A twisty, turn-y mystery with a duel timeline happening. A fun beach read, but you still need to pay closer attention to keep things straight as it goes along. Some plot elements a bit over the top, but entertaining.

Helen and the rest of her dysfunctional family go to the island of Capri where her mother fell to her death from a cliff 30 years ago. She uncovers many secrets and lies while relentlessly searching for the truth.
This was a great story full of twists and turns.
I’d like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for the opportunity to read this eARC that will be released March 25, 2025!

I requested to read and review this book for free from Ballantine Books. There is many twists and turns in this book just when you think the answers are clear they are not. The answer to who did it and why are complex and unbelievable. The Lingate family has an appearance they want to maintain. And will do certain things to maintain it. When Lorna and Helen make a plan to find out the truth to Helens mom will they find answers. Or will a payout make them change their mind. Stan wants the truth to come out and does an investigation but will he find put the truth. How does Ciro and Renanta fit into what is going on? Will there secrets come out ? This book is for a mature audience and can be read anywhere.

Thank you to NetGalley, the Publisher’s, and Katy Hays for an ARC of Saltwater! I didn’t get really into the book until about 20% and then I was hooked. The beginning is very descriptive - it truly felt like I could picture Capri and be there in the story, but it made it a little harder to follow along with the characters and how the story is building. I’m glad I held on because it turned into a phenomenal story. The writing is beautiful and compelling. Once the story gets going it’s hard to put down this book. It follows the Lingates returning to Capri every summer after Helen’s mother, Sarah, has tragically died there. It was ruled an accident and the Lingates want to prove that by still coming back to Capri. Helen was only 3 years old and has always wanted to know more about her mother. Everyone is interested in her death, but she wants to know the woman she was. Helen works with her uncles assistant, Lorna, to try and get some answers and to escape from her controlling family. Once they have all arrived to Capri, Lorna disappears. Helen is determined to find out what happened to Lorna and find out about the truth of what happened to her mother as the case is reopened.

This was totally like Succession vibes which I love!! Devoured this book! Thank you NetGalley and publisher for early arc of this book! I would definitely recommend this book!

So many twists and turns in this one. Set in Capri, we follow Helen and her family (along with her friend/assistant Lorna) as they vacation at the same location that Helen’s mom died decades ago. Because old money must keep up appearances. The POV flips between present day and when Sarah died. There are similarities between the timelines and far too many crossovers. This explores family dynamics, class struggles, and the ends justifying the means. Be ready to be on the edge of your seat.

This would be a great beach/pool summer read. I loved the setting of Capri, it felt very breezy/vacation-y. The characters are the fairly unlikeable Lingate family unit, steeped in money and privilege and the control that comes along with it.

The premise is two pronged - the disappearance of the family assistant and the mystery of Sarah Lingate’s death many years prior while on vacation. I found the flashbacks to Sarah much more interesting than the current mystery of the missing assistant. There is a lot of action happening between and behind the backs of the family members concerning both.

I felt the book moved a little slowly for my taste, but it most definitely picked up in the last third and became much more exciting. Loved the ending, found it to be a solid twist.

Thanks to Katy Hays, Ballantine Books & Random House Publishing Group for the free advance copy!

I enjoyed this book overall and I especially loved the setting. It is a mystery/suspense novel based upon the disappearance/death of the character’s mother. I could have used a bit more suspense in the pacing, but as a slow burn, it did well, especially with the twists at the end. Everyone loves a thriller but badly behaved rich people hiding things, so for that, it hit the mark! I think the majority of people will enjoy this atmospheric thriller. Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I did not think this was a good book. The one-dimensional characters are all incredibly similar, and I found it hard to keep track of who was who. The plot itself was boring, the red herrings were not really so, and the "twist" at the end was absurd. I understand that this is an advance copy, but it badly needs to be edited. If I had to see a reference to a "stripped" umbrella one more time, I was going to throw my Kindle across the room.
I will not be recommending this to others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for the ARC!

This was suspenseful! Lies at every turn and never knew who to trust or believe. I thought I had it figured out at 92% in, but there were still more twists to come. A quick and entertaining read!

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of Saltwater. What drew me to this book was definitely the setting, as I had recently visited Capri. Having only seen it as a tourist I loved reading about it through the eyes of someone familiar with the island. The descriptions were wonderful. Unfortunately, that was really the highlight of the book for me.

