Cover Image: Dead to Her

Dead to Her

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Member Reviews

This book centres around main character Marcie, a woman who was able to leave her difficult past behind and rise to become one of Savannah’s wealthy "elite" residents. Marcie surrounds herself with a small circle of friends, and then Keisha comes along - a young woman that recently married ultra-rich William Radford IV and things start to get interesting. This includes secrets, betrayals and murder!.

Dead to Her was a fun read. It was entertaining and kept my interest.. The characters were the most amazingly developed but the twists and turns throughout the book kept me hooked. I definitely didn’t have “things” figured out- far from it. Highly recommended to fans of mystery/thriller books.

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This is a rare thing for me. DNF
I did get through about 20% but I hated the characters, the whole way they were portrayed and it was just not a pleasure to read. I loved Behind Her Eyes so I feel sad I couldn’t enjoy this one.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

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Sadly this book wasn't for me, it had so many twists and turns it became confusing. I did try very hard to understand this book but it just didn't grab me.
Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book xxx

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This was a fascinating thriller that kept me up past my bedtime. Excellent character development along with a twisty story. Highly recommended.

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I think Sarah Pinborough is fast becoming one of my favourite thriller authors!

Dead to Her is set amongst the high society of Savannah, Georgia and follows two women who become second wives to men in the society. Prior to the start of the book, Marcie Maddox fell for her husband Jason while he was still married to first wife Jacquie, but managed to snag him away and has been trying to settle into life among the rich ever since. Being the youngest wife by far and the only second wife hasn't been easy for Marcie, but there's no way she's going back to her old life.

But when Jason's business partner William marries a woman 40 years+ younger than him, less than a year after his first wife's death, their group of friends is rocked. Not only is the woman barely 22 years old, she's a black English woman and it seems as though she's caught of the eye of Jason...

I loved this book from the very first page. The synopsis makes it seem as though it's a typical thriller about a woman fighting against a love rival for the attention of some boring man, but not the case here! I was not expecting this twisty-turny dark story, full of likeable and unlikeable characters with hidden secrets and ulterior motives. Every new book I read by Sarah Pinborough, I think 'wow this is my favourite book by her so far', then another comes and takes it place.

Such a great thriller, it definitely kept me on my toes. Watch out for this book when it's released!

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Once a cheat, always a cheat,” or so they say. Marcie Maddox has worked hard to get where she is after the illicit affair that started her new life a few years ago. Jason's boss - William has a new wife Keisha who is shaking things up and becomes real good friends with Marcie. Lies, secrets, betrayals and southern blood with a little ju ju voodoo thrown in for good measure.
A story told though the eyes of Keisha and Marcie trying to fit into a society they clearly do not belong in. Marcie with a past from a poor background surrounds herself with lot of the southern elite. But is desperate for some real attention. Then she gets all the attention she needs when Keisha rockets into town from the UK. Keisha orphaned and living with her mean aunt and uncle thinks she will find solace in the deep south when she moves to the USA with her new husband, but soon realises that the ghosts she lived with in the UK have followed her.
Secrets, secrets and more secrets going back decades for all the major characters, love triangles, layers of sex, and some psychological banter thrown in. Toxic marriages, a good pinch of mystery and a good who done it!
I Enjoyed this book. Its not my usual choice but I flew through it and loved the characters. I enjoyed Sarah Pinborough's story of this tangled web of deceit. I can imagine this being snatched up by the TV industry.

Thanks for the advanced copy - in exchange for a honest review.

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Aaaaah this is a difficult one to review as I adore Sarah Pinborough and Behind Her Eyes is one of my favourite books, however unfortunately this just didn't do it for me.

Dead to Her starts off with some interesting characters and some pretty unlikeable ones too. Set in Savannah amongst the elite, the story follows Marcie, a second wife of Jason, an important man and Keisha, a young, beautiful and wild addition to their cliquey community who has arrived from England having met and married William Radford IV, who coincidentally is Jason’s boss in a whirlwind romance.

There is quite a bit of steamy sex, lots of secrets and lots of pasts that the characters want to keep hidden, add in some voodoo and Dead to Her is a fun thriller which fans of domestic noir will love.

Unfortunately for me I kept waiting for the OMG moment and it didn't quite hit the spot for me.

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I was expecting a mind-bending twist like Behind Her Eyes, but not only was there not one—I was suspicious of the eventual culprit from fairly early on—the ending didn't really justify the journey to get there. It was very readable but not particularly enjoyable.

