Title: The Imposter
Author: Marin Montgomery
Published on: 9 March 2021
Genre: Mystery and Thrillers
Sibley, a successful divorce lawyer in her thirties is suspended from her job, is accused by her husband of having an affair and is addicted to alcohol. Instead of checking herself in into a rehab, she decides to meet her mother and find closure.
Meanwhile, Deborah lives alone in her farm. A newly built prison just outside the town is making her paranoid. She feels there’s someone keeping an eye on her.
There are a handful of negative reviews for this book on Goodreads. Unfortunately, my review falls under the ‘2 star rating’ category. I had a hard time following the story.
The story alternates between Deborah and Sibley (mother-daughter pair). Deborah believes she’s not alone in her farm. Missing pills, broken windows and petty thefts, she believes someone’s going to harm her. Meanwhile, Sibley has almost lost her career, marriage and reputation- thanks to her addiction to drinking.
The story inclines towards creepy angle when Deborah starts to hallucinate – she sees things that aren’t there – crashes her car to avoid a deer, only to realize there was no deer on the road to begin with…
When Sibley arrives at the farm, Deborah believes Sibley was sent to spy on her; she then believes Sibley is out to kill her. Sibley also has her issues – her ex-best-friend ruined the family name by accusing Deborah of having an extra marital affair; one of Sibley’s classmates still holds a grudge on her. (Deborah had an affair with his dad.)
The story is all over the place. The author has tried to make this a psychological thriller by adding a dash of creepiness to the story. Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me. 55 chapters long and it is not until Chapter 50 do we see a twist. If this aforementioned twist was introduced halfway through the story, it might have saved the book from getting a couple of bad ratings.
Having said that, I did not see the twist coming. It was mind blowing, no doubt about it. But it did not do justice to the tension and confusion brought about by the first 50chapters of the book.
I received an ARC from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
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Ouch. It’s always tough when a book crashes so hard. Thank you for your honesty!
Yeah, sometimes a bad read puts me in a reading rut.😑 Thankfully, this one didn’t.
At least you finished this one, I finally had to toss my bad read at 30%, I just couldn’t do it. Hopefully your next one will be brilliant!🌷
I have done that once or twice – chucked the read at 20% or so.
My next read was a good one (finished it this morning). 😁
What are you currently reading?
It happens sometimes. It’s just sad when it does.
I just started Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo finally. You? Anything good?
Nah. Was reading Judy Leigh’s Heading Over the Hill until this morning. There’s no story whatsoever- just boring stuff so DNFed at 65%. 3 days and 2 dud reads already. I need to break this jinx.😉
Ninth House seems to have a lot of good ratings on Amazon and GR. Hope you will enjoy the read 🙂
Oh, man, that’s jusr too much! Anything you’re looking at reading next? Maybe it’ll be better..
Mine is a little slow so far.. but it’s still setting things up. Her writing is wonderful.
I really hope your next read is phenomenal! 😊
I started Changing the Rules by Catherine Bybee. Fingers crossed it will be a good read.🙂 Also reading the 50+ short stories (Poirot).
I haven’t read any fantasy fiction except the Harry Potter series. I need to try a few books from that genre.
I had to check that out. It sounds promising! Now it just has to be better than the others. No pressure.
And how is that possible? Fantasy is such a Huge genre! Just not a fan?
Not a fan of Fantasy fiction. I read one or two books since I started blogging – didn’t like it much.