Gia and Abby have been best friends since childhood, Gia the daughter of a rich family and Abby the daughter of the family's personal chef. The book starts after the death of Gia's father as she prepares to sell her inherited estate on a small Greek island in the Mediterranean. Abby, a down to earth bookish lawyer, and Gia the flashy, entitled heiress have recently had a falling out. Gia invites Abby to spend a weekend with her and her brother Benny at a posh Swedish resort under the Northern Lights. Abby, hoping for reconciliation, arrives at the resort to find Benny, but no Gia. After after a series of cryptic messages from Gia and a few threatening emails hinting at a past secret tragedy, Abby and Benny race to the family estate suspecting foul play.

Most of the story is told in split point of view between present day Abby and a the manuscript of Gia's memoir. There is a bit of a Gone Girl vibe as you read. What of this story can be believed vs. what is embellished and why? If you've ever read a psychological thriller, you know the motto of "trust no one" and this one is no exception. Even still, the author found ways to mislead and ultimately surprise me which is a gold star achievement for me in this genre. Combined with the breezy backdrop of the Greek mediterranean, this book was a winner for me! This might have been 5 starts if not for the ambiguous ending which I was rather ambivalent about. I thought the author could have pulled out more reveals here leading to confrontation of the wrongs and ultimately justice.

Thanks NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballentine for giving me the chance to review this. Katherine Wood is a new author for me and I look forward to reading more!

This was such a good book! I loved the characters, and their story. The dialogue was realistic and enjoyable. I was very surprised by the ending!

3.25
I like the shifting of POV’s but just like any other people, I kind of find the story a bit slow. It gradually picked up halfway, but became slow again... I really don’t mind slow burns, but I feel like there are some unnecessary plot lines that I don’t really care for. The story is promising and the author was very descriptive with the setting which makes the readers feel like they are really in Greece.
I feel like the author went on a vaycay recently and had a Greece-Hangover.
Overall, it was a promising book.

I requested to read and review this book for free from Bantam an Imprint of Random House. This book I will say truthfully it was hard to get into at first. But the more I read the more I wanted to find out what was going to happen next. This book will leave you guess until the end and then maybe more. This story line has drama, suspense, romance and mystery. Characters Abby has always lived in someone else is shadow but is grateful for that or resentful. Gia has had a carefree attitude on life and the people in her life. For her what is real and what is not. Benny how does he fit into the lives of the people he loves. Timeo, Emelia and Garrett all play a role in life. But is their role real or maybe fake or not what it seems.

A tangled web of lies and deceit. So many truths to uncover…

A sexy thriller that is so atmospheric you won’t want to put it down! I loved how the story was structured with the past and present timelines and dual point of views. As I was reading along I knew something wasn’t right, but I had no idea where the story was going next. Gia is such a mysterious character, and I was constantly surprised by her behavior. There is so much mystery throughout and so many pieces to the puzzle. I was so intrigued by the story and found it so entertaining!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the

Dark and twisted. A good mystery thriller that kept me guessing, all the way through that last chapter.

The story may be a bit confusing at first. There are two POV and 2 timelines - there are chapters numbered for Abby and her POV. And there are numbered chapters for Gia POV.

Abby is in the now. She's preparing to visit a childhood best friend she hasn't seen in awhile. Abby has been wrapped up with work and Gia has been recently in a whirlwind romance and a quick wedding.

Gia's chapters are from just a month or so before the now. And she's trying to get her writing going again by writing about her day to day with her new husband while they vacation in a home she recently inherited.

The story is compelling. The chapters may be told from different people and be very different stories, but they hold well being together in one book. Gia's chapters are a bit spicy. She has some pretty intense chemistry with her husband but they are both adventurous and they have a new couple that has befriended them on the island. As you try to work out if everyone is as they say they are, it's hard to stop reading their story, the web is so fun to try to untangle.

I loved the tension and the mystery. Gia's chapters always had a layer of danger to them, as they pushed boundaries and tempers heated. I loved that I never knew what she was going to do next and who to believe. The story had me hooked and the twists kept me guessing. This isn't your average mystery and I loved the feel of reading something that stands out. This one was good!

