I really enjoyed Katie Gutierrez's first book. It was a slow burn at first but I liked the surprising twists at the end. The only thing that bothered me was the use of Spanish throughout the book with no translation. It added an authenticity to the characters but without a translation it could be confusing. I look forward to reading more from Katie Gutierrez.

Unfortunately I am DNFing this book at 40%. I believe this is another book misrepresented as a “thriller”. The writing is good, but I think the book would be more interesting if it was shorter and only written in Cassie’s POV.

As More Than You'll Ever Know opens in 2017, Cassie Bowman is trying to eke out a living as a true crime writer. Growing up in Enid, Oklahoma, she watched "Dateline" with her mother and checked true crime books out of the library, reading In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter at an early age. By the time she was in high school, she was obsessed -- determined to become a journalist and write the kind of books she grew up reading. "Books that looked at the ugliest parts of humanity and asked: How did it come to this?" So far, she works fifteen hours per week earning thirteen dollars per hour writing blog posts for a television network that broadcasts low-budget true crime productions. It is Cassie's job to find novel, gruesome crimes and write posts about them for an insatiable audience. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her fiancé, Duke, who owns and operates a food truck, and encourages Cassie to pursue freelance work on other topics because he finds true crime "macabre." Cassie is tiring of her pursuits, feeling "like a forager of other people's tragedies, . . ." she relates in the first-person narrative through which Gutierrez tells her story. "It was hard to be proud of this kind of work." Duke grew up on a dairy farm with a large, loving family whose members have embraced Cassie and are eager to help plan and host their upcoming wedding. Cassie has never told Duke the truth about her own family, which is why she can never take calls from her younger brother, Andrew, in his presence. "There was too much he didn't know. Too much to risk by telling him."

A Google alert leads Cassie to a story in the Laredo Morning Times about Dolores and Fabian Rivera, and Cassie is drawn to the accompanying photographs. One, taken in 1978, shows the couple with their twin boys, Gabriel and Mateo, and was taken at a ribbon-cutting event. The second photo is of Dolores standing next to Andres Russo with her hand on the shoulder of a teenage girl, and was taken in 1984. The article reveals that Dolores was the girl's stepmother, and Penelope Russo painfully recollects being deceoved by Dolores. The headline? "Her Secret LIves: How One Woman's Double Marriage Led to the Murder of an Innocent Man." Cassie is hooked. "I had to know more." Pondering the sheer effort is would take to lead a double life, Cassie has to know why Dolores -- a mother -- would do such a thing. Her interest is in no small part fueled, as Gutierrez details incrementally, by her own family history. Cassie's mother, a third grade teacher, died tragically just as Andrew came into Cassie's life. The fact that Dolores refused to participate in an interview for the article does not deter Cassie. She begins researching the case, intent on finding out how Andres Russo ended up dead on August 2, 1986, after being involved with Dolores for three years and married to her for nearly a year. And why Fabian murdered him and is still incarcerated for the crime. She soon learns that Mateo owns a veterinary clinic in San Antonio and Gabriel is a high school basketball coach. And Dolores is still in their lives, plainly visible in family photographs posted on Facebook and Instagram. Cassie is flabbergasted at the notion that her sons were able to forgive Dolores . . . because Cassie has never been able to forgive her own mother.

In alternating chapters, Dolores's story unfolds via a third-person narrative that begins in 1983 as she -- "Lore" -- commences another business trip to Mexico City. She loves being able to travel to the large city. "Nobody knows her. She could be anyone. She could become anyone." Indeed. Gutierrez says Lore's story had to be set in the past because today so much information is readily available online. Additionally, it "created the opportunity to explore truth in a different way -- what if the events known to have happened didn’t actually happen that way, or what if there was a deeper story behind them?" Lore meets Andres during a recession when she and Fabian are extremely stressed because Fabian is desperately trying to keep his business afloat even as the peso's devaluation continues. Lore's job in international banking is secure, but Lore opened a store selling custom doors five years earlier. With people struggling just to hold onto their homes, and constuction and remodeling projects stalled, the market for doors has shrunk dramatically. The pressure is impacting their marriage. Gutierrez, who grew up in Laredo, "a border town," depicts Fabian's intense pain and disappointment about failing for the first time. Even though it is not his fault, "in Mexican culture, there’s that element of machismo, and expectation that men will be the providers." If Fabian's store goes out of business, Lore will be the primary breadwinner. Meanwhile, her parents are experiencing the same consternation about their own business, and Lore and her siblings learn her parents have made horrendous choices, leading them to need financial assistance from their grown children in order to survive.

