This novel delivers a compelling story about sisterhood and mystery, with a well-crafted setting that enhances the suspense. The characters and plot, while occasionally relying on familiar tropes, remain engaging and emotionally resonant. Though the pacing is uneven at times, the book provides a satisfying and enjoyable read. I was definitely drawn to the cover of this book as well!

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The Perfect Sister is the perfect summer read! Or any other season if you're feeling nostalgic for summer. The novel is set in the Hamptons on Long Island, a picturesque location on the southern shores where quaint businesses and homes stand juxtaposed against mansions of the rich. Alex's quest to find her sister is full of twists and turns that leave the reader saying "just one more chapter" until the book is done- and then you'll probably want to read it all over again! The themes of devotion to one's family and the poisons of wealth without consequences drive the characters' individual motivations, creating a complex plot with multiple point of view. Truly, DeCarolis outdoes herself once again with her third novel!

This story starts with the abduction and gruesome murder of two young girls that rocks the small town of Clifton, Georgia. Emmy is a police officer and her Dad(the police chief) is in Clifton. Together, they work to solve the crime. There’s an arrest, and the perpetrator is jailed. Twelve years later, there is another missing girl. As Emmy works to solve the crime, she gets help from her older woman, Jude(who is an FBI agent. As they try to solve the crime and find the missing girl, the past keeps rearing its head, encroaching on the present.  More about the town and the people is revealed. This story moves between the past and present, revealing clues about the crimes. As Emmy and her team race against time to find the missing girl, they must reevaluate the past. And they find what they thought they knew was tainted. 

 This book is a fast-paced whodunit that shifts between two different crimes.    This book kept me on the edge of my seat with each shocking revelation.

The Perfect Sister feels like a good book to pick up for your beach vacation. Set in the Hamptons, Alex Walker arrives to find her sister who she hasn't heard from. As her hunt for her progresses, she begins to suspect the family that her sister, and now Alex, are staying with have something to do with it. All in all, I thought it was a good story. The beginning moved a little slow and it was a bit predictable, but I enjoyed it and thought the ending was good..

Thank you Bantam Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This story is told from multiple perspectives and takes a bit of time to tell. It was hard to get into but eventually arrives at the missing sister being checked on by the other in an unfamiliar place. Not a bad story but not thrilling overall.

This book is told from the perspective of 2 sisters (Alex and Maddie), the family Maddie was staying with in the Hamptons, and an unknown person labeled “The Wharf.” Alex sets off from their small home town to the Hamptons in search of Maddie after she doesn’t show up for Alex’s birthday. When she gets there, she encounters the secretive Blackwell family. Will she be able to find Maddie?

This book was just okay. I felt like it went a little long and the twist at the end wasn’t as shocking as I was hoping it would be. It was hard to connect to any of the characters. If anything, most of the characters just annoyed me (and not in the love to hate kind of annoyance). I would be interested to read something else by this author, but this one just fell a little flat for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book.

The Perfect Sister is a smart, twisty beach read that will appeal to fans of domestic suspense and psychological thrillers. If you enjoy stories with high emotional stakes, rich settings, and morally complex characters, this one is worth picking up. While not flawless, it’s a compelling page-turner that delivers on drama and intrigue.

Creepy and compulsively readable, with well-timed reveals. The sibling dynamic had real weight, though I wished for a little more character nuance. Still, it had me guessing and second-guessing right up to the final chapters. Solid psychological thriller vibes.

This was a good book. Most of the action happened in the last 25% of the book, so I thought a big chunk of the book was just a lot of back story and fluff to make the story longer.

I enjoyed that there was a lot of narrators, it helped keep the chapters and characters separate.

I love a thriller with multiple POVs and different timelines! I also find books with intricate family dynamics interesting, and The Perfect Sister had all three of these things. I read a lot of thrillers (it's one of my favorite genres!) so I tend to read them a bit more critically since it takes more to truly "wow" me. I genuinely did not see any of the twists and turns in this coming. They all took me completely by surprise.

