A Stranger On The Beach Review

Title:  A Stranger On The Beach
Author:  Michele Campbell
Publisher:  St. Martin's Press
Genre:  Suspense Thriller
Release Date:  July 23, 2019
Purchase Link:  Amazon

My Rating:  4 Obsessive Hearts

*With many thanks to the publisher for an arc of the book via Netgalley

From the bestselling author of It's Always the Husband comes a novel about a love triangle that begins on a fateful night... 

Synopsis:

There is a stranger outside Caroline's house.

Her spectacular new beach house, built for hosting expensive parties and vacationing with the family she thought she'd have. But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aidan, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.

As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she's built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aidan for comfort...and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aidan's obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline's husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband's murder.

Review:

A Stranger On The Beach is a heart-racing, menacing tale of obsession, betrayal, and deceit.  Told through dual conflicting points of view, readers are charged with deciding who, if anyone, is telling the truth in this twisted he said/she said fatal attraction suspense story.  A story of what happens after forty-three year old Carolyn Stark makes a potentially fatal decision to indulge in a torrid one night stand with a twenty-seven year old stranger after learning her twenty year marriage and luxurious lifestyle are crashing down around her.  In a regrettable, split-second decision, she seeks revenge against her husband by sleeping with Aidan even though she's seen him stalking her beach house a few times.  A fiery night of passion quickly turns into her worse nightmare by dawn's early light.  In her point of view, Carolyn's ready to be rid of Aidan and move on as though the previous night never happened.  No one but Aidan knows about her infidelity, and he won't tell . . . will he?  She'll send him back where he came from and attempt to salvage her marriage.  In Aidan's point of view, he's found the woman of his dreams and the love of his life.  This is his chance for the life he's only dreamed of, and he has no intention of giving it up.  He vows to do anything to keep Carolyn.  Anything.  Two unreliable narrators - two opposing stories of every scene - who's the crazy one?

An intense, chilling, fast-paced thriller, A Stranger On The Beach kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.  I burned through the pages, reading the dual points of view while trying to figure out whose version of the truth was fact and whose was a convoluted, insane web of lies.  I knew there was a piece of the puzzle missing - something just out of my grasp - as I read and reread some scenes trying to catch one of them in a lie.  The author does a great job of setting a dark, treacherous tone throughout with the tension escalating until things take a deadly turn.  The whole ominous fatal attraction/stalker vibe plays out realistically through several twists and turns, leading readers to the shocking finale.  There did come a point before the reveal when the light came on for me, and my suspicions proved to be true.  And yet the author still managed to surprise me with a well executed turn of events on the final page.  A well-written, cunning psychological thriller, A Stranger On The Beach is A Must Read!

My Rating:  4 Obsessive Hearts ... And that's the truth!

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

Sandra