Gripping dark psychological thriller with interesting and relatable characters, and the perfect blend of drama and suspense. A fast-paced twisty and wild plot that had me totally engrossed. I recommend to anyone who is a fan of this genre and talented writing.

This was my first book by Amanda McKinney, and honestly, I didn’t have high expectations. But it turns out to be really good, actually incredible. I don’t usually read thrillers or mysteries, but this book had me guessing the whole way through. The story was complex, with a touch of romance and a lot of murder. I absolutely loved the fast pace. It kept me hooked till the very end. Plus, it was such an easy read that it pulled me out of my reading slump I truly recommend it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! 🫶

Amanda McKinney delivers another dark, twisty, and unputdownable blend of psychological thriller and romantic suspense.

The Perfect Murder follows Savi Portman, a bestselling cozy mystery author whose latest manuscript centers on the “perfect murder.” But when a real homicide occurs that mirrors her fictional plot, her life takes a terrifying turn.

Of the McKinney novels I’ve read-A Marriage of Lies, The Wife’s Silence, and When I Disappear-I’ve devoured each one for their addictive, fast-paced psychological mystery storylines, with every book as gripping as the last. Her newest release, The Perfect Murder, is no exception. It’s another binge-worthy read that pulled me in from the first page and kept me engaged right through to the final twist.

I’ve always loved McKinney’s writing style. Her prose is fast-paced and accessible, with a sharp focus on tension and atmosphere. She weaves suspense and romance together seamlessly, using short, gripping chapters and perfectly timed twists to keep the momentum high. Her direct yet evocative descriptions bring settings vividly to life, while her flawed, emotionally layered characters ground the drama in authenticity. The result is a style that feels both addictive and immersive.

On the positive side, I loved the sharp hook, vivid atmosphere, and constant stream of twists that kept the tension high. The meta-thriller angle—blurring the line between fiction and reality—was especially compelling. On the flip side, some of the dialogue leaned on familiar thriller tropes, and at times the romantic undercurrent pulled a bit of focus from the central suspense. That said, the romance ultimately heightened the danger, entwining the emotional stakes with the mystery in a way that worked.

Overall, The Perfect Murder is a compelling, addictive read that kept me hooked from start to finish. McKinney once again proves her talent for darkly suspenseful storytelling, balancing tension, atmosphere, and romance in just the right measure. I’d highly recommend this to both longtime fans of her work and readers who love fast-paced psychological thrillers and romantic suspense stories with a darker edge.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for the advance copy—I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my honest thoughts.

Writing is Savanna Portman's escape. She has become a NYT bestselling cozy mystery author.
When Savanna begins writing a new murder-mystery thriller, everything in her manuscript actually starts happening.
Savanna is confused. Has someone hacked her computer?
Have her migraine and sleep meds caused blackouts or even sleepwalking?
Savanna is accused of murder. She doesn't know the victim and has no memory of being at the crime scene.
Witnesses have placed Savanna in places she's never visited. A store clerk even said she purchased things she doesn't own.
What is happening?
The Perfect Murder may have the reader feeling crazy. The twists and turns may make the reader revisit past chapters thinking something was missed.
The Perfect Murder is a suspenseful story with an interesting outcome.
Thank you Storm Publishing and NetGalley for sending me this ARC.

The Perfect Murder was hard book to get in originally. I got confused with all the back and forth with the characters. The story takes place in the town of Bear's Creek, Wyoming. The book opens with a women going through the woods to a cabin. She goes in and stabs the man in the cabin and runs away.

One of the main characters, Savanna (Savi) Portman has written a book called Holy Sheet Cake. a food themed cozy mystery that became No. 1 on the NY Times best seller list. She is now a sought after author. Vivienne (Viv) Hearst is her agent. Savi is in NY attending a book store event where she also gives a speech about her book to 300 people. She is a huge success. She is happy to get home where she has been s antisocial hermit to a small town celebrity over night. Upon her return she drives into a parking lot filled with tourists and parks in her spot, Sari is there to spy on the Lockhart Estate. She is looking for Quinn who is never seen. Quinn is a mystery woman which leaves much to the imagination. The Lockhart Estate is owned by Jacob and his alcoholic wife, Quinn Lockhart. Jacob is the other main character who is a homicide detective in the county, They are the perfect power couple, influential, rich, beautiful and envied. Although rich he remains in his job as a homicide detective.

