I have read most of Miranda Rijks' books and have enjoyed them. But this one was just - WOW!

Abi takes a flight to Cape Town, South Africa to join up with her best friends Ethan and Becky. The mothers of these three are all close knit, which allows for a bit of parental relaxation over the trip. Grace, Abi's mum, is divorced from Bob - Abi's dad. Additionally, Abi did not take a gap year before uni so the three weeks she would be away would be a welcome time after 2 years into uni. Also, Abi's part time job at Cafe Blanco helped with expenses.

Tragically, in Cape Town, Abi is murdered caused by a knife wound to her heart.

Everyone is heartbroken. The reader finds out that Abi arrived in Cape Town a few days prior to when Ethan and Becky were to meet up. Something doesn't fit - and the police are slim with information. Are they being evasive? Deciding to take the inquiry into Abi's death into her own hands, Grace travels to Durham University.

But at Durham, Grace is faced with some stark realities...

HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Many Thanks to Inkubator Books and NetGalley for a terrific read!

In all honestly I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did, but it was a great read.

I found it a bit predictable at times, however I did enjoy it.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this E-book to review via Netgalley.

I have checked out her books before, but they just didn't catch my attention enough to request them. I thought this book was going to do it. The description was very interesting, however it fell short. I ended up skimming. THe ending was good, but it wasn't able to grasp attention throughout.

#TheArrangement #NetGalley
Thanks NetGalley, Inkubator Books and Miranda Rijks for an ARC to review.
Imagine saying goodbye to your daughter who was excitedly heading to a vacation with her friends in Cape Town and instead of opening your door to have her once more in your arms you open your door to police officers telling you your beautiful precious daughter was murdered. No, actually don't imagine that, it's too painful.
Grace receives this awful news about her daughter Abi and her life begins to slide down an endless despair dark pit. How well do you think you know your kids? How well do you think you know the ones close to you? And more important, how well do you think you know yourself? How far would you go off track when pushed by tragedy?

Miranda Rijks is a "new to me" author, and I am always excited to find more new authors that I can enjoy reading. I believe that I have found one in this author. This book caught my attention from the first, and it was hard for me to put down. I wanted to find out what Grace was planning to do and how she was going to do it. There have been some books that I can put down, even read another book before picking the first book up again, but this was not one of them.

Grace is a single mother living near London with two daughters. The oldest one, Abi, has been at college,, but
has saved her money so she can join some friends who are in a trip to Cape Town, South Africa. Unfortunatley, Abi is attacked and killed while there. Grace just can't accept the way the police there have handled the investigation, and tries to discover more about her daughter's life. Gaining access to her computer, she learns way more than she could ever have wanted to know, and feels the need to explore exactly what went on during a certain amount of time. She must be getting on someone's nerves, as she soon starts receiving threatning calls. Complicating things is Grace's past history with alcohol as she slides back into bad habits. Her group of friends try to help, but believe she is making things up. I belived that I knew who the "bad guy" was, but I was wrong. There were several twists in this book and I enjoyed it

Thank you, Net Galley for giving me the chance to read it.

The Arrangement is a thriller which will have you on the edge of your seat, a mother desperate for the truth who will go to any lengths to find it.
Grace's daughter, Abi has gone to South Africa to meet up with her best friends for some time out. While there she is murdered which leaves her family in pieces.Abi's friends are all part of a tight knit circle, Grace is friends with both sets of parents. Grace discovers some rather unsettling facts which make her wonder why her daughter was in South Africa on the dates she was and other details that don't sit right. The story unfolds when she discovers Abi was living a totally seperate life than what she knew and the more she digs the worse it becomes.Grace begins to think that Abi'skilling wasnt a random one like everyone thought but a targeted one and maybe the killer is closer than she thinks.
I totally empathised with Grace in her grief and her search for the truth about Abi. Miranda has again wrote a book that has touched my deepest emotions as a mother with daughters.I was with her every step of the way and her grief touched me. This is an exceptionally written thriller with well developed characters and a plot that was so believable.

