e͜͡c͜͡t͜͡ E͜͡s͜͡c͜͡a͜͡p͜͡e͜͡
By Leah Konen
Release Date 01/04/2022

ғяσм тнε вσσк,ΡЯΕΑcН ΙТ🙌🏼
Rage is so much deeper than anger; it’s the sort of thing that bursts out of you. It’s uncontrollable; that’s in its very definition. Rage isn’t content to be a feeling, something you jot down in your diary or unpack with a friend over drinks. Rage demands action. It hooks you with its claws, dragging you forward, imbuing you with tunnel vision, turning everything around you bright white, except for that one image, right there in front of you, pulsing along to the blood throbbing in your temples.
(this speaks to me )

Sam Margaret and Diana are three friends in their 30’s. Sams marriage is over. Diana’s divorced. And Margaret’s relationship is close to done as well. So, what do you do? You get your best gal pals and take a trip. But the trip goes to shit pretty quick. After a night at the bar, Diana is missing; Sam gets life-changing news, Margaret can’t figure out who to believe, and all the pieces of the puzzle connect as the chapters contribute. Love this book. 4.5 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫S҉҉T҉҉A҉҉R҉҉S҉҉

#booklover #instabook #bibliophile #booknerd #bookstagrammer #bookaddict #booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookblogger #goodreads #bookstagrammers #bookrecommendation #bookblogging #booknerds #readmorebooks#arcbooks #netgalley #theperfectescape
#leahkonen #thrillerreads

The perfect girls weekend does exist, right? Three friends that are all going through divorce or separation decide to get away for a few days. When the trip takes an unexpected detour, lives are changed forever and friendships new and old are put into question.

This was a solid mystery/thriller for me! I was suspicious of everyone almost immediately, so I spent a lot of the book trying to figure out who wasn’t who they claimed to be. While I guessed parts of it, parts surprised me!

2.5

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me but I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys mystery/thriller with a lot of plot twists!

I struggled with two things here: the characters and sometimes the writing.

I disliked all of the characters expect for maybe two. Reading Sam's pov was annoying and I could not root for her because of her actions and the way she kept trying to place blame and accountability elsewhere.

The author does a really good job with foreshadowing. We as the reader reach certain conclusions at the same time as the characters which is nice. However, when you've made the realization and it still takes another page or so to confirm it it was annoying because there was always an extra build up to whatever was being revealed that wasn't needed.

I really wanted to love this one but I was struggling with it! I was having trouble connecting with or caring for any of the characters.

In The Perfect Escape, we have three best friends who bonded over break ups so started their own little broken hearts club.

They plan an upstate NY getaway and things go wrong real quick … like before they even reach their intended destination.

There were some twists and turns but overall I had a hard time staying engaged.

Three stars from me.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Group Publishing for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Sam, Margaret and Diana have recently bonded over their impending divorces and decide to take a girls trip together. On the way to their destination, they have car trouble and get stuck in the same town where Sam’s ex lives. Then Diana goes missing and there are plenty of other problems on top of that.

This was a good book and I enjoyed it. It took me a little time to get into it but once I did, I was really interested in seeing how it played out. There was enough new info being revealed that I didn’t get bored and I was kept guessing because I really didn’t know who, if anyone, I could trust. I look forward to this author’s next novel.

Thank you netgalley for the copy of this book to read! I did enjoy the way this book was written. I love a book written from multiple perspectives so that’s a definite plus. The book did leave a lot of room for mystery and the story wasn’t outright obvious on where it was going. However, there were some slow parts and it took me forever to get into. It didn’t hook me immediately and for that reason, it took me a while to read. The ending took me by surprise, which I can appreciate in a book, but I don’t know that I really loved the truth of the story.

Genre: thriller
Pub date: Jan 4, 2022
In one sentence: Three women embark on a girls' weekend, but after a wild night, only two of them are there in the morning.

I enjoy the thriller subgenre of "books about friends with secrets" and "women behaving badly on a bachelorette/party weekend", so this one sounded right up my alley. Sam, Margaret, and Diana have plenty of secrets, and I liked try to figure out what they were keeping from each other. I didn't guess the big reveals - and they were certainly not what I expected!

