Mother of all Secrets debuted back in 2022. Right there I felt instantly bonded to Willett, her writing was fluid and easy to get sucked right into. After I feverishly stalked Amazon to find more from this author I was shocked to find out this was a debut 😳 You can’t be serious right now. Low and behold, it was. I knew right then I would sweat out waiting for the next book.

Then came Anything For a Friend. I was in the middle of reading something else but I just could not wait! It was Kathleen Willett and I had been waiting for this moment!!!

Sometimes I make the smartest decisions 😏 and this was definitely one of them . Kathleen Willett grabs us by the throat and throws us straight into an intricate web of lies and deceit .

Dual timelines give us a first hand account of what really happened all those years ago.

Girlfriends can be scary, you can end up with one better than your partner or you can get stuck tugging the knife out of your back as they offer to get you some neosporin.

Who is Maya and what are her intentions? Who is Carrie, truly, and what is she hiding?

My eyes bulged right out of my head when the twist was revealed! I loved Mother of All Secrets but let me tell you, Anything For a Friend, is literary gold. Don’t believe me? Check out this teaser :

Writer Carrie Colts hopes a move to Montauk will be a rejuvenating change of pace for her family. The last thing she expects to see is her former college roommate on her doorstep. Newly widowed, and with a daughter of her own, Maya would love to reconnect. As a gesture to an old friend in mourning, Carrie extends an invitation to stay. Just for a few days. After all, there are reasons that Carrie and Maya are estranged.
Carrie soon regrets her impulsive offer. Someone has taken a pair of scissors to her college yearbook. Her herb garden is destroyed. She’s starting to receive sinister texts. And Maya is making herself a little too much at home. What does Maya really want? What is she hiding? Carrie’s afraid to ask. Because Maya knows all her secrets, and exposing them comes with a price Carrie can’t afford to pay.

After giving myself a few days to process this book, I find myself having mixed emotions about it.

Carrie, along with her husband Pete and their daughter Kelsey, make the decision to move to Montauk after inheriting a house from Carrie's late mother-in-law. Hoping to reconnect with their distant teenage daughter, they embark on this new chapter of their lives.

However, things take an unexpected turn when Maya, Carrie's long-lost best friend and former college roommate, and her daughter Lola, reappear after years of no contact. This surprising reunion becomes even more unsettling as mysterious things start happening immediately following their arrival.

The author skillfully weaves together present-day events and past flashbacks, seamlessly integrating them into the narrative. This balance can be a challenge, but the author handles it with finesse, allowing the story to unfold and revealing how the choices we make in our youth shape who we become.

Although the plot twist wasn't entirely unpredictable, it was executed in a manner that felt plausible and comprehensible.

My main qualm with the book lies in its final chapter. While I understand the desire to tie up loose ends, the conclusion felt too neatly packaged, almost at the expense of the rest of the story.

Are you ready for a Fiction story you can't put down? That means you're ready for "Anything For a Friend" by Kathleen M. Willet.
A well written friendship story interwoven with secrets, family sacrifices, life choices, and love.
Meet Carrie a mother and wife lost in trying to make it right for her family but doing all the wrong things.

Do you ever wish sometimes that your bad past was lived by somebody else? Well, it's "your past" for a reason. Don't make others pay for your mistakes.

Enjoyable story with a lot of lessons to learn.

4,5 stars for Anything for a Friend, by new to me author K.M. Willett, published by Lake Union Publishing, is a thriller of its finest. A complex read that had me in suspense from start til the last page.
Carrie, Peter and their daughter Kelsey just moved to Montauk, when a former friend shows up and puts their whole world upside down and inside out.
Carrie, the 42 year old writer carries ecrets that threaten to come to light with this visit. The author's dropping hints right from the start, a bit annoying sometimes, I just wanted to know what Happened!!
Like I already mentioned an intriguing read, complex with some lengths, but fascinating in the end.

Slightly torn on this one. I read it all so the story was sufficiently gripping to keep going. It just wasn't particularly convincing and the younger and older versions of the same characters were so completely different. Just average for me.

Kathleen Willett really knows how to suck you in and keep you there. The tension ratchets up slowly and the twists were surprising and well played. If you like toxic friendship thrillers and dual timelines put this little gem on top of your TBR pile! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read.

A bit of a slow burn, very good writing. A story of friendship although I’m not sure it isn’t a toxic one. Relatable, a little mystery.

Well, now, this book is just ridiculous. Although it starts out interesting - a good, light read - it rapidly develops into an implausible story with two-dimensional characters and an ending, although definitely one not expected, really resolves nothing.

Two old friends, apparently estranged for almost 20 years, find themselves miraculously reconnected. Is it fate or has one of them planned the entire seemingly innocuous and wonderful reunion so that it plays out with a dark ending? I have to say that while I enjoyed the first half of the book but not the second (when just too many coincidences happen), I was definitely surprised by the ending. Sadly, neither the writing nor the characters grabbed me.

I received Anything For a Friend as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

Ooh this was a little bit different. Two friends from college who have grown apart and then are brought back together when one of them turns up unexpectedly one day with her daughter. They end up staying butvstrange things start happening and your not sure who or why they are targeting the main character.
This book flowed well with a little bit of going backwards in time but not too much to make it complicated, it helped explain the present a bit more.
A few twists I didn't work out madevit an interesting ending.