Savi lives in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath modest house with her husband, Eric who is a long-haul trucker and her best friend, Katie (Kat) a functioning alcoholic and pastry chef. She lives there to keep Savi company when her husband is away. Now that she is home her agent wants an outline of her next book. When she gets to the house she sees an email from her pubilist that she wants Savi to do a TV show about her book. She has a panic attack thinking about it. Katie realizes she is having an attack and tells her to take a sleeping pill.

In the meantime Jacob gets a call from his mistress, Selma and she tells him she can't sleep. He goes to her apartment at the Plummet Heights Apartments. After they make love he tells her that Quinn is getting worse. Where is she getting her booze. Doesn't know what triggers her episodes. He loves Selma and she tells him she is not going anywhere. They are in it for the long haul.

In the book, the next day Lillian wakes up with a hangover. She receives a call from Maddie about the Turkey Event. They had a meeting and decided to give her volunteer job to someome else. What will Andrew say? She takes a pregnacy test and she is pregant. Sari wakes up and cries because she remembers that Lillian is pregnant and she is not able to have children. Eric is home but he has to leave again the next day as he has to fill in for another trucker. He lets her know how much he loves her.

Sergent Andrw Walker calls Jacob and tells him they have found a body in a cabin ner the encampment off Alsey Trail. Jacob arrives at the scene. Officer Schulz is looking at the body of Dewey (Rat) Morrison, who is a drifter. The man has been stabbed. A man from the encampment named Charles calls it in. Jacob gives the body a once over. There are no sign of a fight. Probably didn't know when he was attack. Jacob sees muddy tracks around the body. Whoever stabbed him was very angry. Jacob looks further into the dried boot print. Something is off. The print doesn't match. Tread is different lighter. Running shoes? Doctor Mack Dempsey is the county coroner.

The press have arrived. Andi Blake is always the first reporter on the scene and last to leave. he sees the body. No defense wounds. The knife is definately a blade four to six inches. A in and out stabbing.

Savi decides to go and see her therapist, Dr. Lyn. Savi tells Dr. Lyn that she has had the same dream. A faceless man does of a heart attackk. Still can't see the man's face. She loves the man but doesn't know who he is. She wakes up and starts to cry. She felt trapped in her dream. She can't help the man. Dr. Lyn asks Savi if she feels trapped in her career. She should be happy but is not. Sari feels trapped because of expectations. Dr. Lyn tells her that she can walk away. She has choices.

Savi has decided her second book will be about the Lockhart's. It will mostly be about Quinn Lockhart. Is she locked in a room or dead. The book is not a cozy book but a dark twisted thriller. In the book Jacob is Andrew and Quinn is Lillian. Andrew and Lillian live in a loveless marriage. She wants his love but because of her drinking it has destroyed what they had. She decides to leave for a few days. The key to the car is hidden behind the refrigerator in a lockbox. Her husband doesn't know she knows where he has hidden the keys. When she gets into the car and backs out Andrew is behind the car. He approaches the car and takes the keys and tells her that she can never leave the house.

Quinn starts to panic about the thought of her pregnacy. How will Jacob act.

Sari decides to take a jog.. The difference betwen her and Lillian is that she isn't pregnant. Drives to the trails. At the gas station she has a strange encounter with the management. He tells her to be careful. She realizes that she wasn't at the store earlier in the week. It must be someone else. Sari has gone to the area where she will rlun. She sees the police cars there. Starts to run. She comes upon the murder scene. Sees Jacob Lockhart. A man in rags sees Sari and tells the policeman that Savi is the preson who killed Rat. She was around the cabin. Sari runs. Charles also tells Jacob and Woodson that he saw the woman who killed Rat. She had been there also a few days before Rat's death. Why was she there before. Woodson recognized her. Savanna Portman.

