A Stranger on the Beach by Michele Campbell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**4.5-stars**
Caroline and Jason Stark have been married for 20-years. Like most couples, their relationship has had its ups-and-downs. Lately, more down than up.
With their only child, Hannah, recently off to college, and Jason traveling a lot more for work, Caroline focuses most of her energy on building her dream house in the Hamptons.
After the lavish beach house is completed, Caroline decides to throw a house warming party, inviting all of their rich and influential friends. Unfortunately, Jason tells Caroline he is stuck at a ‘work thing’ and will be unable to attend.
She’s saddened by this news, as she was really hoping to reconnect with him and show off the beautiful home, no small accomplishment. Then in a jaw-dropping turn of events, Jason does arrive at the house…(view spoiler)!!!
As you can imagine, the proverbial shit hits the fan.
Days after wallowing in it, Caroline gets herself up, out of the house and straight to a popular local watering hole. Once there, she recognizes the guy behind the bar. He was actually the bartender provided by the catering company on the night of her ill-fated house warming.
Instead of cowering in embarrassment, she decides to embrace it and proceeds to flirt with him all night whilst getting elbows deep in some vodka sodas.
Enter Aidan Callahan. Young and handsome with a troubled past. What could go wrong?
For his part, Aidan seems to like Caroline a little too much. Before she knows it, he is everywhere. She can’t get rid of him but is this your typical stalker behavior or is it more?
Alternating between Caroline and Aidan’s perspectives, this book is so full of twists and turns, you won’t know who to believe. The truth is hidden in here somewhere but you’d be hard-pressed to discover it! This story is so gripping, so chilling; a true tale of suspense.
I loved the format of this. I think Campbell’s choices in the development of this story were close to perfection. For the first 3/4 of the book, you are getting that twisted back-and-forth perspective and then suddenly…the main event.
The the final 1/4 follows new perspectives of the investigators called in to discover the truth. I thought this was unique and really well played.
In the end, I was satisfied with the conclusion. The one small criticism I had was that once you got to the investigation portion of the story, with the evidence put forth early on, it’s pretty clear what actually happened. I am not sure too many people will be fooled at that point but regardless, really well written, great characters, fast-paced, gripping; I really, really liked it!
Thank you so much to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. Michele Campbell is definitely one of my go-to authors. I love her storytelling. If you haven’t read any of her books yet, this is definitely a great one to start with and perfect for summer fun!!