Reading Between the Wines book review #49/115 for 2023:
Rating: 3 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book 🎧: The Whispers
Author: Heidi Perks
Genre: General Fiction (Adult)
Available now!

Sipping thoughts: This is a story of friendship and the different folds and crevices they contain; Of friendship that can be toxic and problematic; Of relationship secrets that can create desperate measures rather than bringing people closer. If you are looking for a book that shows hints of Desperate Housewives meets Pretty Little Liars, this is the one for you. I found it interesting enough but nothing that sets it apart from others like it.

Cheers and thank you to @NetGalley and @GalleryBooks for an advanced copy of @TheWhispers.

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This one is a good one. It was a twisted tale of friendship and how it can go to far. I thought this was a quick read and kept me guessing until the very end.

Oh my goodness! This one was full of toxic friendships, gossip, and twists and turns. Heidi Parks clearly knows how to write a page-turner. Although I didn't absolutely love this one, it was still a fun read. I just feel like I've read so many books with similar premises so I'm a little bored with it.

This was a solid tale of a toxic friendship that gets revisited as the friends are adults reunited. I did not find the characters extremely likeable overall, but the plot line kept it going and I was interested to see where it led. A quick read and great for folks who enjoy thrillers.
Thankful for this ARC!

This is another installment in an oversaturated genre of missing females sought after by their friends. If you want a quick read this is a good choice, but nothing sets it apart.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

I liked this book. The author does a great job showing how moms at school gossip. I wanted more of that in this book. The overall plot felt repetitive at times, but it had enough twists to keep me reading.

I received a complimentary copy of this book "The Whispers" and all opinions expressed are my own. This book was okay. Very very slow start and I almost gave up. Really this book just wasn't for me.

Wow, wow, wow, what an amazing thrill ride! Phenomenally written, with amazing character development, which hooked me even more into the story! A bit catty, but well down and realistic! Fast paced, intense, gripping, and unputdownable! Full of twisty turns, thrills, and gasp worthy shocks! A bit chilling at times! Had me glued to the pages, needing more, but scared for it to end! Cannot recommend enough!

Talk about mean girls, I have not seen this much cattiness since I was in high school.

There is something different about being an observer to the lengths women will go to, to hurt one another for nothing more than boredom ...

Are your friends really your friends?

Who will take charge when every else won't bat an eye?

Anna and Grace are childhood best friends, and love their "Girls Night" amongst a group of other women. After a night of wine and conversation, Anna disappears without a trace . With a frantic husband and son, Grace feels the need to find out what happened to her best friend. Why isn't anyone helping Grace? As rumors start to fly around town, Grace knows she is the only person who can uncover what happened to Anna.

This was an easy read that grabbed my attention early on. It packed just enough punch and also narrated a perfect mean girl story line. I was truly invested in what had happened to Anna and I admired Grace's perseverance .I truly enjoyed this novel and I would be eager to see what Heidi Perks comes out with next!

This story centers around Grace and Anna who were childhood best friends. Grace moves back home and expects for Anna to make room in her life for her. We learn about their friendship and how it wasn’t as picture perfect as we thought. Throughout the book I was second guessing which version of the story was correct. There wasn’t a moment I knew what would happen. Anna goes missing and Grace takes it upon herself to find her friend. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast pace this book was and how many twists there were!
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I love me some unreliable narrators and throw in alternating timelines and I’m hooked.
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This was my first Heidi Perks book but I have a feeling it won’t be my last!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It’s been a while since I have had the pleasure of reading an excellent thriller. The Whispers by Heidi Perks is not your run-of-the-mill thriller where readers can have a rough idea about the ending by the middle of the book. This book keeps you guessing until the very last page. We have a story about two best friends since their early formative adolescent years, and they are co-dependent in their insulated world without other female friendships. When friends pull away, jealousy overwhelms them until they are wretchedly reunited. This continues until a new student befriends one of them but ends up dead under mysterious circumstances. No one is ever charged. Fast forward 22 years, they are reunited after being separated for many years by job transfer, marriage, and children. One of the friends moves back home. But this life-altering death comes back to haunt both girls who have differing memories as one of them becomes more and more obsessed with her long-lost friend. Their friendship is toxic, and the ending is shocking in intensity. I rarely state that this could be a television movie, but I see this happening. Ms. Perks has done an excellent job with this story, and it will keep you guessing till the very end. This is the way a thriller should be written. Publication date is very soon on March 8th #TheWhispers @heidiperks_author #wowzer @SimonandSchuster #arc @GalleryBooks #thriller #whodunit #thrilling @netgalley #netgalley
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Thank you Netgalley and Gallery Books for the opportunity to read this book which was amazing.

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Grace and Anna have been best friends from the time they were little girls until they were seventeen-years old when Grace's family moved to Australia and the girls lost touch with one another and eventually Grace met her husband and started a family. Now twenty years later Grace returns to the UK hoping to resume her friendship with Anna.
In their town the woman are very cliquish and Anna seems to have her own small trio of friends who aren't very welcoming or friendly to Grace. Anna also appears distant and seems to avoid Grace as much as possible which is surprising and uncomfortable and difficult for Grace to understand. Although she has noticed one of the women is overbearing and controlling especially of all the ladies' conversations particularly of Anna's. One night shortly before Christmas Anna finally invites Grace out for a ladies's night with her friends. Grace has mixed feelings about the invitation yet she's happy to be with Anna for the evening.
The women are also heavy drinkers which doesn't help and as the night progresses arguments and angry whispers stir within the group leaving Grace clueless and feeling unwanted as Anna has pretty much avoided Grace throughout the entire evening. When Grace feeling relief finally goes home while leaving the group behind notices that heated discussions continued to crop up around the table.

