I love the cover and that's what drew me in this book but in the end it unfortunately bored me to tears. So disappointed.

The Note is a smart, twisty thriller anchored by well-drawn friendships and a story that takes root in contemporary anxieties around cancel culture and public reputation. If you enjoy carefully plotted mysteries with juicy reveals and a tightly wound setting, this one delivers. Just be prepared for a slowish opening, a cast that may rub you the wrong way, and a few predictable beats—not dealbreakers, but worth noting.

I really wanted to love this one, as the premise sounded great, but I struggled to get through it.
It started off well, though I was honestly bored through the whole middle of the book, and then it picked up nearer the end to have a satisfying finish.

The twist was pretty decent, I didn't figure it out. I thought I had, but I was wrong.

Overall, it was good, but not as good as I'd hoped.

3 stars from me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley, Faber and Faber Ltd, and Alafair Burke for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book so much! Definitely didn’t see it coming! Couldn’t put this book down so I highly recommend to anyone that loves the twists and turns of a mystery novel!

The idea behind this story had so much more potential than this. A group of friends meeting up in the Hamptons wait for a parking spot only for another opportunistic driver to steal it. Angered by the smug privilege of the car’s occupants, they decide to mess with them by leaving a note on the windscreen. This has ramifications when the driver of this car then goes missing. What happened next was annoyingly predictable and quite frankly, boring. This was not helped by the cast of female characters just not being very likeable. Not for me.

I read this as an advance copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Note
Gotta love a story about Rich People Drama!

The girls who have been friends since they met as teenagers at summer camp head to the Hampton’s for a girlie weekend. When a rude driver steals their parking spot they decide to leave a note, little do they know that this will entangle them within a criminal enquiry, with all the girls having something to hide.

I loved this story, I thought the plot was interesting, I loved the red herrings, and I thought it was very twisty. Really enjoyable!

May, Kelsey and Lauren, three friends who reconnect after years apart with a trip to the Hamptons. A lot has happened in all their lives since they were last together and the topic they all seem to be avoiding is the one about what happened when they were all at camp all them years ago. With May’s’ wedding imminent and Kelsey in the limelight for her exs murder there’s a lot going on.

The writing didn’t pull me in on this one, which I was disappointed with. I got bored very early on, I didn’t feel the characters were relatable and there was far too much useless information littered in the story. It did have the potential to be a good read with the storyline but it just wasn’t executed well for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley publisher w author for my gifted eARC in exchange for my honest review.

An interesting read about three old friends reconnecting after varying traumas in their lives. Some of the storyline was a little unbelievable and the main characters were, at times, difficult to like. Lots of twists and turns.

I wasn’t keen on any of the characters and I was constantly wondering if I had missed something as events in their pasts were often referenced without explanation. It did all come together by the end but this book wasn’t for me.

I enjoyed this story. I like a holiday setting in a crime novel as it always gives a story an added sense of escapism and this was no exception. The novel does cover a lot of issues including the pandemic, social media, being cancelled, the list goes on. However the focus of the story is still the three friends and the implications of their actions and secrets.

I enjoyed the mix of characters, all with their own agenda and foibles, a mix of likeable and unlikeable. I found some of the characters' actions a little annoying at times but I appreciate that it was to move the story forward. It felt like an honest portrayal of friendship with all its ups and downs. I did think the perpetrator was relatively obvious but that didn’t make it any less interesting.

Sorry this book wasnt for me so I gave up at about 15% I will not review publicly as it was unfinished

This was a gripping read. Following the friendships and the relationships was fascinating. The twists and turns wrong footed me every time The pace was good. Definitely a good book to take on holiday

Alafair Burke’s The Note had potential, but it takes a while to find its footing. The premise—three old friends caught up in a prank gone wrong—starts off more annoying than intriguing. Their constant secrets and poor decisions pile up fast, making it hard to root for anyone early on.

Things do improve as the story shifts into thriller mode. The misdirection kicks in, the pace picks up, and the paranoia starts to work. You’re never quite sure who to trust, which keeps you turning the pages, even if the characters remain frustrating.

In the end, the mystery is solved more by process of elimination than real suspense, and while the reveal mostly lands, it doesn’t fully make up for the bumpy ride getting there. The Note is readable, but not one that lingers after the final page.

Really enjoyable crime thriller - I love messy holidays and this had White Lotus vibes all over it. Suspenseful and well written characters who I kind of hate (a good sign)

This is my first book by this author & I must say I really enjoyed it! I'm off to find more books by this author!!

Three friends meet up for the first time in years to have a weekend getaway. They drunkenly decide to play a prank on a stranger, but this leads to some pretth awful consequences. Each woman has previously gone viral due to a scandal, they think they know everything about eachother, but now they realise there is a lot that each of them is hiding.

For the first half of this book, it was fairly slow paced. Most of the first half was about the three women, how they were connected, what their scandal was, and the prank itself. The friendship between these women felt very forced and not at all genuine. It honestly felt like they really didn't like eachother at all.
The second half, picked up the pace a little, but even then, it mostly centred around the drama between the three friends. Pretty much every character in this book was unlikeable for different reasons.
I figured out the final twist fairly early on, but not the reasoning behind it. But the thing that bugged me the most was the fact that it just ended so abruptly.

This is my first Alafair Burke read and I have to be honest and say this book really didn't click for me. I had difficulty keeping the characters straight, the story line dragged on and there just seemed to be too much social drama occurring.

I found I was having to force myself to pick it up and finish reading and I considered DNFing, but was hoping to would get better.

Three female friends have a reunion in the Hamptons. A poor practical joke leads to unexpected consequences. This combined with obsessive family members and a few murders result in an interesting read..

EXCERPT: May wasn't sure she would even have recognized Kelsey if she happened to pass her on the street. And then she realized that was exactly the point. Beautiful women turn heads, which means they get attention, which means they could be identified as the woman who may or may not have been involved in an estranged husband's murder.
What had brought May, Lauren and Kelsey together again was the shared anguish of becoming notorious. But not all notoriety is the same. As hard as May and Lauren had been tumbled around in the media cycle, the scrutiny to which Kelsey was exposed after Luke was killed dwarfed their experiences many times over. Kelsey wasn't accused by strangers of being "problematic" or "toxic." She was accused of hiring someone to murder her husband.

ABOUT 'THE NOTE': It was only meant to be a prank . . .

May has always been the good girl, the rule follower.

But even good girls have secrets.

When she reunites with her two best friends for a holiday in the Hamptons, a drunken joke lands the trio in the middle of a missing persons investigation.

As the case takes a deadly turn, and long buried secrets are uncovered, the three friends are suddenly unsure who they can trust, least of all each other.

MY THOUGHTS: The Note is the second book I have read by Alafair Burke, and I'm afraid it will be my last.

I loved the synopsis and had high hopes for this read. Instead, I quickly became disenchanted. There was far too much 'telling' rather than 'showing'. The writing style is quite dry, and I seriously considered dnfing this read several times. I skimmed and sighed and wandered off to do other things. In the end I decided to bite the bullet and just finish it.

There are a lot of twists and turns in the narrative, but the way they are presented kills any suspense. And hot damn, I just love a good serving of suspense!

There is a lot of repetition, far too much dialogue and too many social issues - race, #me t00, the covid pandemic, social media . . . the list just goes on.

Then there's the characters . . . just one character I could feel a little sympathy for, go in to bat for, would have been nice.

These three women are just awful! May wants to control everyone and has a tendency to jump to conclusions and lose her sh*t over things. Lauren is more laid back but is in a relationship with a married man, focuses on keeping the friendships alive (WHY???) and tends to 'baby' Kelsey. Kelsey comes from a wealthy family and is indebted to her father whom she works for. All three have secrets (*eye roll*), scandalous pasts and all manipulate one another in some way.

There was a lot of potential in this book, but unfortunately the execution let it down. I have now decided that Alafair Burke's writing is not for me. I did enjoy the author's notes at the end where she talks (in bullet points) about how this book came about.

⭐⭐

#TheNote #NetGalley

MEET THE AUTHOR: Alafair S. Burke is an American female author who specializes in writing crime novels. Apart from writing novels, she a legal commentator for radio shows and programs as well as a law professor teaching criminal law at the Hofstra school of law. She was born in October 1969 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Alafair Burke is the daughter of the famous author James Lee Burke who is known for writing various best-selling crime novels. James Burke used to be a professor of English while her mother was a librarian during her early years.

She has earned a powerful reputation of creating credible, strong and likeable characters like Samantha Kincaid and Ellie Hatcher in her books. She has plenty of experience in crime derived from working as a prosecutor in America’s police precincts and other criminal courtrooms that she has managed to work in.

Alafair has always been fascinated by the horrible things human beings are capable of doing, the type of strategies employed to solve such crimes and punish the offenders. Her novels are based on real-world crime cases and both her personal and professional experience making them not only credible but authentic.

Apart from reading, writing and solving crime, Alafair loves to listen to spaz music, watching lots of television series and programs, cooking, playing golf and drinking wine.

Alafair is married to Sean and they share a love for animals among other passions. (Source: bookseriesinorder.com - abridged)

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Faber and Faber Ltd via NetGalley for providing an e-ARC of The Note by Alafair Burke for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

I really enjoyed this twisty thriller. This book focuses on three friends - Kelsey, May and Lauren who meet up to holiday in the Hampton. . What starts as a drunken prank , ends up in a nightmare for them . There was lots of tension between the women which resulted in lies and buried secrets.. I really enjoyed the twists and turns and the fast paced drama. I can’t wait to read more by this author!