Packed with juicy tea and A-list drama, this was such a quick, addictive read. The twists were flawless. The vibe was giving Taylor Swift with a deliciously dark edge.

Rumoured is everything you could want in a dramatic thriller. We’re following an investigative journalist whose sister is missing. And the plot wasn’t anything like I expected.

The way the book is written was creative. I love when authors add news articles to books. It makes me feel like I’m investigating this as well.

I didn’t see the end coming—in a good way. This was the perfect debut novel for these authors.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.

🌟4.5🌟 rounded up
A big thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA for an ARC of this book

Wow! This is definitely one of the fastest paced, "edge of your seat" thrillers that I have read this year. This is the kinda book you start reading when you don't have anything else planned for the day. Because you're not going to want to stop. The way this was written has you feeling as if you actually experiencing what's going on and living it in real time. Is the concept a little out there? Yes. So if you're a reader that struggles when storylines aren't believable, maybe skip this one? It really doesn't deserve the bad review because your imagination cup isn't exactly spilling over. Personally as long as it's cohesive, I don't care how "out there" the story is. I personally think that's the point of reading.. I love, love, love, love, LOVE! The celebrity conspiracy aspect! It really gets you thinking, which ones in real life may ACTUALLY be true!! Just such a fun & gripping read over all! I also loved that it was about sisters, written by sisters! I thought that was super cute and unique. They definitely give confirmation to the well known thought, that 2 is better than 1. This is another read I also think would make a great movie!

I will DEFINITELY be purchasing a hard copy of this and recommending it to all my thriller girlies and burlies.


This is my review which as of today can be found on the following platforms:
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Harlow Hayes is a pop star and everyone loves her. But is she a murderer? She’s been charged with the murder of her ex-boyfriend and another relatively unknown person. Naomi Barnes from C*Leb News is following the investigation and trying to figure out what really happened herself. But is she ready to uncover the real truth?

This was a fun popcorn thriller to read. It had several Easter eggs scattered throughout the book that ties everything together by the end. It really made me think at times ‘what really happened?’ The book is structured in a way that the narrator reads it through Naomi Barnes’ point of view and mixed in are gossip articles from Avant and C*Leb News with online comments of fans and non-fans. This added to how the public viewed the celebrities and may or may not have confused the reader about what really happened. I was thoroughly entertained until the end, even if it wasn’t too realistic.

I wanted to enjoy this and I really tried, but I am also a strong advocate for not finishing a book if it isn’t enjoyable. For me, this just wasn’t enjoyable. I respect what the authors were trying to accomplish, but I couldn’t get into the writing style and there were just too many formatting issues to make it an enjoyable experience. I’m sure the formatting issues will be all worked out by the time this is released!

I’m still giving this 3 stars because it seems like others have enjoyed it and I don’t want to rate a book that I was unable to finish any lower.

Celeb news reporter is brought back to New York to report on the recent arrest of singer Harlow Hayes. The investigation leads her down a rabbit hole of multiple murders including her own sister.

This is my first book from NetGalley and the font was un changeable and to small

I read a lot of thrillers and I appreciated this one for its special twist with a focus on a pop idol’s getting arrested for murder. The plot takes you on a journey of ups and downs and keeps you guessing.

The beginning was a bit slow to start but laid the foundation and the second half was a total page turner.

I would recommend to any of my thriller loving friends.

Harlow Hayes in on the rise in the music business. Then the new "It" girl is the prime suspect in a murder.. Naomi Barnes, investigative journalist, is on the story .

Full of twists and turns, gossip and music industry intrigue. Rumored is a fun, fast, whodunnit that will keep the reader guessing until the end. I recommend Rumored to anyone looking for a mystery that is also fun and full of 'pop"

I want to start with this is not my usual genre but the premise was interesting and I decided to give it a chance.
I really liked the idea of this book. The mystery aspect was slightly predictable and I guessed 2 of the plot twists and one was the main one but I still enjoyed it.
There was so many twists that some times it was a bit much but it was also very interesting and I couldn't put it down.
All in all a great read

This was a fun read for me on a Friday night in. I love a good mystery, so of course I ate this book up (along with some popcorn). It was an intriguing book with a crazy plot twist, but that ending...unexpected but not necessarily the best ending. Loved the celeb gossip and plot though, added to what made this story interesting for sure. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and definitely recommend it.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC.

I found this book a bit slow moving at times and I didn't really feel drawn into the story. I loved the idea of the mixed media storytelling, but I didn't really like how it was executed. I think this book can be fun in how it was told, but not really for me.

I love celebrity gossip and a good thriller, so the premise of a Taylor Swift type being a possible murderer was right up my alley! Unfortunately, it was a major miss for me. I found the C*Leb articles mixed in with the social media comments, which was also mixed into the narratives to be messy and hard to read and stay engaged. Granted, this was an advanced copy, so maybe if the final copy is stylized to *look* more like a social media comment section or just visually stylized to be obviously different from the narrative, it might work? Sometimes the “comments” were in red font, but sometimes they weren’t and even when they were, with all the @‘s and hashtags, visually it was just messy.

