The Perfect Stranger

Message To Reviewer: I tried to post this review a couple hours ago and I received an email that it violated the rules. I couldn’t imagine why and then I realized what happened. I copied and pasted MY review from Goodreads, and added another sentence or two. But I forgot to delete all of the additional stuff that was copied when I copied my review, all of the reviews that came after, etc. I have been taking part in Goodreads reading challenge, and reviewing all the books I read on that site, and then I realized that I wasn’t posting reviews on Amazon anymore. So I copied and pasted the reviews of book I’ve been reading from my goodreads reviews and put them here. I don’t think that should be a problem. I know how much reviews help me when it comes to deciding whether or not to read a book, so I hope you’ll post this. If you don’t, I won’t try again. Here it is:
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An absolutely fantastic suspense novel! Keeps you guessing! Leah Stevens is a reporter for a Boston newspaper. She writes a story that opens her up to a potential libel charge. The details are revealed slowly throughout the novel. She has to leave the paper and realizes it might be best if she also leaves Boston altogether. She runs into an old friend, Emmy, who’s also looking to start over. Emmy has plans to go to western Pennsylvania, a rural area completely different than what Leah is used to. Leah decides to go with her. Leah gets a job as a teacher at a local school and they rent a cabin on the edge of the woods. Leah doesn’t see much of her roommate, because Emmy works nights. Days can go by without them running into each other. The one day, driving to school, Leah comes across a crime scene. A woman had been bludgeoned and left to die near the lake. Leah is relieved that it’s not Emmy, that they know who the woman is. Someone named Bethany. The man they suspect is the same man who has apparently been stalking Leah, which ties her to the case. She realizes also that she hasn’t seen Emmy for quite some time. Leah reports this to the police, and when they ask for details of Emmy’s life—for instance, where she works, Leah only has the vaguest details. Emmy had told her she worked nights cleaning at a run-down motel. But she didn’t tell Leah the name of it. Eventually, the police, and the reader, start to wonder if Emmy even exists or if she only exists in Leah’s mind. The novel is told in the first person, from Leah’s point of view. There are a lot of surprises, and a satisfying ending that ties up all the loose ends. The novel is well-plotted, and the characters also ring true.
Also, I liked the way Leah’s personality and character were revealed as the novel went along. At first, it was difficult to know what kind of person Leah was. There were a lot of unanswered questions as to the motivations behind her actions. But when the entire story came out, you could see that she was a survivor who had been through a lot, and her previously inexplicable actions made sense.

I read so many mysteries/thrillers, and sometimes they’re entertaining enough for the time I’m reading, but nothing special. This book surprised me. Compelling story, with a particularly interesting main character, and the author did such a great job of dispensing information. Yes, there is a lot of going back and forth in time as the story focuses on the narrator’s present–and her past–but it’s not even remotely confusing unless you’re not paying attention, or have ever read a book which was not in chronological order. In fact, the structure of the book is why I’m bothering to review this at all–it was particularly cleverly done. We get more and more of the main character’s background as the novel continues, little tidbits let out like a trail of crumbs, and the thing is? The make the narrator look more and more of an unreliable narrator the further we go into the story. It’s not spoiling anything to say that: the clear premise of the book is that no one really knows who Emmy, the roommate, is, or if she even exists at all. It’s something that kept me guessing all along, and was very well done.

I was not quite such a fan of the ending as some others were: while there were some aspects I enjoyed, there were a couple of strands I’d have liked to know more about. But still, the end was satisfying enough.

I enjoyed this book enough to get the author’s other adult suspense novel, and I’ll follow her work.