Mexico City provides Lore a respite from her responsibilities. She is invited to the wedding of the daughter of a Mexican entrepreneur and bank customer. It's an excellent opportunity to network, and it is at the reception dinner that she meets Andres -- the bride's professor and advisor at the university. Lore is a beautiful thirty-two-year-old woman and the way Andres looks at her is electrifying. She does not tell him that she is married and has two sons at home. "And it's only a dance, after all."

Cassie's pursuit of her story unfolds as, in alternating and thoroughly grossing chapters, Lore and Andres fall in love in 1983, and Lore's deception has escalating consequences. Her frequent business trips make it possible for her to spend time with Andres, who teaches and parents his daughter. Lore actively conceals the truth about her life from Andres, arranging to receive his telephone calls at the bank at specified times, for instance. When Andres asks her if she wants childen, she tells him, "I'm not sure," conflating the inquiry in her mind to "Do you want more children?" so that she can delude herself into believing that she is being honest. Her relationship with Andres is exciting -- romantic and dangerous -- and something that Lore possesses just for herself. Gutierrez convinclingly and compassionately portrays Lore as a woman who truly loves Fabian and her children, but for whom her life with them is not enough -- it's both too confining and requires too much of her. Even motherhood did not fulfill Lore. "Motherhood is supposed to be quiet and pretty. But motherhood is not pretty. Motherhood has teeth." She went back to work over Fabian's objections. Gutierrez also draws readers into Fabian's plight. Back at home in Laredo, striving to provide for his family, he has no idea that his wife's business trips are actually trysts.

Cassie locates Lore, who agrees to be interviewed but not about the murder of Andres. Cassie also speaks with Lore's sons, Penelope, and others who can provide background and context to the story she plans to write. With Lore, Gutierrez strove to create "a character who is acting in an ostensibly amoral way and portray her in a way that very quickly makes her actions understandable." She succeeds. Like Cassie, readers are drawn to Lore, realting to and empathizing with her desires and dreams. Like Lore, Cassie is passionate and driven. Her ambition connected her with the woman to whom she reveals details about her own family history that she has never been able to tell Duke, blurring the line that separates her professional pursuit of the truth with her personal needs. Lore cleverly turns the tables on Cassie, drawing information from her as they spend hours talking. As her work on the story continues, Cassie's perspective on her own family evolves as her relationship with Duke begins to falter, particularly when Andrew needs her help and Duke becomes privvy to the aspects of Cassie's past she hid from him.

Once Lore's story advances to 2017, it becomes a carefully curated first-person account that seems mostly straight-forward and honest, but it is always clear that to see Lore as a victim is a mistake. She manipulates Cassie, telling her just enough to satisfy her, but not everything. And there are several junctures at which Cassie discovers that she has been fooled by Lore, who agreed to participate in the intervews for her own purpose, as Gutierrez skillfully reveals gradually. Is it a performance for Lore or is she a sixty-seven-year-old woman with regrets who has spent many years trying to right the wrongs she committed? She acknowledges that she loves reliving that period in her life. "And the truth is, I had always been a hedonist. A slave to the pleasures of the moment. Wasn't that how everything had started? Because, in a time of deprivation, Andres had given me his hand? How could I have said no? To the dance, to the wine?"

Cassie's investigation reveals inconsistencies in the details related by witnesses during police interviews and the evidence uncovered during the criminal investigation. Cassie comes to believe that the wrong person is serving time for killing Andres. But if Fabian did not kill him, who did? Is Fabian covering for someone? The book's pace accelerates as Cassie closes in on the truth and finds herself in danger. But Gutierrez delivers more than just a murder mystery. She also examines, through Cassie's conflict with Duke, the -- perhaps unintended -- consequences of true crime stories. Despite her agreement with Lore not to discuss the murder, Cassie cannot ignore her misgivings about Fabian's conviction, even though he confessed to killing Andres. Cassies tries to convince Duke that revealing the truth is a means of honoring the decedent, "a way of saying their life mattered." But Duke reminds her that she only has Lore's permission to write about her double life. She has not obtained permission from anyone else connected to Lore or Andres's death to write about it, and her unwilingness to respect boundaries has the potential to bring about devastating results. She envisions uncovering the truth as a duty. But the truth always comes at a cost, as Gutierrez deftly demonstrates.