What was happening? Who is Rat and why did the man accuse her? The man at the gas station said he saw her in the middle of the night. In her book someone murdered a person in a cabin and was stabbed. She calls Dr. Lyn and asks if she could be sleepwalking. Dr. Lyn told her that the sleeping pills wouldn't wake her. Shhe goes to Dr. Lyn and tells her that she feels out of control. While there she sees Jacob Lockhart's name on the phone when he calls her. Sari feels that Dr. Lyn knows something something she doesn't. She fears it is about her.

Jacob goes to see Sari's house to ask her if she was on the trail near the cabin. She says yes but was scared off when the man started to scream at her. He asked her if she had ever been there before today. She says no. He asks to see her running shoes. She tells him no. He tells her that she is a suspect. Again Sari wonders what is happening with two people saying they had seen her. The man in the book. She takes her running shoes in a bag to throw in a lake but decides to take them to Jacob instead.

Sari decides to go back to the cabin . She wants to prove that she is innocent. She realizes that the setting of the cabin are exactlyl like in her book. Her migraines come back blinding her. She hears someone behind her. It is Detective Lockhart. He takes her to his car. She feels safe in his arms and she trusts him. He takes her to his estate. When there she feels like she has been there before. She gets the same feeling that she is home. Savi recognizes the voice of a woman. It is Selma, the detectives mistress. Jacob gives her some pills and puts a wet cloth over her eyes. When she removes the cloth he tells her that they need to talk. He tells her that he is her brother. A memory comes back from her childhood. and other life. She tells him she would know if he was her brother. She was brought up by her grandparents. He tells her that her name is really Savvana Lockhart. He tells her that when she was six she was kidnapped and couldn't be found for three days. After that she was never the same. When he tells her that she realizes that he is telling her the truth. She realizes that they look alike.

This is where the book takes off. There is so much going on that I will leave it to the reader to enjoy to the very end. There are so many twists and turns in the story. The ending was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't sure that I would like the book but still couldn't put it down. The next book is called A Marriage of Lies which I will probably read too.

Thank you Netgalley and Storm Publishing for this ARC.

Release: Sept 18, 2025
Author: Amanda McKinney
Publisher: Storm Publishing

Rating: 4.25 ★ 

Savi Portman is riding high after her first cozy mystery becomes a bestselling hit, making her a rising star in the publishing world. Writing has always been her way of coping when life gets overwhelming—until fiction and reality collide. Someone has carried out a murder that matches a scene from her new thriller, and now all eyes are on her. Security footage and witness accounts place her near the crime scene, but Savi insists she was home asleep. As suspicion builds, she finds herself trapped in a nightmare of her own making—and must fight to clear her name from a crime she only imagined on the page.

The perfect murder is an absolute rollercoaster from start to finish. Right from page one, I was completely hooked and couldn’t put it down. The suspense is non-stop, the twists are jaw-dropping, and just when you think you’ve figured things out, the story veers in a totally unexpected direction. It’s fast-paced, emotional, and dark in all the best ways—with just the right amount of revenge thrown in. I found myself gasping, whispering “no way,” and literally sitting up straight at one of the final twists. If you’re a fan of authors like Freida McFadden, Lisa Jewell, or Colleen Hoover’s Verity, you’ll love this one. Honestly, this might just have the best plot twist of the year. It’s gripping, smart, and completely unforgettable—a must-read for any thriller lover.

Favorite quote:
"The petty swindler, doesn't care about a trust fund that can buy fucking Barstow? Why don't you cut the shit?"

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was my first book by Amanda McKinney, and it definitely kept me entertained. The pacing was fast, the chapters were short, and I was consistently intrigued. One thing I really appreciated was that I never quite knew where the story was heading. As someone who reads a lot of thrillers, it’s rare to be genuinely surprised by twists, but this one caught me off guard more than once.

