What a fantastic book
I read this one in two sittings and really couldn’t put it down

Highly recommended

From the author of It’s Always the Husband comes a riveting new suspense novel about privilege, power, and what happens when we let ambition take control.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

A dark and twisted thriller full of suspense. I absolutely loved this book . Right from the beginning I was drawn into this story and I highly recommend it,

Great thriller. Loved almost as much as Rhea first novel. Suspense filled and gripping. Amazing. Perfect for fans of psychological thrillers x

I realised halfway through this book that I had read and reviewed it before. Here is my previous review

This is about twins Rose and Belle at boarding school. They fall out as Belle gets friendly with the popular girls. Events snowball until one of the twins is dead and the other one is accused of murdering her. Overall it is a good story with a good plot.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

She Was The Quiet One was a gripping book which tells a story of a series of events at a boarding school. Well written and a fab read. My first by this author but certainly not my last.

This is a little all over the place. Some parts are really gripping whilst other parts feel like they have been written by someone completely different. A Frankenstein novel if you will. A little disappointing.

She was the quiet one

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I would have hoped. The main characters Rose and Bel were not likeable at all and I feel this book would be more suited to the YA genre of books. It was also far too long and drawn out.



There's not much more I can add I'm afraid.

With thanks to Netgalley and HQ for this ARC in exchange for an open and honest review.

I knew I would enjoy this book from the prologue, a young girl waking up in bed in the sick bay. She had a lump on the back of her head, then she remembered her sister was dead.

After the death of their mother twins Bel and Rose Enright had to move to their wealthy grandmas house. Their Grandma decided to enrol the girls at co-ed Odell Academy which was their father and grandfather's alma mater.

Rose who was more quiet and studious excelled at Odell. However Bel who was more loud and boisterous, was still grieving for her mother and was upset at being sent to boarding school. Rose and Bel would be living at Moreland Hall, a dorm with a bad reputation for parties and other deeds. On her first day Bel was pleased when she was taken under the wing of Darcy a senior and classic mean girl.

Meanwhile Odell teachers Sarah and Heath Donovan had been promoted to housemasters at Moreland Hall. They would live at Moreland with their two young children and dog. The senior girls in the dorm decided they would try to bed Heath as a joke.

Rose and Bel became distant after Bel humiliated Rose on their first day in front of Darcy and her cronies. Weeks later Darcy told Bel she had perform a dare to stay friends with her. That night wearing ski masks, Darcy and Bel broke into Rose`s dorm and attacked her roommate with a slipper. Rose fought off Darcy but instantly recognised Bel who had taken a photo of the attack and posted it on Snapchat.

The same night Rose reported the attack to Sarah and Heath. Darcy was suspended immediately but Bel escaped punishment. A rumour went around school that Heath and Bel were having a sexual relationship, Rose tried to stop Bel until one of them ended up dead.

I enjoyed She Was the Quiet One immensely. As I child I loved Enid Blyton`s Naughtiest Girl in School and Mallory Towers. Even as an adult I still enjoy those books. However I think the late Mrs Enid Blyton would of been scandalized by Odell Academy. Odell was a school for wealthy kids whose parents would pay heavily to avoid a scandal. The school was almost gothic, and surrounded by forests to create an eerie atmosphere.

I was sure I knew who the dead sister was but of course I was completely wrong. Out of the twins I actually preferred Bel, Bel was grieving for her mum and feeling lonely she allowed herself to be manipulated. Although Rose felt humiliated by Bel I don't think she should of cut off contact after the slipper incident. I also liked Sarah who wanted to trust Heath despite the evidence.

The book also included transcripts of the police interviews with the students. This was a five star 🌟 thriller, I look forward to Michelle`s next book.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the book in exchange for an honest review.
This was a psychological thriller which was really creepy and unsettling, the male character was someone who used females to get what he wanted. He was a teacher and the head of a dorm with his wife,but went and had sex with his pupil on her sixteenth birthday. Everything Heath did was for his benefit and when anything went wrong he blamed everyone else but him.
The twin sisters were pupils caught up in his intrigues and his wife thought he couldn’t be to blame until it was nearly to late for the remaining twin. It was an interesting and engrossing book.
Recommended.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. What a dark and a twisted book that had me hooked right from the beginning. Good read

I very much enjoyed It’s Always The Husband and with She Was The Quiet One the author brings that same immersive sense of the story but with a very different tale, still though completely character driven and very compelling.