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Dead to Her is told from the points of view of two women Marcie and Keisha who are part of a wealthy society in Savannah, Georgia. I found the first chapter intriguing and it set the scene for an unputdownable psychological thriller. The first few chapters build up slowly, and then Keisha makes her entrance and really brings the story to life. As her backstory is revealed, it's soon apparent that her life isn't all it seems. I found Marcie more interesting as the novel progressed and really liked the way the lives of Marcie and Keisha become intertwined as the tension between them builds up. I sympathised with both women, particularly as I got to find out more about their husbands. The later part of the book turned into a whodunnit as the plot kept throwing out twists and surprises. I really liked the voodoo theme. The end left me feeling like I'd been left on the edge of a cliff.

I loved everything about this book. Highly recommended. Easy 5 stars.

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I was a fan of Sarah Pinboroughs writing back when she began 'The Dog-Faced Gods' trilogy, however, have been a little put off with the direction her latest novels have taken. I enjoyed 'Behind Her Eyes', which was a fun thriller with a few twists. For me though, 'Dead to Her' is not in the same league as the ones described - this novel, for me, was a disappointment. I didn't like the characters, the plot felt a little weirdly paced and there were some 'twists' that felt placed there as this is the type of thriller which is popular right now. I'd happily read another Sarah Pinborough novel as I think she's a fantastic author - this one just wasn't for me.

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As excited as I was about this I just didn’t enjoy it. I found the characters shallow and very annoying which made it hard to care about any of them. The whole world was very superficial and it was a struggle to get through each page.

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This was a strange but addictive read which I thoroughly enjoyed. Flawed characters & well written keeps you wanting to read more. I’d recommend to anyone.

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This is a slightly weird cross of Jackie Collins with voodoo! Our two protagonists are poor girls married up with rich men and determined to keep their secrets, their new lifestyles and their money... no matter what the price. There's a 'twist' that I could easily see coming and gradually the voodoo/cursing strand takes over - with a sudden rush of revelations at the end. I found the pacing off with a whole long boring bit in the middle. It's also hard to maintain interest in a twenty-something young woman who has married an unpleasant older man purely for his money who then complains that he acts like he's bought her - too right, he has. I was interested enough to read through to the fanciful ending but honestly, just wasn't feeling it.

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This is a real tangled web of a story... we start with the new, young wife of William Radford 4th, Keisha. Recently married, it is clearly doomed to failure. Keisha is clearly not of their circle and won't be accepted. We also meet Marcie and Jason - he is Williams business partner, Marcie his second wife. Marcie is jealous - Jason is up to something and she suspects it involves Keisha.

In amongst all this, we mix in the first wives of William and Jason, some voodoo magic, hard feelings and falling in and out if love. How quickly love can turn to bitterness with just a change of view.

There is then a huge plot twist which implicates lots of characters - any of them could be involved. Then there is another big twist at the end for good measure!

This is quite a long book but it held my interest. Right from the start the reader knows there is more going on than meets the eye - but I didn't see the ending coming at all. It's a real tangle of a tale but a small circle of characters means it's easy to keep track of what's going on.

I got a few copy of this book from Netgalley with no promise of a favourable review.

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Oh I thoroughly enjoyed this book, lots of truly flawed characters living a shallow flawed existence! Well written and engaging with a very unexpected ending! Really good read.

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I’m impressed by this book so much!! I started it thinking it was a tad shallow, Jackie Collins wannabe (not entirely wrong) but I never saw the twist it took coming! Thanks to the twist, this story elevates into a very clever tale of deception, manipulation and intrigue. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend as a summer, lying by the pool with a cocktail book.
Don’t give up on it, the ending leaves you wanting more...........

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Gripping from the start and compelling reading throughout!
Be prepared to loose sleep to this book as it will have you hooked. My kids might not agree as they had to feed themselves whilst I was trapped inside Sarah Pinborough's mind!

