Reviews: We Could Be Beautiful. and Before He Finds Her (Halloween Read-A-Thon #2)

Title: We Could Be Beautiful
Author: Swan Huntley
Publication Date: June 28, 2016
Genre: Psychological Suspense
Recommended If You Like: twists and turns, slow-burning suspense, family secrets, female narrators

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

The Book:

Catherine West is wealthy beyond most people's dreams, but she isn't completely happy. She feels something is missing, specifically love and children. So when she meets William Stockton, he seems like everything she has been looking for.

But her mother, suffering from Alzheimer's, shuts down whenever William's name is mentioned. As Catherine digs deeper into her family's past, she begins to discover she might not know William-or her parents-at all.

What I Liked:

The twist at the end of this book is amazing--it's one I never saw coming, that stayed with me long after I finished the story.

Huntley is really good at building suspense out of a plot that could have dragged. Catherine goes about her life, and goes about her life with William, and not much necessarily happens. But so much is going on, subtle but surprising.

Anything I Didn't Like?

Catherine is not always the most likable of characters. She has lived a life of privilege, and can get whiny when things aren't going her way.

So...?

In the end, despite her flaws, I couldn't help but root for Catherine. She has an inner strength to her that serves her well, in surprising ways. The twist at the end makes this a book that you won't soon forget.

In Before He Finds Her, Meg Miller has been living her life in hiding. Fifteen years before, Ramsey Miller, her father, threw a block party for his neighborhood, and then murdered his wife. Meg, his daughter, was believed killed as well, but her aunt and uncle have had her hidden away in a small town.

But Meg is pregnant now, and doesn't want her child living her life in hiding as well.. So she sets out to do what no one else has been able to do--find her father, so she can come out of the shadows. 

This book was not as creepy as I had expected when I chose it for the Halloween Read-A-Thon, but it was definitely suspenseful. The way Kardos weaves in flashbacks really builds up the tension, and the ending has a really surprising twist as well.