I received a free copy of this book via netgalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

A perfection combination of mystery/thriller that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. This story was about a mother(Grace) finding out about a death of her child(Abi) and figuring out who murdered her and what she finds out along the way. No one is how they seem.

There are some references to rape and alcoholism

Nothing terrible, nothing great here either. Got a bit ridiculous after awhile and I skimmed through to the end, Overall, mediocre read.

The premise is good. A daughter goes on vacation and dies. A mother researches her daughter's death, while in the depths of grief, finds she doesn't know her daughter at all.

What happens is that the characters are flat and unlikable and frankly, I didn't care. Plot wise, it was fairly obvious to figure out what happened but it's still exciting enough for people who are just getting used to domestic thrillers.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

This is an average thriller overall. The plot was pretty straight forward and there were no major surprises. I would have preferred an alternative ending with a twist though. Characters were interesting and fairly likeable.

Abi was lost and spiraling from the news that her daughter, Abi, was murdered in Cape Town. Abi said she was there to meet up with two of her best friends; however, after her death, Grace found out Abi went there four days before her friends were supposed to arrive.

The story does make me wonder if what Grace uncovered about Abi after her death was real. She became a heavy drinker borderline alcoholic and on top of that, she's taking prescription drugs to cope with her daughter's death. It was a nice mystery; however, there were no twists to it. Halfway through the book, I can guess what will happen. Overall it was a nice and easy read. The storyline does keep my attention even when I figured it out. However, the antagonist's back story never developed as a whole. That was disappointing when the ending came and the reason why was given.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When her daughter disappeared from a dream vacation, her nightmare has just begun. A fast paced thriller that I couldn’t put down I highly recommend it.

The murder, The unanswered questions. Secrets. Lies. Sugar babies. A mother's determination to find the truth. Abi was just supposed to be on holiday. A fun holiday in Cape Cod with her friends, but when she goes, she doesn't come back.

The Arrangement by Miranda Rijks follows Grace as she attempts to find the truth behind her daughter, Abi's, death. While, the police are convinced it's a murder of opportunity, Grace isn't as sure, she's actually positive there's more to it than meets the eye, especially when she finds out all the secrets Abi had kept to from her.

Here's what I didn't like:
The characters and the relationships to one another were lacking. In this novel, I found a lot of the characters to be flat and unlikable, except maybe Abi, but she's dead and you only occasionally see her POV through her journal entries. Also, the relationships between characters felt superficial, and I didn't feel like I got meaningful dialogue or interactions between them. It was hard to gauge how they felt about each other and how deep relationships went.

Going on, I found the ending to be a little abrupt. I wish it had more time to sit in the revelation of the twist when it happened, which goes back to the lack of meaningful interactions and dialogue. I really felt like I was just getting taken from point A to point B, not being taken on a journey and told a story.

Here's what I liked:
There was a good twist, like any thriller should have, and I was interested in seeing where the book would take me. I think the author had a lot of great ideas, they just may not have been strung together successfully.

Overall, I think this book has some great elements of a thriller, such as: when you're reading you keep asking questions, a twist, and a contemporary concept. I just think the ideas could have been fleshed out more.

This is one of those books where you want to tell the main character to get it together already, even though she's clearly grieving. I felt like as the plot progressed it was pretty easy to figure out what happened to Abi but it didn't detract from the story overall.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Arrangement by Miranda Rijks is another unputdownable read from an author who is very quickly establishing herself as a new favourite. I devoured this one in a few hours and am already adding all of Ms Rijks's previous works to my must read list.

Grace is stunned to learn that her daughter Abi has been murdered while on a South African holiday. How could her sweet, studious daughter have become the victim of such a heinous attack in a foreign land? But as Grace seeks possible answers to this question, all while battling her own demons, it quickly becomes apparent that there is much about her daughter's life to which she has never been privy. As Grace continues her quest for the truth, she soon realizes that someone will stop at nothing to prevent her from discovering Abi's secrets.

This is a novel that will certainly require a certain willingness toward the suspension of disbelief but, for me, this only adds to the spine-tingling excitement of the race to uncover the truth. I cannot wait to read more from this author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Inkubator Books for this ARC.