Grace has had enough of all the women and especially Anna for treating her so poorly until the next morning when she drops her daughter off at school and hears that Anna never made it home the night before and when she questions the other women they all seem to have different stories about the end of the night and facts are not lining up properly. Why? Why wouldn't the women be truthful, what would make them lie? As the day progresses and Anna still has not surfaced, Grace feels lost and thinks something very bad has happened to Anna and someone in that group knows what really happened late, last night. What happened to Anna?

This was an enjoyable and entertaining story although it was a slow-burn up to a certain point and then the fun really starts! Some unpredictable twists came into play and they were well received. Anna and Grace were both complicated characters and I thought I understood them but I was delighted to realize I was wrong. When the book finally let loose the real history was told about both women and it was a doozy! Most of the characters are not likeable which was fine but I just didn't feel real emotions coming from them so I was a little disappointed with a lot of their dialogue and actions although it didn't keep me from enjoying the story. I really enjoy reading books by Heidi Perks and hope to read more in the future.

I want to thank the publisher "Gallery Books" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I I recommend this book and have given a rating of 3 TWISTED 🌟🌟🌟 STARS!!

Title: The Whispers
Author: Heidi Perks
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publishing Date: March 8, 2022

The Whispers by Heidi Perks is a novel that falls in the thriller category but I’d almost just call this one a suspenseful drama. The story in The Whispers is one that is told by changing the point of view between the characters and a slight bit of flashing back to past events.

As children Anna and Grace were the best of friends being completely inseparable until Grace’s family had to move away to another country. Now almost twenty years later Grace has returned to the town she grew up in and hopes to resume her friendship with Anna.

Of course with so much time having past from the days of Grace and Anna’s friendship Anna now has a life of her own. Grace does her best to fit in with Anna’s group of friends even tagging along on a night at the pub but she leaves the party earlier than Anna. The next morning Grace learns Anna never made it home.

The Whispers by Heidi Perks was a very slow building novel which isn’t always my favorite type of read. The story focuses a lot on building the relationship between the women then tosses in a bit of suspense to move it along. There are some twists to the plot along the way but for me the overall novel didn’t engage me enough to finish thinking this one was more than just an average alright read.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I enjoy Heidi Perks and really liked the way this one started, but I must confess that about a third of the way in it started to feel like a slog to me. I lost the sense of suspense and started to feel irritated at the characters and the mess they were all in, rather than curiousas to how it would all play out.. Things got very repetitive and felt like they were moving at a glacial pace that was inconsistent with the tone and direction of the story, and largely stayed that way until the end. I forced myself to keep reading, on the hope that she'd salvage out with twists, but to no avail. By the time I got to the big reveal, I had already sort of seen it coming and even the bits that I didn't just felt flat and anti-climactic... On the whole this was not one of my favorites.

A lot going on here but it's a good chick-lit mystery that I think will be perfect for a lazy day on the beach. A good book club pick!

First of all thank you NetGalley for the chance to read an advanced copy of The Whispers , Heidi Perks pulls you in tells a great story of toxic friendships and this one surely was . Who was worse Anna or Grace and you have to consider Graces mother. I really enjoyed this and had me reading with anticipation of turning the page to see what was happening next.

Synopsis: Anna is excited for a fun night out with friends, except the next morning she doesn’t show up for school drop off. She’s apparently disappeared.

So many twists and turns. So many secrets. I did not know who to trust. I always enjoy books about friendships- even broken ones, so this was right up my alley. There were some details/subplots that were not completely necessary but I didn’t mind them. Overall I thought this was a well written book. It was suspenseful and entertaining. It was an easy read that had my full attention. I would definitely read more from this author in the future. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I am gong to keep this review nice and short, because there is so much going on, and the synopsis says one thing but this book is different in every way. I read the first two chapters and I was hooked, the author did an amazing thing right in the beginning of the book, she took us straight to the point and also brought in Grace, who we thought was an amazing friend trying to fit in into the world of clique-y school moms. Then everything started to unravel, all of these women are not what they seem, there are a ton of secrets going on, and the author keeps you hooked. I page turner that will leave you satisfied in the end, but then also feeling a little sorry for the victim involved. Thanks Netgalley and the Publishers for giving us the opportunity to read this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book. The overall preface is about a toxic friendship, but which friendship is the toxic one? It is told from two different perspectives and just when you are convinced of who and what to believe, another perspective comes into view. Heidi Perks has a way of writing that captures the reader’s attention from the start. I enjoyed this book and look forward to more of her books.

Wow, what a wild ride this one is! Just when you think you have it figured out, BAM! Did not see that major twist coming! Heidi Perks does not fail to entertain, and she has written another winner.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this ARC!