I highly recommend getting your hands on this perfect-for-summer thriller read ASAP!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for the ARC. This is the story of two sisters who grew up with a mother that definitely favored one over the other. Maybe it is because of that, Alex and Maddie were extremely close. Maddie leaves town and promises Alex to never miss her birthday. Then she does miss it. Alex is on a mission to go find Maddie in the Hamptons. The book is written in chapters from each of the characters, and I found it hard at times to remember who was who. The story has mystery, some suspense and murder, hence it being classified as a mystery. It also is classified as a thriller, but for me, I didn't feel that at all.

What a rollercoaster this book was. There were times I thought I had it figured out but I was wrong. Pretty much every time, I was wrong. It would have been a higher rating but for me there was just so much filler that I found myself skimming parts of it just to get the plot to move along. Overall I would recommend it to those who enjoy mysteries though.

*I received this book through NetGalley.*

The beach season is ramping up and I am ready!

I was looking for a great book to read on vacation and found it here. The Perfect Sister is an intriguing psychological suspense story by Stephanie DeCarolis that fit the bill. Strong characters and well written dialogue. I have not read this writer before but will look for more from her. The perfect beach read.

Family drama!!

After not hearing from her sister Maddie for a while, Alex heads to the Hamptons to search for her. Maddie had been staying at the Blackwell mansion at the time she went missing. Alex ends up talking with them and staying there for a while. But things do not seem quite right with the Blackwells.

This was twisty and an interesting read!

Thanks NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for an ARC.

While I did want to keep reading this because I wanted the answer I didn't love the book. I think it was just a little too slow for a thriller in my opinion a little too much backstory (and yes I often complain that I want more backstory) I just think it would have been better narrowed in more.

The cover is what made me want to read this book but unfortunately everything after that just fell flat to me. Not only was it a bit far fetched but it continued to drag on.
The premise was good but it just didn’t hook me.

Thank you Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the free copy of this book!

The Perfect Sister is the story of two sisters, rich people behaving badly, and very complicated family dynamics.

When Maddie goes missing while in the Hamptons, her younger sister Alex travels to figure out what happened. Her discoveries lead her to the Blackwells, a rich privileged family who had taken Maddie in. What follows is a tale full of luxury, wild twists, and deadly secrets that people will go great lengths to hide.

I wasn’t particularly wowed by this book, but it’s a solid popcorn thriller if you need a quick read.

Rich family drama! The twists and turns kept me going but there wasn't really too much that stood out. But it was a quick, fun read.

Sibling bonds. Family secrets. A glamorous Hamptons setting. The Perfect Sister delivers on all of these fronts with a twisty, slow-burning mystery that had me hooked—even if the execution wasn’t quite as sharp as I hoped.

Alex and Maddie are the kind of sisters who were once inseparable… until grief and distance got in the way. When Maddie fails to show up for Alex’s birthday—a total red flag in their relationship—Alex can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. So she heads to the last place Maddie was seen: the Hamptons, where she’d been staying with the enigmatic and wealthy Blackwell family. As Alex is pulled into their orbit, she starts to suspect that these picture-perfect elites might be hiding more than just socialite drama.

The premise really had me—missing sister, suspicious rich family, secrets beneath the surface—it’s the kind of setup I love. And there are multiple POVs, which added some extra depth and kept the story moving. A few twists genuinely caught me off guard, and I never felt bored. But… the structure and pacing felt a bit messy at times. Some transitions between timelines or perspectives were jarring, and I occasionally found myself needing to backtrack to keep everything straight.

Still, if you're into stories with complicated sibling dynamics, secret-keeping families, and those classic something's not right here vibes, you’ll probably enjoy this one. It's not perfect, but it's definitely intriguing.

Maddie and Alex are sisters whose father left when they were young and their mother just recently passed away; they are now all that each other has left. When Maddie suddenly cancels plans to celebrate Alex’s birthday with her, Alex starts to worry. Calls are going to voicemail and Alex KNOWS that something is wrong. Alex starts to get worried and decides to sort of investigate on her own; this leads her to a seaside resort called the Hamptons; the family that owns it has let Maddie stay in their pool house. The family is saying Maddie left and went back to New York City but Alex isn't believing it. Where is her sister?!

Thank you netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC>