3.5 stars. This really felt like a run of the mill thriller. There just was not anything special about the storyline.

As always, when I read Sarah Pekkanen, I loved this book. The ever present twists and turns, the story told from two POV. At times I really didn’t know if Mandy was being conned. I also kept stopping and asked myself ‘How does she come up with this stuff’. I have been a huge fan for a number of years and always look forward to her next great read. The epilogue was a shocker!

Sarah is one of my favorite authors but this just wasn’t one of the good ones.

It dragged for so long in the middle with absolutely no purpose at all. Colby, Opal, Josh. All characters teased with more meaning but just to be filler for nothing.

I also don’t like the idea of a mother killing her child over the father. Not a good ending

Wow! I flew through this one. My first book by Sarah Pekkanen, but I will certainly look for her older books now, too. This book was fast-paced, filled with cliff-hangers at the end of alternating POV chapters, and had a great dose of mysterious twins-separated-at-birth connections. I couldn't stop reading. Mandy is in her early thirties running her late parents' bar when all of a sudden, she gets a call from the "Crime of the Century" alleged perpetrator's attorney, requesting to see her immediately. From there, Mandy is drawn into a mysterious murder plot with a family member she never knew existed, and begins to understand her own identity and past as she searches for answers. This one is going to be a great beach read when it releases in August! Very easy to sit down and devour in one sitting. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this book, with my honest review below.

The Locked Ward was a mystery that was hard to solve and an incredibly tense read in trying to do just that. Following the murder of Annabelle, daughter of an affluent family, her adopted sister Georgia is locked up in a mental ward and accused of the crime following years of jealousy. But Georgia has a plan, if only she can survive the ward, and that plan involved her twin sister whom she was separated from at birth, Mandy (Amanda). Mandy tries to solve the increasingly complex crime but, while she feels a connection to her recently discovered twin, she doesn’t know if she’s actually a mastermind criminal or wrongfully accused. This thriller was very well done, but had a final twist I didn’t think was necessary. Regardless, I dare you to try to figure out what actually happened before it’s revealed.

Sarah Pekkanen (and her frequent co-author Greer Hendricks) are typically auto-read authors for me; I usually love their quick-paced, often dual POV thrillers. Unfortunately, of all that I've read, THE LOCKED WARD was the most underwhelming for me.

Unfortunately, the main premise just seemed a bit too far-fetched for me to every fully buy in; you have twins separated at birth...and then one of the twins ends up in a psych ward after she's accused of murdering her sister (that she grew up with, not her twin), and the other twin (who just found out about having twin) is determined to help and solve the mystery. It was just a lot going on. You do get a look into the ultra-rich lifestyle, a potential political scandal, and some nerve-wracking scenes with other patients in the psych ward - but overall this novel was just a bit eh or fine for me.

The positives are I always love a dual POV, and it was a relatively short and easy one-day read. However, the end was a just a bit too flat - it was something both too convenient and too out of left field for me to feel realistic.

📖 Book Review 📖 For a year and a half of my life, every weekday at 8am I clocked into work and used my keys to enter the psychiatric unit at a hospital. It was my favorite job and yes I have stories that I won’t share here…the hours flew by because there was never a lull in my day as a psychiatric social worker. Sarah Pekannen’s latest page turner envelops the reader into a world not many people see.

A phone call draws Mandy to a hospital where a young socialite named Georgia is being held for the violent murder of her younger sister. This one phone call changes Mandy’s entire life: she has a twin sister who was separated at birth. In an attempt to protect herself, Georgia feigns a dissociative state to the world while proclaiming her innocence to a stranger, who just so happens to be the person closest to her. Mandy sets out to discover the secrets of their past, and what really happened the night Georgia was arrested for murder.

Told in dual points of view, The Locked Ward is an immersive and impeccably crafted psychological thriller that draws the reader into this web of mystery and deceit. Sarah Pekannen masterfully weaves together a story that mirrors the dissonance of her beautifully complex characters, leaving even the readers to question who can be trusted and where the truth really lies.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: This was my first book by this author but it was one I knowingly took a risk with. Because of that, I am going to give this a 3 star rating to be fair. I also DNF'd this at 25 percent which is my rule for tracking and reviewing. I want to be upfront about that because if you are. fan of this author, I have a feeling you will like this. It fits squarely in the wheelhouse of a "popcorn thriller." Everything moves very fast, from page one. Although, I don't know how it ends, I would imagine it's explosive and filled with juicy plot twist. Just like most other popcorn thrillers, you really have to suspend a lot of disbelief. Typically I am able to do that, however, the tropes being used to move the plot forward I could not get behind. I despise when authors use characters to say things like, literally just like this but not a direct quote "I wrote a paper on this in psychology class in college so I'm not like other girls." It just personally really rubs me wrong and annoys me. I knew going into this that I likely would not like the tropes being used which is why I don't think it's the books fault. I just had some hope that I would enjoy the authors twisty writing anyway. I did not enjoy the writing and felt irritated by the characters which is a clear sign for me to DNF.

For those of you who really like popcorn thrillers, mental health plot twists, and outlandish (in a good way) plots then you really should pick this up. I think it does those well.

2.5 stars rounded to 3

This felt like a pretty run of the mill, formulaic thriller to me. I didn't find any of the revelations or twists particularly shocking. I also didn't have feelings one way or the other about most of the characters. It just all felt a little flat. It was very fast paced and a quick read, though.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

4⭐️

I was SO excited when I received the ARC for this book as I’ve enjoyed Sarah Pekkanen’s previous books! And it did NOT disappoint! The suspense sucked me in and didn’t let me go until I got to the very last page. The little turns throughout the story were surprising and exciting! I really enjoyed the premise and execution of this book.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was delighted to receive an ARC of Sarah Pekkanen's "The Locked Ward" from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. This one had been on my TBR list as soon as I heard about it.
Georgia wakes up in a mental ward, accused of murdering her younger sister, Annabelle. As the black sheep of the family, she knows it will be difficult to prove her innocence. Her only hope is her newfound sister Mandy. Will Mandy help her try to prove her innocence or will she become another victim?
This was a quick read. I found myself drawn in from the first page. I was initially not a fan of Georgia, but she grew on me. There were some nice twists with a satisfying ending.

A big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for graciously providing an ARC for me to review!

𐙚 Long-Lost Siblings
𐙚 Memory Gaps
𐙚 Murder Mystery

Sarah Pekkanen’s The Locked Ward is a fast-paced, twisty thriller. The story follows Georgia, accused of murdering her sister and placed in a psychiatric ward, and Mandy, the twin she never knew existed, who must decide whether to help prove her innocence. This novel was packed with secrets, lies, and suspense. Pekkanen crafted an entertaining mystery with this one.

Rating: ✰✰✰/5

Thank you for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. ・❥・

Received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for a review. The Locked Ward has an interesting premise but is a bit predictable. The main characters are not very interesting so it is tough to engage and care about them. Overall this was a fine read, just not one of my favorites from this author.

The night Annabelle dies, everything changes, for her family, her friends, and even some strangers.

When Georgia is sent to a locked ward after being accused of Annabelle’s murder, there seems to be only one person who can help her: her twin sister, Mandy. The kicker? Mandy never knew Georgia existed … until now.

Georgia is desperate for Mandy to help prove her innocence. Mandy isn’t sure what to believe from the accused murderer in a psych facility.

Murder. Secrets. Lies. Infidelity. Plot twists. This book has it all folks. Pekkanen doesn’t AGAIN. I only put this book down because I fell asleep reading it. I ZOOMED through it and truly suggest anyone who likes a good thriller story to buy this as soon as it come out!

(3.5 rounded up) Sarah Pekkanen writes popcorn mystery/thrillers that I absolutely gobble up. When I read “House of Glass” last summer, it was exactly what I wanted it to be - a fast-paced, twisty mystery with a satisfying ending. “The Locked Ward” follows this same formula - it’s a quick, twisty read that follows a woman, Georgia, accused of murdering her sister she was raised with and placed in a psychiatric ward, and another woman, Mandy, who is Georgia’s biological sister, raised apart, trying to exonerate her. This isn’t reinventing the wheel and it doesn’t have to - the twists, some expected, some not - were fun, the writing kept me turning pages, and I had a good time. My issue with it is the depiction of a forensic psychiatric ward. I am not familiar with these wards, but I do have mental illness and I found the depiction of mentally ill incarcerated people to be…problematic at best. I realize that people placed in forensic psychiatric hospitals and institutes have been violent or shown violent tendencies, but the characters in this felt like extreme generalizations of people actually in these situations. Almost like caricatures. There are plot reasons for why the author sets this section of the story where she does as opposed to a prison and I could absolutely be oversensitive to this specific portrayal of mental illness, but I thought about it a lot while reading and it did end up influencing my rating. This would have been an easy four star for me, but the mental health rep brought it down a bit. Still - this is a fun thriller that was made to entertain and it does do that.

I liked this one. I liked the dual pov between the sisters. It was a good story, but nothing really took me completely by surprise including the twists.

Georgia Worthington is suspected of violently murdering her sister, Annabelle, at her lavish birthday party. Georgia has had a complicated relationship with Annabelle for her entire life, but they have been making strides at getting closer. Georgia was adopted into the prominent Worthington as a newborn, but Annabelle is their biological daughter and is highly favored by her mother especially. Georgia is now being held by reason of insanity at an institution for violent offenders and needs someone to help prove her innocence.

When Mandy receives a call saying that Georgia wants to speak to her, she is shocked and has no idea how Georgia could even know who she is. Mandy lives a quieter life running her deceased parent’s bar. She soon learns that her parents have been keeping big secrets and her life is changed forever when she learns that Georgia is her twin sister and they were separated at birth. Georgia insists she is innocent and begs for Mandy’s help. As Mandy digs into Georgia’s claims, she finds herself in a dangerous situation to help a sister she has only just met. Can both sisters make it out alive? And who is telling the truth?

This was a great read! I love an asylum setting and I thought both Georgia and Mandy were great characters. The story is told from alternating points-of-view and I enjoyed getting to know both of the sisters. There were definitely some twists and turns that I did not see coming! I will read anything that Sarah Pekkanen writes and I enjoyed this book just as I did her others! I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next :)

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Another solid mystery from SP. the story starts with a bang as we witness Georgia going into the locked ward when she’s accused of killing her sister. Then an another woman gets a phone call saying that her sister, Georgia, wants to see her. Amanda is shocked and curious because she’s an only child. We get pov’s from Georgia and Mandy as they traverse a much bigger story of their lives than they ever knew. Fast paced and secrets in abundance, the story and characters were interesting. I liked the ending, that was nice touch.

This was a very quick read for me. I enjoyed the storyline and was engaged throughout. The characters were relatable and I was surprised by the reveal at the end. This is a great book overall and I’d definitely recommend it to others!

This book had everything I want in a thriller—twisty, dark, and absolutely gripping! It was a quick read that kept me hooked from start to finish, delivering all the suspense and tension I crave. Sarah Pekkanen has never disappointed me, and The Locked Ward is no exception.

A huge thank you to St. Martin’s Press for this incredible ARC! This one hits shelves on August 5th, and trust me—you need to add it to your TBR. You won’t be disappointed!