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Well, this is a tale of the unexpected, a danse macabre, bad juju, voodoo, black magical, diabolical, twisty, and mysterious, superstitious journey into the dizzy heights of Savannah society. Marcie is trailer trash and doing her level best to hide though you can’t help your roots and she marries up. Very up. Jason Maddox is a lawyer and a wealthy member of the Savannah social scene, he’s not exactly blue blood but he’s upwardly mobile. Jason’s partner, a recent widower William Radford IV returns from a vacation in London with a 20 something trophy wife on his arm - stunningly beautiful Keisha, also from the wrong side of the tracks. Keisha does not get an especially warm welcome from the rich Savannah women with their snobbery, their blue blood, saccharine smiles, frozen botoxed faces, taut (old) bodies, oozing poisonous glances and snide put downs. I think I’d rather immerse myself in a tank of piranhas. The story is told from the perspectives of Marcie and Keisha and is highly entertaining to say the least.

The story is very well written and though none of the characters are especially likeable they don’t half make for a good twisty story! There is one character who is vividly described who is very mysterious and threatening who keeps appearing and she is very intriguing. I confess to a sneaking admiration for Keisha as although you could not describe her as entirely innocent, she isn’t as bad as some of the others! It’s steamy at times and I’m not necessarily talking about the southern heat, although I really like the way that the author uses the weather conditions so effectively enhance the storyline. There are some fantastic and quite chilling scenes that are vividly described and keep you interested and questioning what’s going on throughout.

Overall, it’s steamy, mysterious with a tangled web of deception and frankly, some of the characters wouldn’t know truth if it socked them between the eyeballs. There are schemes, counter schemes, counter, counter schemes, revelations, vengeance, with black magic overtones so that your head spins so much your startled eyes are spinning too. One minute you think you’ve got it all sorted and then, wham, you realise your way off base and it’s much more twisted sister than you thought. So obviously, I really liked it and was fabulously enthralled throughout.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC.

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I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of Dead to Her via NetGalley.

When I saw there was a new novel by Sarah Pinborough coming in 2020, and that it was available on NetGalley, I got very excited and put in my request as soon as I could. And when I was lucky enough to be approved, I read it straight away, rather than waiting till next Summer. I appreciate this review is way early but it's been a year or two without a book from this author so just couldn't delay. Look at this as a peek into the future - what you may be reading next August...

You can't tame a wild thing

Dead to Her opens with a party and an entrance.

'Eyes scanned the new wife's gold dress - Versace maybe - figure-hugging but an inch too short for this society crowd. The heels - half an inch too high. The jewellery, thick coils around her neck and hanging from her ears, impressive but attention-seeking. All of the women - nearly all over fifty - would be making the same assessment: She's not one of us.'

William, a wealthy and influential, but ageing, (and White) lawyer practising in stately Savannah, Georgie, has invited his wealthy, influential (and mostly ageing) White friends to meet his new English wife, Keisha (young, not wealthy, Black).

Returned early from a trip to Europe he'd taken after the death of first wife, Eleanor, he's eager to present Keisha to Savannah society... and to begin moulding her into someone that will do him credit. There was an element of Pgymalion in William's attitude to Keisha, if Professor Higgin, besides being sexist and a snob, also had a streak of malice. William may have been taken with Keisa when he spotted her waitressing in a strip club, attracted by her youth and looks and even because she was not like his friends, not like Eleanor. But that is past. William is home now. Keisha has to fit in, take golf and tennis lessons, behave herself. If she's going to keep her place, she needs to earn it not just by meeting his needs in bed (those little blue pills are stern masters) but by becoming something she's not.

Keisha - one of the two main viewpoint characters - is on the cusp of discovering this, and the first part of the novel follows her as she realises how things are going to be. She comes to recognise the fix she's in, that William is not what she thought he was. But that's actually the least of her worries. She has secrets of her own. She was brought up by a ghastly uncle and aunt who think she's now their meal ticket. She's addicted to tranquillisers ('Thank fuck for her Valium') and she's in a very unfamiliar society. Under the eye of the first wife - in the form of portrait hung over the staircase - living in a house where Eleanor's bedroom, left as it was when she dies, mustn't be touched, intimidated by William's housekeeper Zelda, there are Gothic echoes here from the outset. Add to that Keisha's conviction that she is cursed, her memory of seeing a ghostly boy, and a sultry, voodoo-laden atmosphere, this is a book that seems to invite the uncanny.