This was an interesting story. It begins with the funeral of Papa Hugo a well to do man with many children and ex-wives. The story is told through the best friend of his daughter from his second wife and through the manuscript of this daughter. Abby and Gia have been best friends since they were teens. They have even survived an awful tragedy together. Gia, Hugo's daughter. and Abby have become estranged following the funeral and Gia's hasty marriage. Gia in an attempt to reconnect invites Benny (her brother) and Abby to see the Aurora Borealis for her 30th birthday.


This book had a lot of twists and turns. I did figure some of the surprised. There is a lot going on in this book. Not always sure who to trust and who to believe.

It was a fun and easy read. A great summer beach read.


Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Ballentine Books for the ARC of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

If you are looking for a mystery with a lot going on, then Ladykiller by Katherine Wood is the book for you. I found myself quickly pulled into the story. Multiple points of view of storytelling is one of my favorites. This is told between the two main characters, Abby and Gia, more accurately Gia’s manuscript. This is where there is so much happening. As a reader there are times when you are left not knowing what is real, what is exaggerated or what is just a lie. The story left me with certain things left unanswered. Not sure which way to believe. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam for the ARC!

This was one wild ride! An heiress gone missing and her best friend goes searching. There are enough twists and turns to give you whiplash. I truly had no idea where things were headed and was totally wrong every time I thought I had it figured out. I think this is going to be a bestseller, a total beach read. Thanks so much for the arc and I’ll recommend closer to publication day!

Ladykiller is a suspense / psychological thriller that reminds me of a cross between Talented Mr. Ripley and Gone Girl. Like other reviewers before me, it took until I was about halfway through before I was completely invested in the outcome. This book had copious (largely unnecessary) amounts of graphic sexual content including disturbing and violent encounters.

Told from two perspectives and two timelines, the story does move slowly in the beginning. Best friends Abby and Gia haven’t seen a lot of each other in quite some time. It’s clear some kind of tragedy occurred some 13 years prior and things hadn’t been the same since. In a bid to rekindle a strained friendship, the two (plus Gia’s brother, Benny) make plans to go to Sweden to view the Aurora Borealis for Gia’s 30th birthday. When the birthday girl is a no show, Abby and Benny become concerned and find themselves returning to Greece where it all began and hoping it isn’t too late to save Gia’s life.

Outside of the explicit content, which I didn’t care for nor did it add anything of value to the plot line, this book was a fun thriller to read on a cold weekend in winter when you’re dreaming of a Mediterranean island getaway… that being said, fair warning, this book does leave the reader with a fair amount of questions. It does not resolve the dissonance, but then again, it is a psychological thriller.

I’d like to thank Random House and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

What a wild ride this book was! This one is going down as one of my favorite thrillers as well as her first book, The Lion’s Den.

She can quickly captivate you with her characters. The storylines are rich and intriguing. They are also so unique!

This one was a crazy ride and I couldn’t stop turning the pages. The ending was perfection!

Huge thanks to Netgalley!

Wow this was one of those great stories when you had to read the next page to see what was going to happen next. Had me on the edge of my seat quite a few times.

Ladykiller is a compelling read, written with complex characters and luxurious settings. The Greek Isles and its culture drew me into the story centered around Gia, the central character. Gia is young and consistently impulsive, a trait that shapes her life, and rarely for the better. She's self-absorbed, promiscuous, and yet vulnerable. Her friend, Abby, is the more stable character who tries to tame Gia's impulsiveness, but rarely succeeds. This imbalance remains at the heart of the story. The alternating POV between the women deepens our understanding of both and this reviewer found them almost equally empathetic. The pacing of this novel is terrific, and the story never lags. It's often exciting, sometimes heart wrenching, but always interesting.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing an advance copy of this book to read and review. This review will post to Bayside Book Reviews at https://baysidebookreviews.com and its Instagram page on release day. Follow us! *NetGalley Top Reviewer*

Gia and Abby have been childhood friends, although they come from totally different backgrounds. Gia is spoiled, rich and entitled. Abby is from a poor, single parent family whose mother works as Gia's maid. It is an unusual friendship and it is complicated by a incident that happened in their youth.
Ladykiller by Katherine Wood has a beautiful, opulent Greek setting with fabulous wealthy characters. Unfortunately I hated all of them. The story was slow and at times tedious, with massive amounts of gratuitous sexual activities thrown in, in an attempt to keep you interested. However, it just bored and annoyed me as I am not interested in the sex life of the rich and famous. The friendship between Gia and Abby never made sense to me either. The plot device of switching between Abby's point of view and Gia's manuscript also made it hard to keep interested as neither character felt real, yet both characters seemed entirely too naive. I kept reading the story to see what the big mystery was and ultimately it was disappointing to me.
You may like the beautiful scenic landscapes. You may like the sexual exploits of the characters. You may also like the duplicitous behavior of the characters and the twist of the story. It just wasn't for me.
Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine and Bantam for the advanced copy. The opinions are my own.

