I liked the cover of this book much more than the story. To think, you’re navigating through your life with a mother in law you’d rather not have, and along comes your long lost sister. Your twin sister calls, the one you haven’t heard from in quite some time, and says you need to come with her to find your long lost mother, the one that abandoned you and your dad. Speaking of dad, he’s got some secrets he’s holding onto as well. Now, back to the call from your sister, she wants you to leave your family and help find the mother you’ve not heard from, and you and your husband are already having issues.
This story is told in the here and now as well as the past. This isn’t a bad book, it just shouldn’t have ended up on my shelf. It became a struggle for me to finish, but I labored through.
Thank you NetGalley for access to this book for my honest review.
Happy Reading /everyoe!

Great story of two girls on the run after dispensing justice…but also about family dynamics, secrets, and finding answers. Lots of back and forth from past to present in a good way. ReaLly enjoyed it.

Hard Girls is a hard book to become enmeshed in. I never did quite achieve that.
I found the flipping back and forth narrative a distraction and not to my liking.
The more I read about Lila and Jane the less I liked either of them
I finished the book but it wasn’t to my liking.

I really enjoyed this book. It was different than anything else I've read recently. I couldn't put it down! I will keep an eye out for this author's future work!

HARD GIRLS by J. Robert Lennon has an opening paragraph that gripped me by the throat and never let up! This one is a page turner!

In Nester, NY, Jane lives a very hum, ho, life. She gets up and goes to work each day, comes home to her husband Chance and 12-year-old daughter Chloe. She looks in on her father, who is a professor at the local university and has a very controlling mother-in-law. We learn that her mother, Annabel left home 20 years ago, and never returned. Jane and her twin sister Lila were then raised by their father.

After 10 years of silence from her sister, Jane is contacted by Lila, who reports that she knows where her mother is, and they need to go find her and find out why she left them all those years ago. Jane decides to follow Lila into the abyss and find strange and secretive clues that their mother may or may not have been sending to others all these years. The girls end up traveling too far off places in their search. but Jane and Lila are harboring secrets of their own, which may come back to haunt them. Is Jane’s leaving home a remake of Annabelle 20 years ago? Will she risk her dreary life to find her mother?

I really enjoyed Mr. Lennon‘s writing style. It led to a smooth and enjoyable few hours. I liked the way he led me down one road only to show me that I should have gone the other way. I also enjoyed the way he left clues throughout that I had to revisit. This is my first J. Robert Lennon thriller but I do not believe it will be my last.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for this ARC opportunity. All opinions are my own and given voluntarily.

Hard Girls was a decent read, but not a great read. I can't quite put my finger on what was lacking, but I barely remember it as I have read one book in between, so it just wasn't that memorable to me.

This was a fascinating read with interesting characters and a fast-paced plot. I appreciated the twists and turns in this book and how it kept me guessing.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for access to this title

The cover of the book caught my attention, and I was intrigued by the story of two sisters, Jane and Lila, who were searching for their mother after she left them with their father, Harry, who had his secrets. The novel included flashbacks of their childhood and the secret that led to their estrangement.

However, I must admit that I struggled with this book. I tried to appreciate the dark side of the characters, but I felt impatient to reach the point. I don't think it was a bad book, but I would tell my students that it simply wasn't the right book for me.






Publication Date 20/02/24
Goodreads Review 17/03/24

#HardGirls #NetGalley.

Thank you Novel Suspects for the physical ARC and Netgalley for the eARC. All opinions expressed bellow are mine alone.

This cat-and-mouse espionage thriller was definitely not for me. It started off strong, and I was truly invested in the story of the twins' life growing up. Once I hit the halfway point of this book, I found it a struggle to read. I became uninvested in the story altogether. The trope of "keeping a secret from the reader" started to really bother me and, generally speaking, caused me to become very confused as to what was going on.

Let's not forget to mention the reasoning for these twins finding their mother. I honestly have no clue why they would want to. They ruin their personal lives in search of their neglectful and absent mother, who left them at a young age.

Would I personally recommend this book? Not at all.