More Than You'll Ever Know is a inventive meditation on the demands of marriage and motherhood, the sacrifices they require from women, and the way society views women who refuse to settle for less than they want and feel they deserve. It is also an absorbing look at ambition and the power of investigative journalism, as well as forgiveness. Is there any action that is truly unforgivable? Or is the capacity for undertanding and empathy so vast that the most unimaginably hurtful betrayal can be forgiven in order to preserve one's family?

But at the core of the story is that nagging question: Why? Why did Lore risk the family she had already created with Fabian in order to pursue a new one with Andres? Did she really think that she could get away with it? Didn't she understand that it was a catastrophe waiting to unfold and that when her duplicity was revealed, the people she loved would be devastated by her betrayal? Lore tells Cassie, I wasnted to be known. I wanted to know myself. That's what it was all about. And I ended up alone." Is Lore's explanation worthy of belief? And in the end, is Cassie's dogged pursuit of the truth worth what it costs her? Finding out the answers to those questions, and pondering the issues Gutierrez broaches in More Than You'll Ever Know is a delightfully entertaining and engrossing experience. More Than You'll Ever Know is so tautly crafted, her characters so fully developed and fascinating, it is hard to believe it is a debut work of fiction.

I so wish this had worked better for me. I have two main issues the first of which is the length. This story could have been well told in about 100 less pages. The editor did this book a disservice by allowing it to go to print in its current form.

The second issue I have is that this is being marketed as a thriller. This is not a thriller. It is more of a family drama with a touch of mystery. Which is fine, I read all genres and thriller is nowhere near my favorite. But it bothers me that people are being led to believe this book is something that it isn't. Even the cover makes it look like a domestic thriller.

For me, the biggest tell that this wasn't working for me is that I didn't want to keep picking it up..I want to read books that I can't put down and it was so easy to walk away from this one. In the first hundred pages or so, I was falling asleep any time I picked it up. Not at all usual for me. So unfortunately it was a miss for me. The premise was delicious but the final copy was unsatisfying.

4⭐️ Thank you William Morrow and Scene of the Crime for the early read copy of More Than You’ll Ever Know, by Katie Gutierrez. The dual timeline story of Lore Rivera, her love for two men, two families, and Cassie’s quest to uncover the “truth” was such an interesting and engaging story. I kept questioning Cassie’s motivation for writing the story, her justification for possibly upturning a family’s life. I also kept trying to guess how much of what Lore “revealed” was truth vs a very controlled narrative. I ended up giving the book a 4 because, although I know having Lore and her family speak in Spanish was integral to the story, it took me out of it because I wasn’t able to understand what seemed to be vital interactions amongst the family members. It was also somewhat of an abrupt ending to one

Delores, who goes by Lore, is doing her best to keep her family afloat. Some days it is all she can do. Her husband is in Austin trying his best to keep his business going while she is in Laredo with the twins. Life is hard all around. As a international banker, Lore has to take way too many business trips and sometimes she is alone too much. That's when her next husband enters the story. Andres fulfills so much Fabian can't at the present time. Lore really believes she can pull off the unexpected and stay married to both men and no one will be the wiser. She travels a ton for business so why not? And then her two worlds crash together and the worst possible outcome happens, Andres is dead.
Cassie is a blogger who follows true crime and she sets out to write the true story of Lore and her two husbands. She chips away at the truth, one phone call at a time while attempting to live her own life as things are falling apart around her. Her father is drinking again, her boyfriend is trying to plan a wedding with Cassie, and Cassie is just trying to survive and write her book. Secrets come out of the woodwork as Cassie gets closer to the truth.
More than You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez is a great who-done-it suspenseful story that takes place going between the 80's and the 2000's; each chapter clearly marked with the year. It is told from Cassie and Lore's point of view with the chapters also clearly marked with this too. I really enjoyed the story of Lore and Cassie. When days get hard, you just never know what you will do to get by. Lore was no stranger to that. I will definitely be recommending More Than You'll Ever Know to all my book loving friends and would love to read other works by Katie Gutierrez. Special thanks to NetGalley, William Morrow Publishing, and Katie Gutierrez for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest opinion. 4.5 stars for me.
#MoreThanYoullEverKnow #NetGalley

True crime writer Cassie is determined to tell the story of Lore, one of the rare female bigamists. After discovering Lore's deceit, one of her husbands kills the other. Can Cassie persuade Lore to share her story about living a double life? Was Lore haunted by her role in the downfall of both husbands?