That being said, the book does require some suspension of disbelief. A few of the events felt like things that probably wouldn’t play out that way in real life. Still, that unpredictability is part of what makes thrillers fun...we read them to escape reality, after all.

I do want to note that there are trigger warnings for infertility and child loss. These topics are heavy throughout the story. Personally, infertility is one subject I usually struggle with, and I wish I had known beforehand. That said, I felt the author portrayed the emotions, anger, bitterness, resentment, with honesty, and it didn’t affect me negatively the way it sometimes can. But every reader is different, so I think it’s worth mentioning up front.

On the writing side, there were a few moments that pulled me out of the story. Some of the “encouraging” passages—like characters reassuring each other with affirmations such as “you’re loved” or “you’re not broken”...occasionally felt cliché or overly polished, almost like something lifted from a social media therapist’s post. Not a dealbreaker, but it did break the immersion a little at times.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book. It surprised me, it kept me turning pages, and it delivered the twists I look for in a thriller. I’d definitely try more from Amanda McKinney in the future.

While certainly a thriller that had me guessing, this book is a bit odd, and never really hooked me.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

I just finished this book and I’m a little, unsure how I feel. When I started reading it, some parts were written in such predictable language, it’s like hearing these phrases that are overused, a little banal.. but while I wasn’t fully into the language used, I loved the story and how it was pulling me in. As I continued reading, I started getting ideas of what is happening. I finished the book and I enjoyed it giving it 4 stars out of 5, but for me, it was a bit lacking for a true 4 star book. The first half of the book was the strongest for me and I was really pulled into the story. I didn’t feel that the rest of the book was as strong, but overall I had a good time with a book and I would recommend it.

This is a bit of a strange book and you will only discover why through reading this for yourself. At first I thought this was going one way and I thought it was obvious and not that exciting. That turned out not to be the case and this turned into a very surprising, at times shocking, and definitely a thrilling read.
The more this progresses, the more intense it gets. At times this is weird but stick with it and it gets very thrilling.
Savi is a great character, likeable and mysterious, there is lots to uncover about her. Jacob is another great character to follow and I enjoyed the stories they had to tell.
Thank you to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for an advance copy.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me this book. I loved the fast pace and twists of this thriller, it made it difficult to put it down! Some parts felt a little rushed but overall a thrilling read!

This book starts with three stories that develop in parallel, and which are then masterfully brought together towards the end. It has some interesting characters, a fundamental moral question, and a fast pace. My only issue was the beginning, where the stories felt too disassociated, and it was challenging to keep up, especially since the POW changed quickly.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a decent psychological thriller. Definitely kept you guessing with what was actually happening. The big “twist” for me was a little too unbelievable and corny? The story was a little jumpy on the timeline, but overall it was a thrilling quick read.

Thank you to Net Galley & Storm Publishing for this eARC.

The Perfect Murder by Amanda McKinney absolutely blew me away! What a phenomenal book!
It grabbed hold of me from the very start, and with its incredible twists and turns, it never let go. I can easily say that it was a non-stop thrill ride that kept me guessing right up until the end.
Skillfully crafted, with wonderful characters and a poignant story, this is one book you don't want to miss!
Thank you so much to #StormPublishing for inviting me to read #ThePerfectMurder and to #NetGalley for providing it.

First, something that may sound silly but it really bothered me : the synopsis of this book is very misleading. It makes it sound like the main character, a writer, publishes a book about a murder, and then a similar murder happens, making her a suspect. That’s not what happens at all. She’s still writing the book (it’s not published yet) and she becomes a suspect because someone saw her yelling at the guy who died.

