Rounding up to a 5. If you are a fan of Mary Kay Andrews (author of more than 2 dozen books); you will probably also love this one. If nothing else, read this book for the "walker scene". You'll know it when you get there.

You need to suspend reality a little bit; none of the snowbirds noticed news reports about a former actress on the run with 4 year old Maya after the murder of her estranged sister. It didn't take much to put that thought on hold and enjoy this book. The audio was very well done; a bit long at 448 pages / 14 1/2 hours. But isn't that perfect for a beach read?

Publication date is May 4, 2021! Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher (St. Martin's Press) and the author Mary Kay Andrews, for the opportunity to listen to the advance copy of The Newcomber in exchange for an honest review. Audio was well done, narrated by Kathleen McInerney.

Interesting. I tried to post an amazon review; but since I didn't purchase the book via amazon, I wasn't able to review via amazon.

Mary Kay Andrews is one of my all time favorites! If you’ve never read any of her books, now is the time. The Newcomer is filled with murder, suspense, and of course a little romance. The story features interesting and complex characters, with bits of humor sprinkled throughout. You won’t want to miss this summer release!

Well written with good character development and literally couldn’t put the book down. A woman follows trails from a life she must leave but hopes to find answers in a shore front hotel. She finds more than answers and the story is just captivating. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Well, I'm glad that's over. You could have easily cut 5 hours or 150 pages off this book and it would have been a MUCH better read, but here we are 14+ hours/450 pages later… I swore I was about to DNF every other chapter. It’s a “mystery” without much mystery, a “romance” with no chemistry, and characters with no dimension. Oh, and let's sprinkle in as many West Virginia “hick” stereotypes as possible along the way. Perpetuating harmful stereotypes is my favorite. Would y’all believe not all of us live in double-wide trailers? (Even if we did you can keep your holier-than-thou judgements to yourself.) Not even one high school in the state has a postgrad higher ed attendance rate in the single digits btw.

Pretty much the only scene that sparked any kind of emotion for me was the postcard gift. Ava had potential to be a favorite character, but still lacked something. I’m so glad the ALC became available, because there is no way I could have read this on my kindle. The audio was the ONLY redemptive feature for me. The narrator was fantastic and made it tolerable enough for me to push through and finish.

“Nobody could be trusted. Not after everything that had happened. The less Zoey knew, the better off they’d all be”.

I’ll be honest, this took me forever to get through. It’s slower than a slow burn, and it’s very hefty in pages.

I find it fun that MKA had a mystery suspense, when that usually goes to Kathy Hogan Trocheck. It was nice to see that side of MKA again. However, this was definitely an Andrews novel through and through with just a sprinkle of the Trocheck mystery we used to get.

I liked Letty to a fault, but I just felt like we could chop about 100-150 of these pages to really get to the story and still really enjoy the character. I found myself skimming through a lot of the unnecessary details that just seemed filler.

One thing that did save this entire book was the audio. Once I got the audio, I could hit the stride. The reader was phenomenal and I loved them. Katherine McInerney truly saved the Queen of Beach reads with their inflections and passion. I ended up listening through it after my initial review and I feel that emotion from Letty really helped the plot and the character become more likable. If you’re going to grab this book, 100% get it on audio.

Overall, it was okay. It was really long, but still had a nice plot. Thank you St Martin’s for the gifted copy. The Newcomer is out May 4th.

Tanya has told her sister, Letty, if anything happens to her, it’s Tanya’s no good ex, Evan. So when Letty finds her sister dead in her New York penthouse, she’s pretty sure who the killer is. Letty takes her sister’s car and her four year old daughter, Maya, and goes on the run. With only an old magazine story about Treasure Island, Florida and a bag of highly suspicious cash, Letty and Maya head for the Sunshine State, unsure of what awaits them. Andrews delivers her usual comical, heartfelt Southern story