This is my first time reading the author. Titan Books are one of my favourite publishers and I had faith they would come up with something excellent. They did. This is a domestic thriller and a bit different from the stuff I usually read. Change can be a good thing. The characters are well written and really come alive. I disliked creepy Leland from the start and shared Grace’s distrust of the unpleasant man. Grace is a very anxious person and easy to relate to. She wants to protect her children, and something seems off about Leland. The book is unsettling and uncomfortable to read but totally engrossing.

This was so good! Great writing, full of twists and turns and so much fun! I could not put it down until the very end! Can't wait to read more, thank you so much!

A suspenseful domestic thriller by debut novelist, Sharon Doering. How far would you go to protect your kids, if you suspected your neighbor abducted and possibly killed a child their age? Sleep deprived, recently separated, possibly rabid, and medicated what might one suspect they’ve already done when that neighbor turns up dead? Quirky at times and a page-turner throughout, She Lies Close is a debut that holds the reader captive.

Thanks to Titan Books & NetGalley for the advanced copy of SHE LIES CLOSE in exchange for this review.

As a debut novel, props to Sharon Doering for an interesting premise here. Grace moves next door to a person suspected in a case of a missing child and becomes convinced this person is responsible. Grace is a worrier, anxious about her entire existence, and much of the book spends too much time on her internal ramblings during sleepless nights. The focus is actually more on Grace and her descent into a type of conspiracy madness rather than the actual case of the missing girl. Difficult to connect to Grace, therefore too hard for me to be really invested.

She Lies Close is an unsettling and uncomfortable read. I really warmed to the narrator and her attitude towards her everyday life. It was very interesting to read from her perspective as she justified her behaviour.

I think I had quite high expectations for the ending. The book was a little slow paced, which I wrongly assumed would lead to an explosive ending. Instead, the ending felt a little flat and I felt like it came out of nowhere, after not really seeing much of a build up.

Overall decent thriller, disappointing ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Most modern domestic thrillers follow a similar trajectory and tone: Frazzled mother, something small happens, something bigger happens, then something happens to the child. The screws tighten predictably as the tension builds until the final climax of the book. The villain is revealed to be the heroine’s best friend/husband/next-door neighbor. It’s a good, satisfying structure that works. But sometimes it makes things a little too neat. Sometimes a reader wants to get outside the box just a little.

Read the complete review by following the link below.

It is hard to believe that this is a debut from this author! The twists and turns in this thriller kept coming in a way that only an exceptional writer could lay out! I cannot wait to read more from this author in the future!

Y'aaaaall.

I've read plenty of books with unsympathetic narrators but this is one of the perishing few where I could sympathize with our protagonist even as I lacked any empathy for her. Grace Wright is, in temperament, my exact opposite. She has a fixed idea of how things should be, and reacts poorly when things go wrong. She'd rather take medication than undergo therapy, and is an enthusiastic helicopter parent who resents her kids, especially since divorcing the husband who cheated on her. She's overwhelmed even before she discovers that her neighbor is a suspect in the disappearance of five year-old Ava Boone. Sleep-deprived and constantly scouring the Internet on a quest for how to fix everything in her life, she's a mess. And then she thinks she sees Ava in the window of the house next door.

What follows is a hallucinatory descent into, if not quite the madness, then the definite temporary psychosis of a modern woman trying to keep it all together, to be the woman she thinks she's "supposed" to be even as her mental and emotional health degrade, in no large part due to her own reactionary choices. Grace has little impulse control and cannot stop from making bad decisions, spurred on by a social milieu that tells her she <i>shouldn't</i> compromise, that she only needs to <i>lean in</i>, to <i>try</i> harder while depriving her of the supportive framework to do that. Confused and anxious, she chooses paranoia at every turn. Frankly, she's a QAnon cultist waiting to happen -- certain passages, particularly the ones about falling down Internet rabbit holes and being obsessed with protecting children from strangers, remind me of profiles I've read of true believers.

And yet, I couldn't write her off, because she reminds me of real, vulnerable people I know and love: funny, intelligent people intent on ruining their own lives and stubbornly insistent on being right to do so. Sharon Doering has written a remarkably lived-in tale of a woman who would be a terrific sleuth if she weren't <!--more-->almost completely out of her mind. I kept wanting to tell Grace that she needs a) sleep, and b) therapy (including couples counseling because it didn't seem like she and her ex-husband even tried to repair their marriage before splitting up,) but she's the kind of person who only seeks out positive reinforcement for her self-destructive behavior. And maybe more than self-destructive, as she keeps inserting herself into the case of the disappearance of Ava Boone, even after a brutalized body is found.