Abby and Gia have been best friends since they were teenagers. Abby's mom worked for Gia's rich family. Gia's family loved Abby and took her under their wing. Gia's brother, Benny, is also a main character and love interest for Abby. The story takes place in the present day when Benny, Gia and Abby are all going to see the Northern Lights for Gia's birthday. The 3 of them haven't been together in many years. Gia has just had a whirlwind romance which ended in marriage to Garrett. The book goes back and forth between 2 main storylines: Gia's manuscript which is a timeline of "real" recent events and Abby's storyline in which she and Benny have arrived at the meet up but Gia is no where to be found. As we read we find out that Gia and Abby have had a traumatic event in the past that wasn't all that it seemed. Abby and Gia have secrets that are unraveled as the stories unfold. Has Gia been kidnapped by her new husband or is there more to this story? I enjoyed the book and the characters pulled me in. The middle of it got a little slow but the end had many twists and turns that were good. I wasn't thrilled with how it ended because there were too many loose ends that weren't tied up for my taste. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for giving me an advanced copy of this book to read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine for the ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I really don’t know how to rate this one. There were elements of the book I throughly enjoyed and others I felt were just “meh” for me.

I’ll start with the good: the book is so hard to put down; I finished it in a day and I didn’t even pick the book up until the afternoon. Woods writing is pretty straightforward but pay attention to her word choices because she clues you in on the plot early on. If you like looking for clues in your thrillers you’ll love this one. And lastly, she really didn’t throw in a lot of “red herrings”. Honestly, she was pretty straightforward with who the antagonists are if you pay attention but it’s not overly noticeable so you still get a decent twist at the end of the book.

Now for the bad: Sex is a pretty strong theme in this book. I am not opposed to sex in books at all but with the amount in this book it’s hard to believe anyone accomplished a crime at all. And sometimes it felt like the sex was used as a ploy rather than a natural part of the plot. Second, the shift between present POV and manuscript was a little confusing at times because one happened months ago and the other was present but they didn’t fully relate to each other so I felt like I was constantly having to remember where in the timeline I was.

I would say a solid 3.5 star book. It comes out in July so a great choice for a day at the beach.

What a twisty intense mess! I was intrigued the whole way through.

Although a few more predictable plot points, I didn’t see the ending coming!

I flew through this book - I was rooting for the protagonist and the brother the whole way through. The con artists were a nice touch as well, and the setting was perfect.

I’ve read this authors other books and didn’t realize she changed her pen name! Loved the setting and the characters, a little windy in building suspense but overall enjoyed it.

Now, any book that begins with a cheetah eating a warthog has my undivided attention! This was a fast-paced story full of drama and suspense in a gorgeous setting. I say that last part because it may have been my favorite part of the story. Excellent descriptions of the surroundings! Abby travels to Greece to visit her friend Gia and Gia's brother Benny. When she arrives, Gia is gone. Gia was also newly married to a shady guy who Abby and Benny were both against Gia marrying. The story is told from both Abby's and Gia's POV and I didn't really like either one of them, but the story still held my attention. It was a bit predictable, but that wasn't an issue. The ending did leave me with a few questions, but overall, a fun read. It's like a vacation without leaving the house! I look forward to more from this author!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Katherine Wood and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I will post my review to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Instagram and other retail and social media sites upon publication.

I received an ARC of this book from Random House via NetGalley in exchange for my honest feedback. This is my second NetGalley book in a row to which I have given 5 stars and also felt that the title does not really match the book! I loved the vivid descriptions of the Greek island - the food, the house, the hot men speaking broken English. And I tend to be a fan of books about friends through the years, so I enjoyed reading about the evolution of Gia & Abby's friendship. Toward the end, I started to suspect one of the characters whom I really did not want to suspect. I assume the author wanted us to suspect this person to increase the suspens,e but I am glad ultimately it didn't go in that direction. As others have said, the ending is ambiguous. I usually hate that but for some reason it did not bother me as much with this book. How about a sequel???