I had a hard time getting into this book. It follows two sisters, Jane and Lila who have grown estranged over the years. When they reunite to figure out what happened to their mother who went missing years prior, their journey takes them to unexpected places in both the past and the present. I just didn’t find their story to be particularly engaging, unfortunately.

At first appearances, 35-year-old Jane Pool is a person with a seemingly staid respectable life, but it’s a life that doesn’t fit–she’s married, has a daughter and has a close relationship with her father, Professor Pool. But scraping away these details, her marriage is in trouble, she’s an ex-con, her twin sister, Lila is incommunicado and her mother, Annabel disappeared 20 years earlier.

The story kicks off when Jane receives what appears to be a spam email, but Jane recognises it as a message from her sister. Years earlier Jane and Lila established a code using E. Nesbit’s book, The Railway Children. The sisters have not seen each other for over 10 years but now Lila has contacted Jane because she has a lead on Annabel’s whereabouts. Jane, already on probation as far as her husband and mother-in-law are concerned, packs lightly, knowing that she’s ditching her marriage and motherhood:

This was the thing they’d gone to therapy for, his patronizing, sexist fear that her distant past would rise and overwhelm her, leave her drugged and drunk in some alley, send her back to prison. The therapy hadn’t worked, because Chance hadn’t wanted to believe she could be trusted.

Following convoluted instructions, Jane finally meets her sister, and together they go searching for their mother. The story goes back and forth between the past and the present. While Jane and Lila follow their mother’s trail, Professor Pool removes his gun from this safe. …

It probably was not to my advantage as a reader that I read (and loved) Familiar, Happyland and Castle. (Ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd favs), and due to those reading experiences, I had certain content expectations–which to be honest is not fair at all to the author. Hard Girls is a crime novel which explores family loyalties, identity and the memories that form our histories. While Lila has taken the unconventional path, Jane has chosen safety, but those unanswered questions nag at the periphery of her existence. On another note, IMO Chance had a point about Jane being sucked back into her dark past. One minute she’s respectable and the next she’s nicking a car from a woman at an airport. Tsk Tsk.

Review copy.

I really enjoyed this dual timeline mystery. I found the pacing perfect for progressing the plot and also revealing parts of the story. The writing was really enjoyable and the characters were likable.

I was a bit nervous about this book going in and I am not entirely sure why. However, that being said, it wasn’t what I expected but I overall enjoyed my time with this book and Jane and Lila. I loved the then and now flashbacks. There are some tough moments of the book (tw: rape and suicide) that I feel like is not for every reader and can be triggering to some but both are momentary. Strong girls, crime, murder, present and past, this book has a lot packed into it’s pages.

I was originally attracted to this book because of the cover and description. It gave me indie vibes.

This is a slow burn thriller. The author is subtle yet clever and it has a very cat and mouse vibe going on.

However, multiple times it left me confused and I struggled getting into it and sticking with it.

I do recommend this book to those who love thrillers.

Thank you to the publisher and to netgalllery

I have a distinct memory as a high school student of finding The Light of Falling Stars at a bookstore while visiting my grandmother. I remember buying it and instantly becoming obsessed with it. I hadn't seen anything from J. Robert Lennon in awhile so when I saw this on NetGalley I was very excited to check it out.

It has been many years since Jane has had contact with either her twin sister Lila or their mother. She's established a life for herself with her husband and daughter, trying to heal from her traumatic past. When Lila reaches out to tell Jane she thinks she knows where their mother is, Jane decides to meet Lila and travel together to find their mother.

The narrative is split between present day Jane, Jane and Lila as teenagers, and their father. The whole story is slow to be revealed, but eventually we did find out everything and I thought the suspense and tension was enough to keep me engaged and wanting to read more.

J. Robert Lennon writes women really well -- he captured Jane's inner life and motivation really well. So much of this book is about the relationship between sisters, and between mothers and daughters, and all of that is captured in a realistic way.

Reading this makes me want to go back and read some of the J. Robert Lennon books I've missed in the past, and revisit The Light of Falling Stars. I will definitely check out another book about Jane and Lila - I was rooting for both of them by the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for the advanced copy of this book!