Anything for a Friend was an interesting read. At first it seems like a very run-of-the-mill thriller, but the ending adds a little bit of a different layer to things. I enjoyed it; the story kept me interesting, and although the twist wasn't anything groundbreaking, it fit with the rest of the story and made sense. A good, quick, pacy read.

This book will keep you reading the whole thing in one sitting. It is full of suspense and a why would they do that element. You find yourself thinking about your own friendships in comparison to the characters in this book.

I gravitated to this book by its cover (how poignant) and the fact it was a thriller. Carrie and Pete along with their daughter Kelsey, make a temporary move to Montauk, a much needed getaway for each of them for their own reasons, some which hope never to be revealed. To Carrie’s surprise she gets a phone call from her old college roommate, Maya. She is nearby and wants to stop by with her daughter, Lola. In an awkward and tragic conversation, Carrie invites Maya and Lola to stay for a few days. Things aren’t quite as they used to be in college, odd things happen. Secrets, truths and lies are between everyone in the Colts home.

I loved the characters, storyline and the fact i couldn’t put it down. I enjoyed the back and forth chapters between then and now. The gaps were filled in explaining Carrie and Maya’s past friendship and what it was like for both of them in college. But now in Montauk, they take time to catch up as grown women and Carrie shares her inner most secrets of a past affair explaining it was behind her, but is it ? Maya had just recently lost her husband in a car accident but still remains available to support her friend, it’s what she always did.
Lola and Kelsey became fast friends but quickly things went south when Kelsey admitted it was Lola who pulled the fire alarm at school.
Pete and Maya have a past as well, being the three of them went to college together and he was friends with Maya first. This plays a role in several situations and leaves Carrie feeling uneasy. Secrets are revealed, truths unfolded and a family torn apart. How far will friends go for each other?
I highly recommend this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it !

Anything for a Friend is a fun, fast paced and interesting mystery thriller. This is full of tense moments and twists and I also loved how there was slight dual timelines with some glimpses into the past. This is a really bingeable book, although sometimes cliché it makes for an overall fun and enjoyable book.

I found the conclusion of the story very unrealistic as well as the annoying cliche teenager emotions used throughout the book. Would be nice to read a story where teens aren't all the same moody, angry kind of personality. Very overused.

Otherwise, I thought the story was good and eventually grabbed my attention to binge through the last 50% in one night. Was very slow and the beginning but as stuff started happening like the chopped up herb garden and computer issues it picked up. I would've enjoyed more severe incidents though, I kept expecting it to escalate more than it ever did.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and the twist at the end was satisfactory.

#AnythingForAFriend #NetGalley
Nice
Writer Carrie Colts hopes a move to Montauk will be a rejuvenating change of pace for her family. The last thing she expects to see is her former college roommate on her doorstep. Newly widowed, and with a daughter of her own, Maya would love to reconnect. As a gesture to an old friend in mourning, Carrie extends an invitation to stay. Just for a few days. After all, there are reasons that Carrie and Maya are estranged.
Carrie soon regrets her impulsive offer. Someone has taken a pair of scissors to her college yearbook. Her herb garden is destroyed. She’s starting to receive sinister texts. And Maya is making herself a little too much at home. What does Maya really want? What is she hiding? Carrie’s afraid to ask. Because Maya knows all her secrets, and exposing them comes with a price Carrie can’t afford to pay.
Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for giving me an advance copy.

Carrie and her family have moved to Montauk
temporarily.
Her college friend, Maya arrives at her doorstep with her daughter unexpectedly, and Carrie feels obliged to offer them accommodation for a few days after the sudden loss of Maya's husband.
Carrie is ghosting her lover, wanting to end the relationship, and feels he is stalking her with endless messages.
Strange things begin to happen, a destroyed herb garden, documents deleted off the computer, and the sudden appearance of her lover.
Who is to blame for the occurrences?
Maya knows all her secrets, both old and new, and Carrie is afraid that her husband finds out.

A gripping, page turner! I really liked this book, it was very suspenseful. I did, however, guess some of the twists, maybe I read too many of these psychological thrillers, and have learned to think like the author. Lol.
I can definitely recommend reading this. I was engrossed from the first page.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Anything for a Friend
A Novel
by Kathleen M. Willett
From the quote by Ernest Hemingway until the end, I was wildly invested in what the hell, and omg, and all kinds of oddness as I read. Brilliant in many ways. I just did not see the end coming. The last few pages just did it. It was great, and hell on wheels I just could not get it. THIS is what a good book should book.

WOW WOW WOW, I loved this book so much! I read Kathleen's first book, Mother Of All Secrets and loved so I knew I had to read this new one.

It did NOT disappoint, it was fast, twisted and kept me guessing, I thought I had figured it out early on, JUST KIDDING ! I sure hadn't !

This book is such a fun read, it flips between current and years ago when the girls were in College.

This is everything you want in a Thriller. Fast pace, Deception, LIES and scandals!

It was one that seroiusly left me struggling with what to read next as I need to recover from a HUGE BOOK HANGOVER! I didn't want this one to end.

It would be THEE perfect movie!

5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the DRC

When I first started reading, it seemed to go slow and I didn't know where it was going. But it got off and had me hanging off. Even after the secret got revealed, I didn't see what was coming. I really enjoyed it despite my first impression.