This is not the book for people who need to like their protagonists. Grace suuuuuucks and I would make about 5% of her choices, but Ms Doering writes her so well, laying down her fevered thinking and raw emotions bare on the page, that it's hard to look away. If I had to tag myself in the book, I'd definitely be a Jason, who hopes she gets better. That Grace is also the narrator of not one but two tricky murder mysteries renders this a virtuoso performance of a novel that's meant to be uncomfortable for people like myself, but also perhaps relatable for people who might need the help and, as a result of seeing themselves in this book, seek it out.

We were lucky enough to be able to interview Ms Doering for her insightful and often charming thoughts on motherhood, time management and persistence. Click <a href="http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/08/an-interview-with-sharon-doering-author-of-she-lies-close/"> here to read the interview.</a>

She Lies Close by Sharon Doering was published in the US today, November 10th, 2020, and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781789094190">Bookshop!</a>

Want it now? For the Kindle version, <a href="https://amzn.to/3o5VqQW">click here</a>.

Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books UK for the arc of this book by Sharon Doering.

I found this book VERY hard to get into, and I was just not enjoying it at all. I almost DNF it. This was one I had hopes for, but fell WAY short for me. Sorry to say I did not enjoy this one. The writing was well done, but it was all just a little stupid honestly.

I really wanted to like this book. I could not connect with Grace at all. Her story just seemed to wander around as she got more and more unbalanced. But she didn't become unbalanced in an interesting way. More in a huh? way. I found myself reading it more and more quickly just to be done and maybe hear more about little Ava. I was disappointed, but it was over fast.

Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books UK for the arc of this book by Sharon Doering.

3 star read for me it was a quick read, a great storyline, great plot, well written and structured i liked all of the characters involved in this book, i thoroughly enjoyed reading this as it had me hooked and wanting more as to why i finished this quick
⭐⭐⭐

This book was compelling and a quick read. As a debut novel, I was quite impressed with this one. It had me guessing and was a page turner.

I did enjoy this book and I would recommend it. Saying that, I thought parts of the book was slow and kept repeating scenes. I also was surprised at some of the twists! Again, I would recommend this book.

After a five-year-old girl has been missing for six months, Grace Wright, the mother of two young children, buys a home next to a suspect in the missing girl's case.

Grace fears that her neighbor is dangerous, and ends up killing him while she was sleepwalking. I hated Grace and I really didn't like the writing style at all.

I found this book really difficult to read and it just didn't grip me at all. Struggled to finish it.

Ava Boone has been missing . There has only been one suspect.
Grace Wright has just moved next door to the main suspect Leland Ernest with her two young children.
Grace begins to look into the case.
Grace isn't all that well. She struggles with A.D.D and anxiety and she also has insomnia causing her to hallucinate and black out.
She thinks her neighbour is trying to groom her young daughter so she breaks into the neighbours house and to d disturbing evidence that make her more determined he kidnapped Ava .
But then the neighbour turns up dead.
Did Grace kill him ?
Thanks NetGa!ley

3 for neutral, this was not for me. I tried multiple times and was unable to finish. Will update if able To finish at a later date.

I didn't enjoy this as much as I hoped. I didn't like the main character's internal monologue. It seemed so fake and rambly. She also was incredibly anxious about every tiny thing but then did stuff like even the kids alone in an unfenced yard. I didn't find her realistic.

Thinking back, I am not sure what exactly I thought this book would be, but I know when I finished it, it was not what I expected! I think I believed this book would focus on the disappearance of Ava Boone, and when her disappearance is merely an afterthought in the overall plot, I was disappointed for a chapter or two. It quickly got interesting.

The main character, Grace, was a character I could semi-relate to. I am a mother, I've been a single mother of two, and I have spent my fair share of nights staying up late and googling random things way past midnight. Grace seems to take it to an extreme though and obsesses about everything and anything to the point where it's annoying.

Most of the book is filled with Grace's long, rambling thoughts while experiencing late night insomnia and raising her kids. She worries nonstop, but is reckless in her behavior and the combination of her thoughts versus her actions just threw me. It was hard to like her most of the time.

Because the main character is so haphazard with her life the story took weird turns and left me feeling very disjointed in what was going on in the book. Some plot points seemed to get lost or forgotten causing holes in the story the further I read. Plot points that were really interesting to me would suddenly change to the next plot point and I almost got whiplash trying to keep up.

No spoilers here, but this didn't end in any way, shape or form that I expected. I am not sure if it was because of the wandering storyline or the super fast way the ending seemed to wrap up, but it left me very unsatisfied.

"She Lies Close" is set to be released November 10, 2020 here in the U.S. Pre-order now!

Thanks to Netgalley and Titan Books for allowing me to read the egalley and give my honest review. It was a 3 star read for me.

Happy Reading!

I've tried to finish this book several times and just finished it. It started off well but just got confusing & the plot wore very thin. It was an okay read which is disappointing as it started off so well