To avoid spoilers I can’t really say all the things that made me roll my eyes (and omg do I want to!), but I can say that for the most part, the pieces don’t really start to “fall into place” until about 80% of the way through the book, and those pieces are basically all brand new information at that point.

I guess I just wished they had focused on the serial killer thing OR the Beatles thing, or least made the sister make sense as being connected to the famous characters in any way. The whole story felt like it was revving up to be a big twist, but then it just fell flat and came across as very convoluted and ridiculous.

Thanks, #NetGalley, for the ARC!

I really wanted to love this one, but it just didn’t hit for me. I loved the synopsis and the whole idea of it but it just fell a little flat for me. Somewhere in the middle it dragged and I skipped a ton of pages., so I feel like it could be 75-100 pages shorter. I definitely think of this as more popcorn/ya thrilled!

This was a great read! Early on I was a little uncertain as to whether this would be one I would enjoy but it didn't take long for it to completely draw me in. It was suspenseful and kept my interest right up to the last page. Very enjoyable book and one of my favorites so far this year.

4.5 star overall.

This book started out as a 3 star for me, up until about halfway through. The storyline picked up so fast and I was constantly waiting to see what the next twist was. The final 25% of the book was a 5 star, I just had to see if my theories were right. While some were and some were a complete shock, they still had my jaw on the floor! A great summer read!

Thank you, NetGalley, Bloomsbury USA and the Mancaruso Sisters.

This book was a struggle to get through. I really wanted to enjoy this book, but I just couldn't get into it. The characters weren't that interesting but I thought the plot would draw me in, but at times I felt the book was dragging. I won't say I hate it, but I also didn't love it.

This book was interesting because of all of the different types of media in the book it took me a while to get into it but I enjoyed it.

This book was hard for me to get into. Overall it was an excellent read, just a little tough to find my groove. I’m not going to lie, at the very beginning it said that the sister is probably Hayes. When I was right it was amazing to see haha. This is a good book for people who love a mystery, it just wasn’t my type of mystery book.

Rumoured was a breezy read, and fun if you didn't think too much about certain things that happened in the novel. Overall I enjoyed it up until about the last quarter of the novel, the ending of the novel felt very rushed and I have mixed feelings on the ending.

The novel starts with the news that popstar Harlow Hayes, a star on the same level as Taylor Swift, was arrested for murder, and that protagonist Naomi Barnes is sent to New York to cover the story for the celebrity gossip website that she works for. The mystery begins to unfold as we meet a host of characters who are intertwined with the entertainment industry and the mystery surrounding Harlow Hayes, which quickly becomes a mystery of not only what happened but what else Harlow is hiding.

Onto my thoughts and spoilers:
- I enjoyed that they included <spoiler>Harlow's</spoiler> point of view about halfway through the novel, that was a nice touch and while I wish we had seen it sooner in the novel (Naomi was okay as a protagonist, but not too exciting), unveiling it when they did absolutely makes sense in retrospect to help build up the tension.
- The sister theme was very heavy handed throughout the novel, which was to be expected because the authors are sisters, but at the same time I felt like we didn't get much out of it in the end. <spoiler>Yes we get a "happy ending" for the sisters, but even that is questionable since Faye got away with murdering 2 if not 3 people (or at least being an accomplice to these murders), and continued to live her fake life as Harlow. And most frustrating Naomi just seems to ultimately accept all of this, blaming everything on Sam, and the message from this novel seem to be "just trust your sister" and "be happy that she's back and don't question it."</spoiler>
- Speaking of endings and killing, I was disappointed with the ending, for the reasons stated above as well as the fact that everything was wrapped up too neatly. I felt like this novel set up so many side characters with different threads and would have been poised to have a sequel... But instead they killed off <spoiler>the big bad Sam</spoiler> which was a bummer. Not only was there more potential that was just killed off, but <spoiler>they killed off the only other person who knew the truth about what happened</spoiler>, hence everything getting wrapped up too neatly. Especially with all the clues that were dropped that should have been obvious to Harlow fans (<spoiler>the literal grave marker at Harlow/Faye's grave???</spoiler>) that apparently no one except Naomi seemed to notice. Even with the parallels to the <spoiler>"Paul is Dead"</spoiler> theory, the different threads of that theory were discovered by multiple people, not just one person.
- I was also mildly disappointed that the <spoiler>serial killer</spoiler> thread did not come to fruition. <spoiler>The body double Harlow idea that played out was a fun but a little corny, and going the serial killer route (and the uphill battle to prove it) would have been more daring of an ending than what we got.</spoiler>
- And this is a more minor and a very personal gripe, but I was annoyed with how the novel kept dissing the Hudson Valley as a hellhole, not to mention the fact that the Hudson Valley as a whole has been on an upswing post-COVID thanks to the boom of people from NYC moving up here.

Ultimately this novel started out strong but stumbled a bit as it rushed to wrap things up, and I would give it a 3.5/5 stars.

I loved that this book opens talking about hidden easter eggs! This was such a different story and I loved escaping into the pop and celebrity world for a murder mystery!!

I throughly enjoyed how well the momentum of the story telling kept me flipping pages.

This was so fun to me, like being in a reality show.

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