
Member Reviews

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
This was an ok thriller. It was difficult to get into at first, but was thrilling in the end.

This was amazing. I loved the names and I loved the reminder that our elders did scandalous things and had interesting lives before becoming grandmas.
This was extra interesting because it went over things that happened during the civil rights movement and the way women, in particular white women, handled it.
The narration was wonderful too!

I was very excited for this listen. The narrator was great but the story missed the mark for me. The back and forth had confusing moments and became hard to follow. There were secrets and suspense so I'm sure others will enjoy it.

Many thanks to the author, narrator, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-audio version of this title in exchange for my review.
I was so excited for this book, Cooney was a favorite author back when I was a teen and I've shared her books with my daughter as she got older. I've always enjoyed her writing style. So it was a huge disappointment to get into this book. It was so confusing, bouncing around time lines and characters - and so many different names for each character! I was so confused I re started the audiobook a few times and was still lost. Maybe following along in the text would make it clearer, I'm not sure.
I also noticed from other reviews that this is a sequel of sorts. I haven't read the previous book, and am wondering if that would have made a difference.
I enjoy Cooney's writing and her past books enough that I plan to find the previous title and then try this again after reading that one. But for now, I'm afraid this will be a 2 star rating for me, for 'it was ok'.

Cooney’s book begins with white supremacy in the 1960s, a time with frightening parallels to today. In the early 1960s, Christaphine discovers her husband and his friends are about to do something terrible and she stops them, but she must flee town and never return. Fifty years later, Muffin is terrified when she sees a man in her local church, a man that looks frighteningly familiar. Cooney, perhaps best known for her many YA thrillers takes a dive into both ageism and racism in this book, which could have been even better if the events of the past had been more clearly defined
Sponsored Content

This is a review of the audiobook. The main character is an older woman and the perspective takes place in the present day and her retelling events from fifty years ago. Narrator Mary Boyer does an amazing job of capturing her character. The way she speaks I just have the perfect picture of who I should be looking at.
This story handles a lot of tough times in our history. It handles segregation and the civil rights movement. It gives all these topics the care it deserves while showing just how desperate we needed to be better. I liked the way all of these sensitive topics were handled.
The actual story itself I found not as interesting as the subject matter around it. In 1964 Christaphine stopped her husband from committing a despicable crime. Her only option left was to run away and never come back. Fifty years later she now goes by the name Muffin and while in church she sees someone from her past. She tells her friend Clemmie and then it opens up all the secrets the women have been hiding.
The writing and the characters in this book are great and the subject matter discussed is important and handled well. While I didn’t like the overall story I still do recommend this book.