This was an interesting plot following sisters and their quest to locate their mother. The story jumps between the past and the present. I enjoyed the dynamic between the sisters but the parents' relationship could have used some development. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it.

Hard girls was a slow moving book for me. This is a story of the pool family. And their consequences from each other lives.

Thank you Novel Suspects and Mulholland for the review ebook of Hard Girls via netgalley.
This is one that I wanted to love, the cover art and plot about sisters and a missing mother and a complicated past/childhood... all wins for me in themes. And the writing is stylish, moody, and atmospheric, there is a a lot of solid tension within the plot and a little cat/mouse vibe at times and a lot of the past timeline part of story was well done.
But for me Novel Suspects got in its own way a bit, a little too heavy on dual timelines and heavy on details that made the book feel slow, not slow burn which I love. This was one I put down a bit more than I planned to, tried out on audio as well, but often felt a little muddled with keeping track of the plot and keeping my own interest strong.

Hard Girls is an intriguing novel in one of my favorite sub-genres: espionage thriller. I love a good spy thriller. This is a spy thriller crossed with a female-centric sleuth mystery laced with suspense. (Throw in a splash of sibling fiction, too).

Hard Girls has a great story. It reminds me of a more mature and less magical The Wilderwomen or Where the Echoes Die, both stories where two sisters who have grown apart go on road trips to search for their (respective) missing mothers. In all three of three books you’ve got a sister who’s more in the know than the other and one who’s a little more jaded than the other. I’d say Hard Girls has more realistic consequences at stake than the other two titles, but I really can’t speak to that. I suspect some folks at Langley would have to do something to me if I knew!

Where Hard Girls wore thin with me was the frequency of timeline switching. This narrative device is a useful tool in many ways, but I felt like it was used as too much of an expositional crutch in this book. Instead of working to fuel the present-day timeline it seemed more often to just explain the past. The result? Glorified flashbacks. I’m of the firm opinion that 95% of the time flashbacks are lazy writing. In the end, it didn’t matter how well-written the past-timeline chapters were, because they didn’t fuel the present-timeline story. They disrupted the pacing of the story. I also felt like the chapters from Harry’s POV either could’ve been eliminated or his part of the story could’ve been dealt with differently. The story should’ve belonged to Jane and Lila.

Other than that, the novel is engaging, imaginative, compelling, and a solid read.

I was provided the eARC of this title by NetGalley and the author. I was provided a finished copy of this title by Mulholland Books and the Novel Suspects Insider’s Club. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Espionage Thriller/Suspense Mystery

Hard Girls opens with Jane Pool’s quiet and seemingly normal existence upended by an email. On the surface it looks like spam but Jane knows it’s not. Thus begins a chain of events that take Jane and her twin sister Lila on a journey to answer questions about and come to terms with their past. Told in dual timelines between the past and the present and through the perspective of the twins and their father we uncover the past they have tried to bury and learn the story of who they are and where they come from.

I read Lennon’s book Subdivision and loved it. I’m not sure I understood it but it is the kind of strange and wonderful book I love. When I learned he had a new novel I was eager to pick it up even though it is billed as a chase novel, an espionage thriller, and a domestic suspense which is not what I normally read. I’ve looked at the reviews and they are mixed. I can see why. If you go into this book expecting a page turning, hang on the edge or your seat, fast paced thriller or suspense novel you will be disappointed. Maybe we gravitate toward what we are most interested in when we read, but I found this book as more of an exploration of navigating who we are and how our families and our past shape this and how we come to terms with a difficult or uncertain past. Yes this is framed by what you would see in a thriller or suspense novel, but I saw that as a device to explore the deeper themes of self discovery, self acceptance, and closure. The chase is in many ways about finding oneself and making peace with where we come from and the actions we’ve taken.

This book includes depictions and explorations of topics that may be triggering so please check warnings (rape). This does lead to some exploration of being a victim when someone expressed interest in their perpetrator and how one navigates feelings of responsibility. Overall I felt very engaged with the story. There were enough unanswered questions and pieces to put together that I wasn’t able to figure out on my own that kept me wanting to read.

Thank you @muhollandbooks @netgalley for the #gifted eARC.