I have found that if you have not read a writer before, dont read their best rated book first, because it will set the bar higher for subsequent books. I had not read Megan Miranda before, and all reviews pointed at All The Missing Girls being the greatest book ever written. Of course, that made me wary of getting it. As I was ordering some books from Amazon, I saw The Perfect Stranger and added it to my basket without reading any reviews or ratings. I wasn’t disappointed.
Leah Stevens moves to a small town in Pennsylvania with her friend Emmy Grey. She needs to start over and leave behind the scandal that ended her journalism career and almost destroyed her. She takes up a teaching position in the local high school while Emmy, with her background in NGO work, struggles with part-time jobs. It is not a peaceful existence as she struggles with forgetting her past and getting used to living in the isolated house near the lake that Emmy was intent on living in.
When there is a vicious crime near Leahs house, and Leah reports Emmy missing, all hell breaks loose. Leah realizes that her new house is not so safe after all, and someone seems to be stalking her. As things unravel, it dawns on Leah that there is no evidence that Emmy Grey even existed, and now she herself is the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Now Leah not only has to prove herself innocent by finding Emmy Grey, she also has to see her past with new eyes.
The character of Leah is a good one. She has a journalist’s instincts and reactions, and she is ready to go to any length to get to the truth. The setting of the book is also true to a thriller. The glass walls that make the front of the house visible to anyone from outside, struck as quite creepy, and I kept imagining how it would feel to sleep in a house like that. Even though the characters and setting were good, I wish the writer had given some more reality to the narrative.
The irritant in this book was the way Leah Stevens describes everything, from her relationship to her family, to the scandal that made her run away, in terms that seemed to be coming out of the mouth of a psychologist rather than a journalist. Saying something like, “Have you ever wondered if what we’re doing is the only path? If we weren’t meant for something else?” when all her sister asked was what was going on; who talks like that in the real world?
The climax was also a bit of a disappointment. After so many twists and turns, the end was like a fizzled bomb. It was rushed. and there were some loose ends that were not dealt with. The most glaring one being the fate of Theo Burton and how the evidence that seemed so flimsy a couple of pages back, was suddenly enough to detain him. Then there was the last confrontation that was over almost as soon as it began, and leaves you feeling like you were cheated out of a good climax after spending so much time reading the book.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and would give it 3.5 stars. I just wish the ending had been a better.

It’s hard to write a review for The Perfect Stranger without giving away some of the excellent twists. This is one of those mysteries where the clues come thick and fast. At first I wasn’t sure about the flipping between timelines during the opening chapters, revealing what happened in the character’s past and how she got to where she is now. I felt as though I couldn’t connect with what was happening in the present. But then everything slotted into place and by 30% I had really got into the story. By 50% I was completely gripped!

Leah Stevens has to leave Boston in a hurry – resigning from the newspaper where she works before she’s fired, and with a restraining order snapping at her heels. Why? What did she do? Uh uh, no spoilers!

Leah’s old friend Emmy offers her a place to stay at her lake house in rural Pennsylvania, while she takes a job at the local school and attempts to blend in. Then a girl resembling Leah is found with head injuries and Emmy goes missing, leaving only a broken locket behind. Have the demons from Leah’s past finally caught up with her? And why won’t the police take Emmy’s disappearance seriously? It’s almost as though they think Emmy never existed…

I am a huge fan of Megan’s writing style. I love that Leah is a flawed heroine who has made mistakes – and looks likely to make the same ones all over again. I love that there are so many twists and turns, that even when the denouement was right there in front of me I could hardly believe it. And I love that there was a bit of romance in there too – Hello, Detective Kyle Donovan!

Recommended if you love your psychological suspense extremely twisty, with a bit of a romance, and if you enjoy reading books such as Lisa Jewell’s I Found You.

One of my favourite books this year!

Thank you to Megan Miranda, Corvus, and Netgalley for a copy of this book, which I received in exchange for an honest review – although I loved it so much I’ve since bought my own copy too!

Failed journalist Leah Stevens abruptly leaves Boston after a restraining order and the threat of a lawsuit after writing a dubious story. She moves to rural Pennsylvania with an old friend, Emmy Grey, but their new start is threatened when a woman who looks a lot like Leah is assaulted, and Emmy disappears days later.

This is a fantastic mystery with well-drawn characters and a twisty plot. While the protagonist, Leah, wasn’t exactly likeable (she was a bit sullen and secretive), I still found her believable and was intrigued by the story. I’ll definitely look for Megan Miranda’s other books.

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