"The thing about a spontaneous act is that the consequences are long-lasting. A dance becomes an affair, which becomes a marriage, which becomes a murder, which becomes a pact."

Drawn in by the premise, I was captivated by the two women in this story. While they have very different circumstances, there are distinct parallels between Cassie and Lore. Both have answered the question, what are you to do to protect someone you love? This literary mystery also examines motherhood, marriage power dynamics, and family.

This debut novel is an intriguing slow burn that you will find yourself immersed in! More Than You'll Ever Know isn't my usual read, but I was captivated by it.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the digital copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

Definitely a slow burn, but not a 'thriller'as much as a domestic mystery.
Cassie is a true crime blogger who comes across the story of a woman, Lore, who led a double life. Married to two men, one in Laredo Texas and the other in Mexico City, how long can she keep up the secrets and deception? Eventually one husband ends up dead and the other in prison for killing him while Cassie is left to figure out what really happened. Through duel perspectives and duel timelines the mystery is revealed in a satisfying way that kept me guessing until the end.

Strong evocative writing made this debut very compelling. One story is of a woman, Lore leading a double life in Mexico and Texas in the 1980’s where she married two different men. The other story is of true crime writer Cassie eager to tell Lore’s story and uncover the real truth.
The story goes back and forth from the 80’s - Lore’s perspective to Cassie and Lore in 2017 respectively.

Cassie is dealing with her own demons and recalling memories from her childhood with an alcoholic father who was abusive to her mother.

As Cassie becomes personally involved with Lore and her family she dives deeper into the story and begins to understand how Lore could find herself in love with two men.

This book is about love, motherhood, and the lengths a mother will go through to protect her families.

“The terror of motherhood never disappears. You only learn to absorb it into your body, to whisper it to sleep with the lull of everyday routine. But every so often it roars awake again, the knowledge that your children could be taken from you at any time, and that without them, your one, intact body may as well burn to ash.”

I absolutely love women led stories and have become increasingly interested in suspense narratives recently so this novel stood out to me as a story written by a woman about a woman writing about another woman. Though billed as a thriller, I found this narrative lacking a suspenseful pacing to keep me intrigued past the first 25%. I typically enjoy stories told from multiple perspectives but because each of the POVs melded into each other, it felt more like they lacked individual voices and made it hard for me to continue through the end.

I love true crime type books and docu series and podcasts so I was like yes please when I saw this book.
The author did a slow burn beginning setting up for the roller coaster ride of my life. I was glued to my kindle and the character and storyline! Those characters wow perfectly flawed that have me liking them and got me so invested in their story!

Overall, this book was a slow burn for me. I didn’t find myself picking it up often, therefore it took me a while to read. I liked The premise of this novel, but I didn’t love any of the characters. Lore definitely grew on me over the course of the book. I enjoyed her chapters of the book more so than Cassie’s. Cassie’s character bothered me. I really enjoyed the ending of the book. Although I did want to see more closure for Cassie and Duke, and Cassie and Andrew. My heart broke for both of them and I don’t know how it ended.

More Than You'll Ever Know is a mystery with a true crime feel. We follow Cassie who tracks down Lore and her family with the hopes of writing a book about her story. Dolores' story is straight out of a Dateline episode. After it is discovered she was leading a double life in Texas and Mexico, her first husband is in jail for murdering her second husband.

Told from each woman's point of view, we follow Cassie as she works through her own background and need for success with the book she wants to write about Lore. She feels Lore has been mistreated by the previous press articles and she can showcase a different story. Lore's chapters give us more of the background story that led to the murder.

I am not sure about this being marketed as a mystery but it definitely fits the bill for some good family drama. The beginning of Lore's chapters were a bit slow and I really had to rely on Cassie to keep the story moving for me. I found the storyline more engaging as the women met and the mystery of the murder became more of the focus.

The book leaned a bit too long but the writing was great. A good debut and I look forward to reading more from the author.

Well this was a whole lot of mysterious fun! As an arm-chair detective myself, I definitely appreciated Cassie's drive and dedication to investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding the murder of one woman's husband...by her other husband.

The narration was wonderfully written and I loved how the past and present stories diverged into one path later on in the story. Lore's life was interesting, even if it was a bit heartbreaking, to learn how a woman could lead two separate lives in two different countries and get away with it, until she doesn't.

Likeable characters, even if their actions kept you scratching your head, made this an easy and entertaining read. Will definitely recommend to my fellow mystery/suspense readers.

