Told in three parts with dual timelines and dual POVs, this was a slow burn but addictive nonetheless. The characters are an interesting lot. I liked Mary's story but it was the other main character or friend, Willa, whose secrets (and secret identities) really captured my interest. I never knew who could be trusted as the story was recast multiple times and information given little by little. So all-in-all another good read from this author.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for this eCopy to review

Keep Your Friends Close was an intriguing thriller. How well do you really know your friends? What happens when 1 tries to take over your life? How do you deal with ghosting?

Mary is going through a difficult break-up with her husband George who does not want to let his wife and son go. Mary meets Willa in the park and immediately they become friends. After sharing why Mary and George broke up, Willa disappears from Mary's life. Mary cannot understand why Willa would do that. Later when Mary is investigating whether she could live in Woodstock she sees Willa, only this lady denies it and says she's called Annie. Mary worries about her sanity especially as she thinks she is being followed and people are entering her rental.

I don't want to say too much as that would ruin the surprises and twists. This is an excellent thriller which had you compulsively reading to find out what happens next. I loved the characters and felt they were well developed and the themes are friendship and relationships were explored in an engaging way

This is a great thriller centred around families and friendship.
Mary has split up with her husband George and they have joint custody of their son, Alex.
One day at the park Mary meets Willa and they instantly click. They quickly become friends and Mary shares all her hopes and fears with her.
Then Willa disappears and Mary is left confused.
Mary goes to another town to look into getting a new place for her and Alex and a glance out of the window of a local bar, and she spots Willa.
Willa has changed her appearance and blanks her but Mary is convinced it’s her.
The two women eventually talk and Mary is not prepared for what she hears.
Things soon go from bad to worse and Mary is fighting to keep custody of her son.
This is a gripping read and I really enjoyed the twists and turns in the story.
Thanks to Michael Joseph and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Mary meets Willa and they soon form a close friendship. One day, after a dark conversation, Willa disappears. Two months later Mary is in a new town following her ongoing divorce when Willa turns up. Only Willa is now Annie and then Mary’s husband George winds up dead and she is the prime suspect. What is really going on?

Although I have read similar books before this still managed to be an entertaining read. The characters were not overly likeable but I enjoyed seeing what actions they took. I never knew who to fully trust! There were plenty of twists and turns which created added drama and suspense. It wasn’t the fastest book but worked well in this instance. Overall a good, quick domestic thriller. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in return for an honest review.

Willa is Mary's new best friend. Or is she? The two met on their children's playing field, shortly after Mary left her wealthy husband. The two women get on brilliantly. Until Wilma ghosts Mary, for no apparent reason. But that's just the start. Friendships ... new and broken. Lies. Mysteries and murder. Keep Your Friends Close is full of twists and turns ... jumping from past to present, it keeps you guessing until the very end. Brilliant!

I did enjoy this book although at times found it a bit slow……wasn’t keen on the characters but then you don't have to be but its sometimes good to have at least one you like
Quick read that did keep me intrigued enough to keep reading to find out the answers to the mystery

With its suspenseful twists and turns, Keep Your Friends Close will keep you guessing until the final page. Though the murder mystery intrigues, it's the nuanced portrayal of teen relationships that makes this book shine. Konen deftly explores the tangled web of adolescent friendships, where loyalty collides with betrayal and white lies become dark secrets. While the constant questions of "who done it?" will draw you in, it's the authentic characters - with their relatable insecurities and shifting alliances - that make this a 3.67-star read. So grab some snacks, settle into your favorite reading nook, and let Konen's page-turner transport you into the tumultuous world of girls and their friendships. Just don't expect easy answers or clear-cut villains; like real life, the truth here lies in the gray.

A slow burn but it's also quite a quick and easy read so it didn't feel like it dragged too much! It definitely takes a while to really get going though and with a host of very unlikeable characters, that also made it hard to reply empathise or care about the characters journey. The exs family were just written as all round vile people and Mary had me almost screaming at my kindle for how naive and weak she kept being. I think that the sheer frustration and/ or utter disgust for completely fictional characters is the sign of a well written book with characters that are believable and brought to life convincingly enough for the reader to have genuine emotions about them. There are a few twists and turns and I was intrigued enough to want to find out the outcome so overall I have no complaints. Ots written over a split timeline whoch also broke it up a bit n kept it moving along a bit

I absolutely loved the author's previous two novels, The Perfect Escape and You Should Have Told Me so was looking forward to reading Keep Your Friends Close.
It started off well for me- Mary is in the middle of a custody battle with her wealthy husband George and relocates to Woodstock in up state New York. The novel moves back and forwards between the present day and when Mary was living in New York where she met Willa. The two women had bonded immediately before Willa disappeared from Mary's life. When Mary arrives in Woodstock, Willa reappears in her life and soon after Mary's husband George is found dead.
The initial premise is really intriguing, I enjoyed the exploration of the friendship between Mary and Willa and the mystery of Willa's reappearance in Woodstock. I loved the Woodstock setting and until George's body is discovered this was a interesting, well paced novel. However I soon found that the pace slowed and I became confused with the different timelines from the alternating points of view of Mary and Willa. Initially I found Willa to be a well drawn character but I found as the novel went on she became less believable and too many characters became towards the end when George's murder was solved.
A promising start but ultimately a disappointing novel.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