From that first appearance Keisha is under suspicion by Marcie, young second wife to Jason, William's partner, who thinks Keisha has an eye on her husband. Marcie knows the ground here, having won Jason away from his first wife, Jacquie (who is also, we soon learn, back in town). Having a lot in common with Keisha - Marcie also come from the wrong side of the tracks, and also, as we will see, has secrets too - she's not unsympathetic to Keisha, but business and position come first in Savannah. Marcie won't be poor again and she won't lose Jason, despite the shine having come off her marriage too. ('It was amazing how you could contain yourself - imprison yourself - if you really tried')

So when the two women are thrown together - Jason is keen that Marcie befriend Keisha and persuade her to put pressure on William to retire - there is bound to be trouble. I often found myself holding my breath as the scenes between them teetered on the verge of blowing up into something truly scandalous. Keisha has a streak of recklessness, of daring, in her which leads her to cross lines and, combined with the tension between the two women, this gives the early parts of the book a real sense of danger, of things getting out of control.

Pinborough has a deft hand at sketching such relationships, giving both the light and the dark sides as she's shown in previous books such as 13 Minutes - there is something of the same atmosphere here, a mix of respectability and naughtiness with boundaries mutable and a sense of risk. That is articulated by Marcie, the other main character here, who's consciously rowing back at times from the "fun" out of concern at provoking Jason and falling from grace. As I've said, Marcie has her own secrets - and she becomes concerned that someone else knows them. Just how much will Jason put up with from her? Just how much will she put up with from him?

But this book is more than a study of male control of women, though it is grounded in that: that's the reality of life among the privileged in Savannah, however much it's disguised by the Club, the parties, the charity fundraising drives. There are obvious nexuses of rebellion such as gay party planners Julian and Pierre, who seem at first as though they're going to be a bit of a cliché - until Pinborough demolishes that: 'I was born Peter. I became Pierre.' There are deeper and more dangerous fractures in the elegant structure too, glitches in the family connections, the twisted links going back generations - more challenging, more scandalous secrets. Jason's father, for example, committed suicide ('the honourable thing') after being caught embezzling clients' money. And others besides which it would be spoilery to describe.

There is also some design working out here. Someone who knows things. Who pulls strings. Keisha, in her fear and panic, fears Eleanor's ghost, thinks she sees evidence of even darker things going on - but neither actually sees what's coming to them. As you'll know if you read Pinborough's books, things can get very nasty, very tense, very quickly. Part of the thrill here is realising just how wide the web has been spun - when that's made clear it drops with the surprise of a master.

Pinborough also has a gift for description. There is some perfect language in this book. The 'luxuriously slow' pace of leisured Savannah life is compared to 'a cat's stretch'. As Keisha suffers withdrawal from her Valium we read that 'The ants in her head were starting to emerge...' In particular there are some very evocative descriptions of sex (not all of it good sex!) We hear about William's 'lips cold and rubbery - old man mouth' as well as Keisha's fantasy of 'younger hands and warmer lips pressing her back onto the hood of her new red sports car'. The furniture sees a lot of action, so that sometimes it's easy to take an innocuous phrase the wrong way. After reading 'He'd fucked her over the dining table, huffing and puffing at her back' I didn't know for a moment quite how to interpret 'having Marcie across the luncheon table' but it turns out to be just a meal. (That time). We're left in no doubt that Keisha and Marcie may be privileged, may be more comfortable that their backgrounds would have allowed, but they pay a real price, they are little more than assets or trappings to their husbands who retain all the power and whose word goes.

It's a stultifying, claustrophobic life, even before weird things start happening. When they do - and regardless of who may have been reckless in the first place - those young wives, those second wives, those disposable, outsider wives - are the ones directly in line to take the blame and suffer the consequences.

And even behind that there is something else too...

I really enjoyed this book. It's compelling, scary, sharp-eyed but also written with genuine warmth and sympathy for those caught up in the evolving scandal. And the peril and jeopardy last till the very end, with some revelations about one character there is NO WAY I saw coming.

I would strongly recommend.

(If, like me, you've read Pinborough's earlier books you might also spot - I think I'm right here - a little nod to Murder and Mayhem).

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Dead To Her by Sarah Pinborough is a psychological thriller that should be at the top of your TBR pile, if you haven’t already devoured it.

It’s filled with an array of mesmerizing characters from the wealthy, sexy, elite crowd in Savannah, Georgia. Love some, hate others - you want to know them all!

It’s got steamy seductive sex, a murder or two, beautiful wives (some of them second wives) with deep insecurities, powerful men with fragile egos and a fascinating bit of Southern and African voodoo thrown in.

It’s as addictive as the drugs they take, with a killer ending that will have you gasping in morbid delight!

#netgalley #deadtoher #sarahpinborough #harpercollins

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