The Homemaker by Shari J Ryan is an absolutely gripping contemporary psychological thriller that I just could not put down. Right from the start Shari J Ryan drew me in, as I questioned what was happening.
The action is written in the third person from alternating points of view and different time periods. The reader gets inside some of the characters heads as we learn their motivations.
Suburbia – friendly, community minded, safe – No! Behind the chintzy curtains, the neighbours hide and watch. There are many secrets. Monsters and angels both wear smiles – truth and lies – read the book and decide who can be trusted.
There is the theme of real or imagined? Do we believe what our memories tell us? Or is the what is real spoken by others? Trauma shuts down minds as reality and imagination blur.
All the characters were well drawn and realistic. Shari J Ryan has created a marvellous leading lady who has our sympathies. We ‘feel’ her frustration as she searches her mind for the truth.
The Homemaker is a compulsive read that will mess with your mind. The explosive finale left me with heart racing and jaw dropping. Grab a copy of The Homemaker today and lose yourself within the pages for a few hours.
I received a free copy from the author via Net Galley. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

The Homemaker by Shari J. Ryan

What did I just read? This is the best suspenseful thriller I have read all year!

Jenna and Oliver just moved in to their dream home in the most sort after suburb. They felt so lucky to be able to buy this property as no house has been on the market in this neighbourhood for years. Everything is perfect, the neighbours are friendly and Jenna may have found her new best friend in Peyton, their neighbour across the road.

Oliver can not wait to start a family but Jenna who is a child-law attorney wants to wait a few years until she is more established in her field. Then out of the blue Jenna falls pregnant and just three weeks later so does Peyton now they will be even more closer than ever….or will they?

I loved this book and did not want to put it down. I think Shari J. Ryan is my new favourite author. I have already purchased two more of her books that I cannot wait to read.

I would like to thank Net Galley and Bookouture for a copy of this eBook in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to Shari J. Ryan, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a advanced copy of The Homemaker, which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
This is the 1st book I have read by SHari Ryan but it wont be the last.
The story centers on 3 women: Jenna, Peyton, and Ginger. The latter two are already neighbors when Jenna moves in. Jenna's husband, Oliver, finds the neighborhood and the perfect house. They have always wanted to live in this neighborhood and jumped at it when they heard it was coming up for sale. I was hooked right away and couldn't put it down. It has neighborhood drama, mystery and psychological issues. I don't want to give any spoilers but just know this is a must read you can't stop reading.

This book totally reminded me of Astoria Lane… It is so layered and to give a summary in itself is perplexing because whose summary should I give you ginger whose husband is missing, Llewellyn who is husband was murdered in a premeditated car accident or Peyton who herself has many POV‘s. Maybe I should start with Jen who leans over to look at her beautiful baby River, oh wait to find an empty child seat with the blanket she needed. When she panics and asked about the whereabouts of her baby her husband Owen tries to be accommodating but it’s failing all she wants to know is where is her baby and all he wants her to do is to calm down. This is a cluster crunch of great thriller twist and turns with more than one juicy story line. If you were tired of all the same tropes and thrillers then rest a sure the HomeMaker is the “different” you were looking for. Just a couple of words of advice one make sure you have time to read this because things will fall by the way side and you won’t even know time is passing and to be prepared for a wild ride! I have never before read a book by this author but I will definitely be following her on every platform I can this is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book and one I highly highly recommend a definite five star read! I received this book from NetGalley and Bookoucher but I am definitely leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

The Homemaker by Shari J. Ryan is a twisty, intense, complex and unsettling page-turner.
I seen another reviewer mention that this was just like a lifetime movie at I couldn’t agree more.
Ryan has a very clever way of drawing you into the story and it is so addictive you will find it hard to out down once you start to read it.
I enjoyed the characters, the twists, the writing and how intriguing the story was.
A tightly plotted mystery with so many twisty angles.
Full of dizzying twists and turns that will keep readers riveted to its pages.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and Bookouture for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

𝑷𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒅𝒂𝒚𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝑰'𝒎 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕, 𝒏𝒐 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒖𝒑 𝒂 𝒎𝒆𝒔𝒔. 𝑰'𝒎 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒏𝒐 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒂 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒕 𝒔𝒎𝒖𝒅𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔.

As a longtime reader of thrillers, mysteries, and domestic suspense, it takes a lot to shock me, but this book did exactly that. Teeming with a Desperate Housewives vibe, THE HOMEMAKER unfolds with alternating points of view, Jenna and Ginger, and a dual timeline. Jenna is new to the neighborhood and finds out there is a mystery surrounding the couple who previously owned the house and abruptly left it. Jenna's story was intense as she appears to be in the throes of severe postpartum depression, but the reader soon learns that her son River was stillborn. That entire storyline was so tense, so compelling, that I had to know more about what was going on.