Aspiring young true crime writer and avid true crime fan, Cassie Bowman, stumbles upon the story of Lore Rivera whose lover is murdered by her husband upon the discovery she had been living a double life in Mexico and Texas while married to both men. Cassie sees the story could be more intriguing, not just as a crime story, but as the story of the woman who decided to risk all she held dear to seek a more passionate, alive and stimulating life. Lore agrees to have the novice writer tell her true story, but along the way, she enables Cassie to look into her own life to discover if she is on her true path to happiness with the choices she has made concerning her estrangement from her family and the status her engagement to the man she wants to marry. The story covers times periods in the 1980s and 2017, switching back and forth as Lore and Cassie take turns narrating. The story flows well, but but is slow in the first third of the story as we get to know the characters. The descriptive narration immerses the reader to easily envision Lore's two families and homes, the beauty (weddings, parks, festivals, food) as well as the desolation (poverty, earthquakes, murder scene). but at times is a bit too much, slowing the momentum. The women's experiences bring many ideas for the readers to ponder--How responsible do we need to be to our families? Do we ever really know those who are closest to us? What is memory vs reality? Can others accurately know our stories? Although the murder mystery wasn't as twisty as I usually enjoy (I had the correct idea early on), I really was intrigued by these strong women and how they came together to create a narrative that benefited them both in the lives they chose and enjoyed the ending immensely.

More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez is the story of a woman leading a double life in two countries. When a young journalist stumbles across the 30 year old murder of a man by his wife’s other husband, Cassie can’t let this story go. This tense thriller leads you through Lore telling Cassie her story of love, lies, marriage, and murder…and just when you think the truth is coming out, the twists keep coming.

Fast paced read, once I got about 30% in, and I definitely was intrigued by the plot. I liked how the truth was revealed little by little, back and forth between Lore at the time of the relationships and present day Cassie and Lore. Would recommend for those who enjoy thrillers!

A solid story - a little long but I was invested in finding out what happened! Loved the motherhood angle as well. This is definitely a slower burn but I thought it was worth it in the end.

This book was not at all what I was expecting. Received this an early read and should have read sooner. The book alternates between current (2017) and the 1980s. It tells of a wife/mother who lives near the Texas Mexico Board. The book explains her double life and the troubles related to it. Her secrets are uncovered when a true crime blogger learns of her story and probes to learn more. More secrets are exposed by the chapter ending in a twist I was not expecting.

3 1/2 stars

While this isn’t a bad book, it is an annoying one. Unless you are fluent in colloquial Spanish speaker, this book will likely drive you up the wall. There is so much Spanish/Spanglish in this book without any clue as to what most of the words and phrases mean. It may be realistic, but it constantly made me want to put down the book. Highly frustrating.

The book focuses on two women and their individual pain, loss, love, lies, friendship, and family. Once you get past all the Spanish words/phrases/culture that the author expects you to know and understand, the writing is very good. This book could have been an excellent debut novel save for the author’s decision to include all the foreign words into a book not meant exclusively for Spanish/Spanglish speakers. Instead of making the reader excited to read this book, it made this reader feel excluded and exhausted. There's so much that even a glossary wouldn't have helped much.

The characters are interesting. The story line involved, developing around bigamy and murder. The ending holds a surprise. I really wanted to love this book so much more than I did, but with each page turned, I tuned out a little bit more.

If you speak fluent Spanish, go for this book. You’ll likely enjoy it. If you are not, maybe look elsewhere for a book you can relate to more.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher from NetGalley. I thank all involved for their generosity, but it had no effect on this review. All opinions in this review reflect my true and honest opinions on reading this book.

It’s 1986 and Lore Rivera has two husbands. The first husband, who she married at age 20, lives in Laredo. The second husband, who she met on a business trip, lives in Mexico. When her worlds collide and both her husbands find out that she’s a bigamist, the first husband shoots the second husband.

In 2017, Cassie, a true crime blogger and aspiring journalist, comes across a newspaper article about Lore and her husbands. Cassie becomes obsessed with the story - how did Lore get away with it as a woman? Lore agrees to tell her story to Cassie and as Cassie begins investigating, she finds some discrepancies in witness accounts to the murder.

This story is haunting me. It’s told in the 1983-1986 timeline from Lore’s perspective, and in 2017 from both Cassie and Lore’s perspectives. This story really examines how what seem like small decisions add up and at what cost to the victims. I really enjoyed the development of the relationship between Lore and Cassie, and seeing Cassie’s personal growth throughout her sections of the story.