The saying goes to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, which is very good advice, but what if you don’t realise a person is your enemy until the evidence is staring you in the face? Mary is going through a messy custody battle/divorce with her ultra wealthy husband, George and is in the process of moving out of Brooklyn to Woodstock in upstate New York. She has made few friends since becoming a mum, but she thinks Willa is one of the best, believing they have a real connection when they first meet in a Brooklyn playground. During a margarita fuelled night out, Willa encourages Mary to share secrets which involve George. Shortly after this, Willa seems to drop off the face of the earth. On Mary‘s first day in Woodstock, she sees Willa, only she isn’t Willa now she’s Annie, and there’s an entirely new family. if Mary thinks this is a mind blowing situation then it’s only going to get a whole lot worse. The story is told in the past on meeting Willa in New York and in the present day and by both women.

Well, this is twisty and entertaining! I alternate between feeling very sorry for Mary because George and his family, especially brother Henry, are entitled rich, powerful, controlling, and quite simply dreadful people, and wanting to shake her for being so weak and whiny! Willa is a puzzling conundrum from the get go, she gives little away, but finds out much, but why? What is her game? There are quite large hints that she isn’t who she says she is but Mary is so desperate for a friend that she either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore it. Naive and maybe desperate but Mary doesn’t half dig big holes for herself. None of the characters are especially likeable but that’s what makes the novel darkly delicious and riveting.

This is a well written slow burner, domestic drama/psychological thriller with friendship at its core. The pacing lulls you into a sort of false sense of security, so that when something happens, it seems to jolt you more as you don't expect it. The past/present way of telling the story adds to this, making the novel more suspenseful and keeps you trying to figure out the who and whydunnit. It becomes creepy and claustrophobic, the tension jumps from the pages as it twists and turns its way through the building drama. The plot deepens and there are more and more connections you don’t initially see or are made unaware of so it’s about as far from a simple tale as you can get with characters playing with fire or pursuing deadly games that go very wrong Indeed. The ending requires some suspension of disbelief as there’s perhaps one coincidence too many, but that’s not to say it isn’t good.

Overall, this is an entertaining and an increasingly wild ride of a read.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Michael Joseph for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review .

Keep Your Friends Close is a domestic thriller focused around Mary, recently separated from her wealthy husband, and Willa, con-artist extraordinaire.
When Mary’s husband winds up dead, Mary is the prime suspect. Can she work out who the killer is? And can she really trust her “friend”?

I enjoyed this, it was a quick and easy page turner. I didn’t really warm to any of the characters though. I found Mary annoyingly naive, and the story was quite predictable. However, I did sympathise with her struggles with the in laws, deceitful friends and seeing her son.
I would’ve preferred a few more twists and turns.

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for my advanced copy.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but unfortunately it did not work for me.
The novel had a great premise with plenty of potential but for some reason it wasn’t reached.
It was written in the first person and there was so much internal dialogue that at times it felt tedious and unnecessary and because of this the pacing was impacted. I didn’t like any of the characters but that’s not normally an issue for me, however, the characters also lacked depth and felt flat and sometimes forced.
I appreciate the time and effort that goes into writing a novel and unfortunately this wasn’t for me.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC.

This was very tense at points and did intrigue me and have me needing answers but I didn't feel the same excitement all the way through unfortunately.

Divorcing a wealthy and powerful man is not easy, and Mary is all too aware of the struggle ahead when she wants to be free of her husband George. So, when she meets a woman at the playground, where she is accompanied by her toddler, she is happy to find a friend in Willa.

Until the day when Mary shares a secret about George, becoming careless over a shared pitche of margaritas, and Willa suddenly, shockingly disappears.

Much later, once Mary's divorce has been finalized and she moves to a new town, she runs into Willa again. Except Willa is now calling herself Annie and denies ever having met Mary!

As if that were not strange enough, George is murdered, and Mary becomes the prime suspect. Knowing that Willa is one of the few people who could help her if she so chose, Mary is forced to consider seeking out her former friend's assistance. But what is Willa's role in all of this? Is she friend, foe, con artist or killer?

This is a compelling read, though I did not enjoy it quite as much as I have liked some of Konen's other stories. But it has the advantage of having an unusual plotline and a series of twists that really keep you guessing. The multiple POV was also utilised well. The book gets 3.5 stars.

Having very much enjoyed a couple of previous books by Leah Konen, my expectations were high for Keep Your Friends Close. Unfortunately, I found it unconvincing, with clunky plotting and characterisation. It felt as if Konen had recently learned about the concept of the mental load, and was desperate to shoehorn it in to as many pages as possible. Similarly, I found the handling of privilege and wealth - and resistance against it - clumsy. Overall, it read a bit like someone who had just finished a Sociology 101 course and decided to write a thriller based on it. If you're looking for a tightly plotted thriller, I'd give Keep Your Friends Close a miss and instead seek out Konen's The Perfect Escape, which is excellent.