Release date: November 12, 2019
Publisher: Lake Union
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Blurb:
The truth can bring out the worst in the best of friends.
Esme and Benedict Werner have an idyllic life in a tight-knit community until an accident in their cul-de-sac ends in the tragic sudden death of one of their dearest neighbors. After vindicating eyewitness accounts morph into contradictory memories, suspicion, and unaccountable accusations, Benedict is arrested. Esme’s life, too, is changed forever.
As the neighborhood largely turns against her and her family, Esme has time to think about her past and what to do next. Then her fellow residents start looking deeper, questioning one another, and themselves, about hidden lies and betrayals.
Esme has more than her share of secrets. And the consequences of what happened on that fateful late-summer evening on Raven Lane are far from over. When the mask of civility slips, can friends and neighbors recover from seeing the monstrous truths beneath?
Review:
I absolutely love a juicy domestic drama and Cowie delivers with Raven Lane. This is full of the type of characters I love to hate and so many of them are hiding dark and dangerous secrets, I know I wouldn’t want any of them as my neighbors! But they were really entertaining to read about and all were rather complex and interesting, but not altogether likable. If you like a quiet style of suspense this is the book for you, it’s character driven and scandalous and even a little sexy at times, but this combo worked incredibly well for me and I raced through this one.
Another aspect that I enjoyed was the book within a book, the man that died is an author and every once in a while there’s an excerpt from his book. The book he was writing was a little weird but intriguing, and between that, the present day timeline and Esme’s slow unraveling of her own past, I was hooked. This was edgier than Rapid Falls and very different, but I adore Cowie’s writing style and that didn’t change. I also applaud authors who push their own boundaries and try something new from book to book and the shift was great for me, I’m now a firm fan of the author.
Overall rating: 4/5
Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.
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