The reason I rated this book 3 stars is that it felt drawn out in the middle, and it could have been much punchier with a little editing. This one clocks in at 384 pages - it seems the trend in publishing is to publish books around 400 pages, and in most cases, I'd prefer thrillers to be closer to 300 pages.

Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

How well do you really know your friends?

Sam, Margaret, and Diana have had a bit of a whirlwind of a friendship, where heartbreak and relationship problems caused them to bond much quicker than normal. Each eager for an escape, they set out for a weekend getaway where they can drink and laugh away their woes. But when the only key to their rental car somehow winds up lost at a rest stop, the three are forced to unexpectedly spend the night in a small town. Attempting to make the best of the situation, they head out to a local bar. It’s not drinking wine in the hot tub as planned, but hey, margaritas with the girls is still a fun diversion. One of the three doesn’t make it back to their rental that night, and soon it becomes clear the three all have been keeping secrets. They started out thinking this trip would be the perfect escape, but it turns out it’s the getaway itself they need escaping from.

This was a fun little escape. The who was pretty obvious but the why definitely had me curious enough to furiously flip the pages. I think seasoned mystery readers will see a few things coming, but sometimes it’s fun to wait for the characters to catch up to our knowledge, and I found that to be the case here. Some suspension of disbelief is required, but overall I was mostly able to go with the flow and just enjoy the twists and turns as they came along, all the while set against the increasingly creepy atmosphere of the mysterious rental.

The last chapter of this one was really something, and caused me to round up from 3.5 to 4. I found it to be quite clever and it’s going to provide some great fodder for discussion for those who read this with friends or as a part of a book club.

CW: Those who struggle with fertility or who are strongly pro-life may find parts of one storyline tough to read. I felt it was handled with care, but as someone who has never wanted children, I acknowledge I am in no way qualified to make that determination for others.

This is one of those books that I read late into the night because I couldn't wait to find out what happened. It centers on 3 friends named Sam, Margaret, and Diana who go on a long weekend girls' trip, only to get stranded on the way and have to take a detour, when it becomes clear that there is more to the story than it initially seemed. The story alternates between the POVs of Sam and Margaret, with quick and action-packed chapters.

My only nit with the book was that some of the characters were quick to accept certain events as coincidences when it seemed obvious to me that there was something more sinister going on. It sure took them a long time to get there! That being said, even though I knew there was more to the story, I didn't know what the "more" entailed, and was still surprised but a couple pretty twists as the book went on.

Overall, super fun run that I devoured over a couple of sittings. Good suspense, good characterization, and an overall fun story to read. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Told from two women's point of view (Sam and Margaret) this novel is fast paced and totally intriguing. It had twists to the plot that kept me guessing right up to the end. Once you finish a Sam chapter with a mini cliffhanger, you are quickly put in Margaret's perspective of the unfolding events. It keeps the story moving along and reminds you that there are always two sides to the story. I couldn't put this down and enjoyed it right up to the final surprise ending.

The thing that I struggled with in this one was the writing itself - it often felt rather clunky or as if it were relying on telling rather than showing. Aside from that (which is idiosyncratic to my own "reading ear" for books), I thought that was really fun! We've got a girls weekend gone very, very wrong, with three girlfriends who are bonded by their shared pasts of love gone wrong but who may not know each other as well as they thought. I really enjoyed the final "twists"/way the plot wrapped up, and while it may not have been perfect, it was quite an enjoyable mystery thriller

A thriller featuring women making drunken mistakes… shocking. This genre really needs a reboot. That aside, this one contained some fabulous twists and I never saw the ending coming. The conclusion was fast paced and full of truth bombs. I really enjoyed the ending and how everything was wrapped up, even if I didn’t particularly care for the characters. My thanks to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

The Perfect Escape was a fantastic, deliciously twisted thriller. It’s a slow-burn story, that definitely picks up with the reveals in the second half. The writing style is riveting—sucks you in from the first page, and holds you there till the last.

If anything, a few of the reveals seemed unnecessary, and made some of the tension from before end up as red herrings, which was a bit of a downer. But still, I really enjoyed this pacey thriller that’s definitely in the vein of Megan Miranda and Shari Lapena.

3.5 stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

-A