The story just didn't draw me in. It was told through dual timelines and from several POV's, which I found to be a bit confusing and hard to follow. I also didn't feel connected to any of the characters. There were lots of twists and turns, but I found them to be a bit redundant and found myself thinking, "Really? Again?"

I wanted to like this, but sady I did not.

There were pros about this book and I could see it doing wonders for the right reader. The description of the scenery took me right to Capri, for example. The writing was way more elevated than I’d usually expect for a thriller. But ultimately it didn’t work as well for me as I hoped and I think that’s because I felt like it hopped around too much in time and character and it was one of those books where you’re dropped in and expected to acclimate but have no idea who people are…that doesn’t usually work for me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5
The Lingate family has spent many summers vacationing amongst the warm waters and rocky cliffs of Capri, enjoying all the islands beauty and serenity. However to the islands residents the Lingates are known for much more than their old money. For the Lingates have a dark cloud of death that has haunted them since their 1992 visit when Sarah Lingate is found dead in the rocky waters edge below their summer rental home. Now 30 years later questions begin to swirl over if Sarah’s death was truly an accident or if it was actually an act of murder.

Told thru alternating timelines and duel POV this family dynamic driven suspense thriller was filled with twist after twist as you unravel the secrets, betrayal, deception, and murder that haunted the Lingate family. Everyone in this book was absolutely hiding something and I could not stop turning pages to find out what darkness lurked beneath each of them. And while the characters themselves weren’t particularly any that I could relate to I was still invested in seeing if these characters would get their owed karma. As stated the plot does include quite a bit of flashbacks and different character POVs however I personally did not find these to take me out of the present timeline or events as they all slowly became interwoven and connected. The ending absolutely had me completely surprised as well with a truly shocking twist that I absolutely did not see coming at all.

If you are a fan of suspenseful twisty mysteries and family drama then be sure to pick this one up on release.
Saltwater comes out March 25th, 2025.
Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books, Random House for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Sarah Lingate is found dead off the island of Capri in 1992. Despite rumors surrounding the Lingate family and their involvement in her untimely death, the wealthy Lingates carry on as normal. Years later, Sarah’s daughter Helen, hires Lorena the family’s assistant to help uncover the mystery behind her mothers death. However, both Helen and Lorena quickly find they are out of their depth and that both are keeping secrets from one another.

Rich people family drama. A cast of complicated and hard to like characters. Timeline hopping, multiple POVs. Family secrets. Murder and mystery. I love all of those things in a story but this one just fell a bit flat for me. It was slow moving and didn’t pick up until over half way through. Also the ending and epilogue just didn’t do it for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sharing the advance digital review copy with me in exchange for my honest review.

From the author of the wonderful novel The Cloisters, comes her amazing second novel set on the island of Capri. Hays has three women narrate this intense twisty story of possible murder, intrigue, uber wealthy society, and family loyalty drawn claustrophobically tight.

In 1922, Sarah Lingate, a fiercely independent playwright who has married into the Lingate family who made their vast fortune in oil, falls to her death below the steep cliffs of the Capri villa where the family is vacationing. Her death sparks endless societal and journalist rumors of murder, which continue to overwhelm her daughter Helen who was 3 years old then but now has reached her young thirties. There’s Richard, Sarah’s jealous and controlling husband, his older brother Marcus who serves as the family patriarch, and Marcus’ long-suffering wife Naomi who longs for more of Marcus’ attention. There’s also Renatta, the caretaker of the property who lives in a cottage next to the village and her now thirty-something son Ciro. The Lingates have been returning each summer to vacation at the villa on Capri where Sarah died, and this vacation have brought along with them Lorna, who serves as Marcus’s personal assistant, as well as Freddie, a wealthy cad-about who’s been dating Helen. Arriving before their trip from an anonymous sender is a gold snake necklace that Sarah was wearing before falling to her death but had never been recovered by her remains.

EVERYONE has profound secrets they’re holding on to laced with repercussive danger, and these secrets get slowly revealed as the book unfurls. You feel both enveloped in the suffocation of the family demands on secrecy and loyalty and rooting for Helen to find some independence of her own. Contrasting the lush and gorgeous setting of Capri are threats lurking around every corner.