Ginger is an older woman across the street who has become obsessed with watching doorbell footage after her husband's disappearance. Her character is expertly crafted, and the scenes with her semi-estranged sons were all too realistic.

Finally, there is a third POV that emerges that will totally change this story's trajectory. Be forewarned, the ending is ambiguous on this one, but it WORKS. This deftly plotted story and its devious characters will stay with me for a long time! Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the early read. THE HOMEMAKER will publish June 12, 2023.

This is my first time reading this author and she did not disappoint! The book grabbed me from the beginning and kept my interest till the end! The book has twists and turns you don't see coming! Loved this book and recommend it highly!
Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to read this!

Quick, fast paced read with a mixture of ‘saw that coming’ and ‘Whoa!/What?’ Lots of interesting twists. Chapters identify character point of view and timeline. I enjoyed the read!
Thank You to NetGalley and Bookouture for the opportunity to enjoy this ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley, Bookouture and the author for the chance to read and review this book. I found it to be a very interesting story/plot...definitely not something I'd read before. The main characters are basically 3 women that live on the same quiet, tree-lined street. The newest neighbours are Jenna and her husband Oliver who are a career couple from the city, looking to live a quiet life and hopefully raise a family at some point. The other neighbours, who play key roles are Ginger, the middle-age woman across the street whose husband is missing and has grown sons who no longer live at home...so Ginger spends her days watching door camera footage of the goings on around the street. The other main character is who Ginger refers to as "perfect Peyton", a bubbly, friendly young wife who quickly befriends Jenna across the street. There is more to all three of these women than first meets the eye. We are taken on a wild, winding ride with these 3 and their back stories. We slowly come to learn why this beautiful house that Jenna and Oliver got a great deal on was on the market in the first place...there's a mystery surrounding the previous owners that gets slowly revealed. There are mysteries surrounding Ginger's missing husband, who appears to have just up and ran off on the family with no explanation. Is everything as it seems with these women? The biggest mystery starts right away with Jenna, who has just given birth to a baby boy named River. She is extremely exhausted and confused and can barely stay awake...and then when she tries to take care of the baby, her husband and doctors tell her she doesn't have a baby and she's suffering from the trauma. We get to watch this twisted story slowly unravel until we figure out exactly what has happened to River, to Ginger's husband...and it's a great read trying to get to that point where all is revealed. What a reveal it is too! The only thing I have to say is that the end left me a bit confused. It was a bit abrupt, and the very last paragraph left me with questions. Maybe that was the author's point though. Overall a great mystery/thriller. This is the first book I've read by this author and I think this was the first time the author branched out into mystery/thriller writing as most of the other books seem to be about WW2 (another one of my favourite types of books to read, so I'll definitely check them out)...so it was a great first go into this new genre.

This was an amazing read. Shari J Ryan always keeps one with that "Can't put the book down" feeling. Sometimes it put you on the edge of your seat. Unfortunately, I could see this story come to life as the world of today seems to be going crazy. This is the story of newlyweds that have dreamed of living in a family neighborhood. When Oliver finds the perfect old house, Jenna is thrilled to move in to it. Little does she know her life will be turned upside down with a twist at the end. Ms. Ryan has become my new favorite author. Her stories are fiction but one gets lost in the world she has created. Love, drama and mystery are rolled together to create a heart wrenching story. A must read for this summer.

The long and the short of it in this book is that Jenna is apparently experiencing some sort of psychosis after giving birth to her precious baby boy that she was to call River. However, not only does Jenna find herself inpatient due to a mental health crisis, she learns that she does not indeed have a baby.

The way Shari J. Ryan wrote this story was to bring in some events from the past. The fact that Jenna, a knowledgeable and well-spoken attorney who has experienced the unthinkable, was handled quite well. This is a story of misdirection, and although I figured it out at about the 70% mark, I was intrigued as to the past and motives of all of the characters, thus making this a compelling one-sitting read.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

We follow 2 main POVs in this story. Jenna and Ginger. Jenna who is the new to the neighborhood. She is the one in the description of the book that remembers giving birth to her son being very much alive but her husband insists her didn't make it. Ginger who is the older woman across the street who sees most of the goings on in the neighborhood thanks to a door camera she has. A third POV is added later on in the story as well. There has been 2 mysterious deaths in the neighborhood that we later find out. I'm not going to go into detail with those because it would spoil the story. There are too many plot twists to explain the story more than that without spoiling anything.

The positives:

✔️ Quick read
✔️ Unpredictable plot twists
✔️ Engaging and entertaining throughout
✔️ Unreliable narrators (love this in a book)

Now for the negatives:

*STOP HERE TO AVOID SPOILERS*

There were some holes in the story that didn't make much sense to me that caused me to take away some stars.

Ginger just accepted the fact that her husband abandoned his family for no reason when he was clearly sick before she left the house to get him medicine?! How Ginger's son knew Peyton was in the house that very night his father disappeared but just never mentioned it to anyone?! How everyone was so accepting to the fact that Jenna was delusional about her baby being stillborn even there was no death certificate or proof other than what her husband was saying when she so clearly remembered her son being alive?! Surely her mother would have at least believed her. Definitely wouldn't have accused her own daughter of murdering her child without having ANY proof. How Oliver just accepted the fact that his ex-girlfriend who he statutory raped was their new neighbor?! Oliver was just so ready to give up his son (something he has wanted for so long) to a clearly not mentally stable woman. Things like that just kind of made me be like "oh come on". I get that it's a book and I have no problem suspending belief. It was a little outlandish, even for me.

Reading the above you would think I didn't enjoy the book. I <b>did</b> enjoy the book despite it's "flaws". I say flaws like that because someone else might enjoy what I thought of as flaws. It was just kind of those moments that kept it from being a 4 or 5 star book for me. This book was enjoyable enough for me to check out more of her books. :)

Thanks so much Shari J. Ryan, NetGalley, and Bookouture for the ARC of this book.

This book was fantastic, and so much more than how the synopsis made it sound. The story centers on 3 women: Jenna, Peyton, and Ginger. The latter two are already neighbors when Jenna moves in. We know there are some chinks in the relationships between all 3, and also some suspicion around the couple that lived in Jenna’s house previously, but it was impossible for me to figure out who is really unstable and who is lying. When the unthinkable happens and Jenna is told that her baby was stillborn, it all comes to a head, and the reader is brought along on the journey through a mixture of past and present timelines and alternating POVs.

I really couldn’t figure out who was telling the truth; I love to be kept guessing! All of the characters shifted between behaviors that made sense and behaviors that didn’t. That being said, I could empathize with all of them in one way or another. I went back and forth the entire book trying to figure out what was really happening. I figured out one of the major twists but there were others that totally surprised me. I liked the end for the most part was confused about the very last page- I went back and read the chapter and still wasn’t entirely sure what the very end was referencing.

Overall, I thought this was a fantastic book and I finished it over a period of a few hours. I’m rating it 4.5 vs 5 just because I was somewhat perplexed by the very end, but would definitely recommend it to those who like the domestic suspense genre. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was just what I expected it to be.. lots of twists and turns regarding the main characters and finding out the truth... is there a baby?? You will read quickly though and think you know whats happening and you will be wrong!

I found this hard to get in to and harder to stick at. The reveal felt below the standard of the book.

The Homemaker by Shari J. Ryan was a wild ride. Clear your time schedule because once you pick this book up, it's hard to stop reading. There are multiple stories going on told from the perspective of 3 different people, but it works in this book. The book takes place in a neighborhood where Jenna and Oliver have just moved in. A recent empty nester, Ginger, lives across the street, and next to her lives Peyton and Lincoln. Oh how the plot thickens and we find out long kept secrets and twisted personalities. The author did a wonderful job bringing these characters to life and I simply couldn't stop reading. The book had a very satisfying ending and was one of those books you're sad to see end. Thank you to Bookouture and Netgalley for the ARC. I highly highly recommend this book if you like thrillers. It does not disappoint.

Compelling, captivating and oh so readable! I love stories set in neighborhoods where the secrets spill out one by one. This thriller has it all - beautiful neighborhood, seemingly nice neighbors and lots of secrets - and danger!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #Bookouture for allowing me to read and review #TheHomemaker by #ShariRyan. This book is amazing. It has a dark and twisted side that I love in a book. So many stars.

Fantastic psychological thriller which had me hooked. It tells the story from 3 different perspectives and timelines which keeps the suspense going. Excellent fast paced thriller which I highly recommend.

Clear your schedule this is a book you won’t be able to put down. The characters are well developed and the story is captivating. It’s told from the perspective of 3 people and normally that puts me off but it works well in this setting. . I’ll give this one 5 stars.