The main character is a writer, quite popular, and she’s working on a new book that features a murder. What’s really creepy is that she’s basing her fictional characters on her real-life neighbors, a couple where the guy is in law enforcement. She’s basically writing RPF, which is weird and creepy.
She’s married and also living with her best friend, but she’s very obviously hiding things, very unreliable as a narrator. She has these moments where she just checks out, like she’s sleepwalking or losing big chunks of time. People tell her things she did that she doesn’t remember, and all this is happening while a murder is taking place.
Like I said, She doesn’t become a suspect because of her book, she’s a suspect because she was seen arguing with the victim. The weird thing is, the murder in her manuscript is very similar to the real one, and she’s losing time, so she’s not even sure if she did it.
The story also gives you another point of view: the neighbor who’s in law enforcement and starts suspecting her. There’s a twist that I won’t spoil because it’s fun to go through it yourself. The twist works and doesn’t work at the same time. It’s interesting and fits with what’s been happening to her, but there are parts where I’m not sure it could actually happen that way., but I’m not a psychiatrist.

I did enjoy reading it because that kind of character is my favourite one in a thriller and I really wanted to know who did it and why, but there are a few things that didn’t work for me (like some things involving the big twist). I also can’t get over how much the synopsis lies about what the book is actually about, I’m a petty person.

This is yet another one of those books that left me scratching my head and wondering just what on earth had I just read. 🤔
It started out really well. Successful author, instant bestseller, overnight sensation, and so on. Our heroine is in the process of writing a dark, psychological thriller when suddenly, the plot of said manuscript is played out in real life. Good eh? That would reel you right in, wouldn't it? It certainly reeled me in. 🎣
It kinda went a little bit bonkers just past the halfway point. I had some trouble suspending my belief to accommodate the narrative. 😵‍💫
Things did get slightly back on an even keel further along, and do you know what? Despite that wee tumble down the rabbit hole, I actually enjoyed this book. 🗡️
Thanks to Storm Publishing and Netgalley for the digital ARC.

It is hard to say too much about this book without giving some of the brilliant plot twists away. When savi Portman writes a bestseller it throws her, rather uncomfortably, into the public eye. But while she is writing her follow up book, based on her neighbours, some of the things she was written start coming true even though anyone is yet to read it.
This was definitely an engrossing book which will keep you guessing. An easy read and thoroughly enjoyable.

ARC review - pub date 09.18.25

Every time I read an Amanda McKinney book I’m like, okay this one is my favorite! They’re all so good - but seriously, THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE!

Savi is a cozy mystery author who ends up super famous after her lasted novel becomes a New York Times bestseller. But secretly, she is also writing a thriller book because she wants something more. But as she keeps writing, day by day, she keeps happening upon situations that she had wrote about in her book that happened in real life after she had written it. A man stabbed to death in a cabin turns up days after her new FMC Lillian stabs a man in a cabin. Other instances like being fired from a job and passing out while on a run are happening to her, or people she is close to and she can’t make any sense of it.

This book was written FLAWLESSLY and I flew through it! The way the second half of this book had my head spinning and how everything came together 🤯 truly her best work! It’s a book within a book because we are alternating between Savi as an author, and reading Lillian’s story as well — and I was completely hooked.

The true definition of a PSYCHOLOGICAL thriller. I think fans of Kiersten Modglin books will love this one!!

5 ⭐️

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Storm books for my ARC!

Savi Portman has become an instant successful cozy mystery author. As she is suddenly thrust into the spotlight with book tours, giving interviews and signing books she is thrilled, but exhausted. After returning home, she is constantly bombarded with calls and texts for her next manuscript, but she is unable to write another cozy mystery. Instead, her writing turns dark as a thriller begins to emerge. Then real life begins to mimic her writing and Savi spirals into a worrisome psychological state. Fast paced, with good characters and a suspenseful build make this another great book from one of my favorite mystery writers. Thank you Netgalley and Storm Publishing for this eARC. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Comments expressed in this review are my personal opinion.

Savi is becoming a successful author and lives with her best friend Katie. Savi is spending a lot of time thinking about Wealthy Jacob Lockhart and his wife Quinn and is writing a story about them.
Loved this book from start to finish. It is very cleverly written and kept me guessing for most of the book.