The whole plot emerges as sinuous as the encircled snake necklace that Sarah wore around her neck, with a body count continuing to rise along with myriad jaw-dropping revelations. The narrative mostly weaves in unique points of view from of the women connected to the Lingate family: Helen, Lorna, Sarah, Naomi. At the end as the adage goes, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

Thanks to Random House, Ballantine, and NetGalley for an Advanced Reader’s Copy.

On the thirtieth anniversary of Helen’s mother’s death, the family has returned to Capri. Sarah Lingate’s death had been determined to be an accident, but there were always doubts among the island’s residents. Some say the family’s wealth determined the outcome of the investigation rather than factual evidence. This year, things are going a lot differently than previous annual vacations. Many secrets are revealed, there are a couple of more “accidents”, and things are quickly unraveling for the Lingate family. Things will never be the same again.

I found the story slow getting into, but then it picked up and the ending was quite unexpected. Talk about a dysfunctional family!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

On glittering Capri, anything can be a mirage. And no one holds a grudge like family.
Saltwater by Katy Hays follows the Lingate family and their annual summer trip to Capri. Sarah Lingate was found dead in Capri in 1992, and our story goes back and forth from that fateful summer to the most recent, focusing on her daughter, Helen, trying to break out from the family any way she can.There's a a lot of set up and character development here, a story where you trust no one and you can't pinpoint who is possibly double crossing who! The slower pace helped build the tension but as secrets start spilling out and point of views shift, the pace picks up and leads into the twists that I really didn't see coming.I love a good family drama and this didn't disappoint- we've got money, affairs, lies, and secrets, and that's just to start. Saltwater is going to be the perfect summer time thriller. 
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an early copy of this book in exchange for a review

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A family takes a vacation every year to the island of Carpri, where Sarah, the marry-in and mother to the main character died 30 years before and her death- murder or accident- was never solved.

The book was written in multiple time lines, which did not bother me, but also multiple character perspectives, which did. A couple of the characters only narrated one chapter towards the end of the book, and I saw this as a weakness in writing that the author had no other way to bring the story together except to introduce another perspective. The first half was very choppy, bouncing all over which then causes the story and mystery to lose momentum and makes it difficult to follow and feel part of the story. Part II does focus more on Helen's perspective, which then draws you in a bit more and makes the story feel faster paced, more of putting together the pieces of the puzzle and establishing a timeline. The end of the book has several twists and the last just becomes to ridiculous and almost repetitive that it made me frustrated with the whole book.

The setting of the book was beautiful, but all the characters were so sinister and there was just TOO MUCH- too much motive, too much jumping around, too much that just didn't make sense that I couldn't particularly enjoy the book. It's a decent read if you don't let yourself get absorbed in the details, frustrating if you do. Still one thing that was left unresolved that bothered me at the end. Started off not great, improved, but by the end I was saying "Oh, come on!" and ready to close it and move on.

Thank you to @netgalley and @RandomHouseBallatine for this ARC. 1992: Sarah Lingate was found below the cliffs of Capri. Every year since, the Lingate family and all their money come back for a week. Sarah's daughter, Helen, who is now in her 30's brings her friend Lorna to help investigate her mother's death. When Lorna disappears, Sarah's investigation is reopened. Was it a suicide or murder. This book was easy to read but the last few chapters didn't seem plausible to me. Good mystery? yes. Wishy Washy ending? Also yes. I would round up and rate 3.5 stars. #Saltwater #KatyHays #RandomHouseBallatine #March2025

**This review contains spoilers**

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine in exchange for an honest review.

For decades, the wealthy Lingate family has been vacationing on Capri for a week each summer. Despite the fact that Sarah Lingate died there under suspicious circumstances in 1992, the family continues to return year after year over the anniversary of Sarah's death. This story is set thirty years later with a completely unreliable cast of characters which makes for a twisty, fantastic story.

Helen Lingate did not seem like a woman in her 30s. Her behavior, thoughts, and comments came across as juvenile and she seemed more like a teenager than a grown woman. However, I think the author wrote her that way on purpose to portray the stunted growth of someone kept essentially prisoner by her own family her entire life. In that instance, her portrayal was perfect.




**SPOILERS**


I loved a lot of this book and most of the twists. However, in a book with faked death and switched identities, I found it completely implausible that two people would get away with that. Additionally, Lorna's heartless killing of Martina made me lose any sympathy I had for her. Helen's kiilling of Naomi, though, was justified.