I’ve always been a sucker for boarding school stories, this book takes two sides of that theme and throws in an emotionally charged murder. On the one hand we have two sisters, very different in personality, who fall into a war both with each other and with themselves. On the other we have a married couple, both staff at the school, where dangerous secrets are everywhere.

This is a twist on a very current subject , with themes of power and responsibility, love trust and loyalty, with a side of sibling rivalry and a huge dose of emotional trauma.

I was fully engaged with the sisters- Michele Campbell has the knack for making you fully see all sides of the story, playing with sympathy, changing the rules with every passing chapter. It is clever and thought provoking and it was striking that the “bad guy” in it all was never really hidden but lived fully in plain sight on the pages, the other characters dancing around them.

She Was The Quiet One is tense and melancholy, beautifully plotted and written, with some fascinating characters and an addictive, perfectly paced plot.

Recommended.

Last year I read, reviewed and loved Michele’s debut novel called ‘It’s Always The Husband’. I couldn’t wait to read her second book called ‘She Was The Quiet One’. Well the wait is now over because ‘She Was The Quiet One’ is due for release on 10th January 2019. Oh my goodness me, I absolutely loved it but more about that in a bit.
The main focus of the story is a set of twins called Bel & Rose. They went to live with their grandmother following the death of their parents. I really felt for both characters because they really were on their own and they only had each other. Their Granny is a bit of a funny old fish and very much of the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ brigade. Granny sends both girls to a boarding school that various members of the family have attended. This comes as a huge shock to both girls and they feel like fish out of water in that they have been picked up and dropped into this strange sort of place. Bel isn’t that academic but she is desperate to fit in and will do practically anything to hang around with the hip crowd. She wants to fit in and be popular. I could see why she wanted to do that but at the same time I felt that she should just be herself and that the crowd she is trying to hang out with are really sad and pathetic. Bel doesn’t intervene to stop the pranks that her new crowd carry out- not even when they pick on her own twin sister. She colludes with them. Bel just seems determined to lead a party lifestyle. Rose couldn’t be more different from her sister if she tried. Rose is a bit of a geeky nerd and I don’t mean that in a nasty way- far from it because I am the same. Rose throws all her energy and efforts into making the most of the opportunity that her Granny has given them. Rose is friendly, shy and does things by the book. I think Rose stands out a bit and it is for this reason that her sister’s new gang picks on her.
‘She Was The Quiet One’ is one of those books that really gets under your skin or at least it did mine. The story is a bit of a slow burn of a book but that didn’t bother me in the slightest because it helped to set the scene. The pace of the book gathers momentum as does the level of tension. I thought that the book was a tense, dramatic, unputdownable page turner with more layers to the plot than you would find layers of paper on a parcel in a game of ‘Pass The Parcel’. I couldn’t stop reading as I simply had to know what happened and to whom. I also needed to know who the guilty party was. On more than one occasion I smugly thought that I had fathomed out who did what and where only for another twist to pop up and send me down another path entirely. I binge read this book over the course of the day. I was so focused on the story and the characters that I didn’t realise just how quickly the pages were turning nor did I realise how fast the time was passing. It seemed to take me next to no time to finish the book but in reality it was a matter of hours.
In short, I absolutely loved reading ‘She Was The Quiet One’ and I would definitely recommend it to other readers. I can’t wait to read what Michele comes up with next. Here’s hoping that we don’t have too long to wait. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

She Was The Quiet One is the second book I’ve read by Michele Campbell, the first being it’s always the husband which was hugely enjoyable, this thriller I felt wasn’t as good, it was a book of two halves for me with the first half being quite slow going and the second half really picking up the pace.
The book is centred around a top notch boarding school and here we meet twins Bel and Rose who have lost their parents and have been sent to their grandmother who is rich and has sent them off to this snobby school. The plot goes slowly at first as this is scene setting but I felt too much dialogue was used that strung it out and I did feel my mind wander whilst reading. The story sees the twins fall out with each other and turn against each other, but why? Are the rumours true? The second half of the book was much more enjoyable with more happening and a few twists coming along although not as good as the last big twist.
I would like to thank Netgalley and HQ for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the cover to this book which is part of what made me want to read it but also the fact that twins featured in the book was a high appeal too.

I really enjoyed reading this, the scene is set perfectly from the outset when it is quickly discovered that one of the twins dies. This means the big question throughout the story is which twin died.

There were plenty of characters to interact with and get to know, some you automatically like and then some of them you don't. 

It was pretty fast paced and I was gripped/captivated from start to finish. 

The ending was great it was as I'd expected but there was a sneaky little surprise that I hadn't been expecting and so that gave the ending to the book that little something bit extra.

I highly recommend this book and if you haven't already done so, be sure to check out the author's debut book of It's Always the Husband.

"Just because they fight doesn't mean she would kill her sister. How could she? Her sister was the only family she had left."

Meet Rose and Bel Enright, 15 going on 16, twins, ophans. Their lives are about to change forever as they drive up to Odell Academy in the wake of theirs mothers death. There are more difference between the sisters than there are similarities. Rose is academic, quiet and ready for a fresh start where Bel is wild, adventurous and ready to block out the pain of their mother's passing. This new part of their lives at Odell starts off on the wrong note with the twins parting ways with different friend groups and a clear rivalry growing between them.

Sarah and Heath Donovan past students of Odell and now new teachers and dorm heads of the Moreland Hall dorm where the twins now reside. They have been hired to help change and restore the reputation of this wild dorm, neither of them could for see what this school year will bring. Sarah becomes Rose's advisor and Heath becomes Bel, from this moment all four lives will change forever.

This novel is marketed as a thriller and I can understand this at certain parts of the plots. There are many sceans that are situated in the spooky, dark, and foggy woodlands around the school or in the old historical buildings around campus in the shimmering light of the moon. But I would say it is a light thriller and not a sleep with the lights on thriller.

I quickly started to enjoy this read and got through the story fairly fast. The story flowed easily with short chapters and view points from all vital characters with police interview sections adding more view points. From the start you know that one sister is dead and the other the main suspect for her murder, however you don't know which one is which. From about a quarter of the way through it was clear who was killed and soon after by whom. Even with this predictable plot I found myself going through the emotions with the characters and changing my mind of who's side I was on.

Overall this is an easy and light read, but the novel needs to be marketed more as a YA novel. With the main characters teenagers I can see that some readers might be put off. The main four characters mentioned above are well rounded and developed however this cannot be said for all of the secondary characters we meet. Even with the predictable plotline the ending was very satisfying and tied everything together. For me the main 'thriller' part of the whole novel came from the epilogue which she light on a lose end I wasn't overly aware off which I would of never guessed.

I would recommend this novel for a YA fan who enjoys an easy Murder mystery to pass a rainy weekend.

3.5 stars
Twins, Bel and Rose go to live with their Grandmother after their mum dies. She then decides they should follow the family tradition and go to boarding school.
Rose is looking forward to it but Bel really doesn’t want to go.
The girls go off with their own group of friends and tensions start to show between them.
We also hear about the Dorm heads, Heath and Sarah who keep an eye on the twins due to their recent bereavement.
Soon rumours are spreading round the school and evidence is obtained of a shocking event.
There are also flash forwards to police interviews as someone has been murdered.
This is a good read.
Thanks to HQ and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Having been to a boarding school myself mysteries set in school settings have always intrigued me. I think it’s the sense of reliving some of the experience and the familiarity with some of the pupils that makes it so interesting.

The author does a great job with the characters in this book as whilst they are fairly stereotypical I felt they were well developed and I enjoyed learning more about them. The twins are very different to one another and it was interesting to see their different friends and experiences at school. I’ve seen a couple of reviewers describe one group as similar to those in the film ‘mean girls’ which I would say was accurate. Some of their activities, particularly those describing hazing of other students, were quite uncomfortable to read about and I often flipped past them.

The mystery of who has died was very well done and I liked the suspense and gradual revealing of this. The reader is aware that one twin has been held for this murder at the beginning of the book but not which one. This is gradually revealed through a series of flashbacks and police interviews which made for quite gripping reading. However I felt that once I discovered who had died it was quite obvious who had done it, though that is just my personal opinion and may be the result of reading lots of mysteries!

This is the second book by this author and I look forward to reading more from her in the future. If you like stories about teenage cliques or murder mysteries set in schools then you’ll love this book.

Huge thanks to HQ Stories for my copy of this book via Netgalley and to Joe Thomas for inviting me onto the blog tour.