A paranoid single mom is forced to confront the unthinkable act she committed as a desperate teenager in this addictive thriller with a social media twist.

Maria Weston wants to be friends. But Maria Weston is dead. Isn't she?

1989. When Louise first notices the new girl who has mysteriously transferred late into their senior year, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren't. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends.

2016. Louise receives a heart-stopping email: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: Those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.

Louise has always known that if the truth ever came out, she could stand to lose everything. Her job. Her son. Her freedom. Maria's sudden reappearance threatens it all, and forces Louise to reconnect with everyone she'd severed ties with to escape the past. But as she tries to piece together exactly what happened that night, Louise discovers there's more to the story than she ever knew. To keep her secret, Louise must first uncover the whole truth, before what's known to Maria - or whoever's pretending to be her - is known to all.

Listening Length

11 hours and 10 minutes
Author

Laura Marshall
Narrator

Elaine Claxton
Audible release date

September 5, 2017
Language

English
Publisher

Hachette Audio
ASIN

B074HFBKVJ
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	11 hours and 10 minutes
Author	Laura Marshall
Narrator	Elaine Claxton
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	September 05, 2017
Publisher	Hachette Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B074HFBKVJ
Best Sellers Rank	#111,597 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #1,072 in Coming of Age Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #2,312 in Family Life Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #2,468 in Psychological Thrillers (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

5 star		42%
4 star		31%
3 star		18%
2 star		5%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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It was okay. Not as great as I thought it would be.

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2018

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Oh I so wanted to love this book. "Maria Weston wants to be friends. But Maria Weston's dead. Isn't she?" That just so peaked my interest. But I think I am in the minority on this when I say it was okay. I liked it, but didn't love it.

Louise gets a message that Maria Weston wants to be friend on Facebook. But Maria died in 1989. The memories from that year of school and the prom, that Louise has been trying to forget come flooding back. Who is this person? Do they know the truth of what really happened at the Prom in 1989? Louise always thought that just her and her friends Sam, Matt and Sophie knew what happened. But what if someone else knows. It could ruin Louise and she could go to jail and lose her son Henry.

This books jumps between 1989 and 2016.
The 1989 chapters follow what happened during the school year after Maria transferred to the school with Louise. And at first she was friends with Maria, but Louise so wanted to be in the popular crowd, and when rumors started going around about why Maria had to transfer, Louise joined her friends in bullying Maria. And man did they bully her. And at the Prom Louise and her friends did something horrible to Maria. And then Maria went missing from the prom and it was assumed that she had fallen off the cliff behind the school and died. This part of the book brought back memories of when I was in HS, Not that I was bullied or bullied anyone. But just the memories of how we all wanted to fit in.

The 2016 chapters are the present (duh) and all the fall out that is now going on with Louise from the friend request from a dead girl, as she tries to piece together what happened all those years ago and what is going on now. She cannot really talk to anyone about the request and what happened 27 years ago. She has not kept in contact with her friends from school. And her friends now have no idea what she had done and she does not want them to find out. And I get it, you messed up royally in school but when you keep getting messages from a dead girl and then they start including your son, I think it is time to come clean for his safety.

Like I said, I liked the book but didn't love it. I liked the chapter from 1989 better than the 2016 ones.
The book started off good, but then it got to the point that it felt like it was dragging on and on. And I really did not like any of the main characters. I didn't guess what was really going on until just before it was revealed. And even though when it was revealed I was like Whoa didn't see that coming, and while I liked the turn the story took, the whole "reveal" part just kind of fell flat.

17 people found this helpful

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BridgettTop Contributor: Eye Makeup

An excellent suspense novel!

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2017

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An absolutely enthralling read!

As a long-time reader of the suspense/thriller genre, I can definitely say with some authority that Laura Marshall is a bright, new voice in literature. This is a very well-written, well laid out novel. It bounces back and forth between Louise's perspectives in 1989 and in 2016. I always find this to be a very effective technique. Also included in the book are the occasional inner-thoughts from an unknown source. I truly thought I knew who this source was...I was totally wrong (well done, Ms. Marshall)!

While I was able to figure out one portion of the story, the other twist completely escaped me. I LOVE when a book stumps me. Honestly, my one and only complaint is this...if you're getting threatening messages from a Facebook "friend," why not just delete and block them? Of course, I guess that wouldn't make for a very interesting story, eh?

Overall, if you're looking for a very well-developed whodunit, this book is for you!

12 people found this helpful

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Pheadra Farah

Current and gripping

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2018

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I loved this book. It is well written, current and gripping in that the story is both utterly believable and in these days of social media dominating our lives, probable too.
It is a story told in two different time frames. 1989 when unkind bullying of a teenager (Maria) takes place at school and 2016 when one of the people(Louise) who bullied her gets a friend request from Maria. The problem is that the night of the leavers’ party 27 years before, Maria went missing and pronounced dead by the police.
Louise continues to get disturbing messages via Facebook from Maria and this forms the thrilling part of the story as the reader is drawn into the events that have shaped the lives of those involved. I liked the character of Ester who shows that it’s not impossible to rise above unkindness and go on to good things. The best revenge truly is to become successful.
This is on one level a good read for those who think bullying is a harmless childish stage that will be grown out of. On another level, it is a lesson to keep one’s business reasonably private instead of publishing it for all to read. The desire to have countless ‘friends’ and evoke an unrealistic portrayal of one’s like in the pursuit of making oneself more desirable also forms an undercurrent. In 1989 this took the form of being in the popular clique at school. In 2016 it seems to have been taken over to a certain degree by Facebook.
Deeply disturbing and enlightening at the same time, don’t believe that people just get over hurt they experience as youngsters. Neither do those close to them.

5 people found this helpful

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SJSA

3.5 Stars...

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2019

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Overall this was a good read in that it kept my interest and wasn’t completely predictable (although not unguessable either). This is a story about how the disappearance of a classmate in 1989 affects a small group of friends as they anticipate their school reunion. The protagonist, Louise, receives a Facebook friend request from the missing girl, and stumbles into a huge effort to hide her past and atone for her role that night. The writing could have been more fluid. The author seemed to trip over some mundane details or extraneous filler at times. The main character, Louise, is unbelievably stupid. Wouldn’t most people, even those afraid of a secret from the past re-emerging, answer a Facebook messenger taunting them? By maybe saying something like, “Who is this?”, “What do you want?” Or shocker...”I’m sorry for what I did”? She never once answers or tries to diffuse her tormenter, even when they threaten her child. There are other examples but they would be spoilers. I was also disoriented by the fact that the characters in this story were approximately 45 (in 2016), and many of them were just starting their families lol. I did like that this book brings to light the fact that decisions we make impulsively or to conform socially can have lifelong consequences and ruin lives. The message was good!

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Kuvastin

Friend Request

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 17, 2018

Verified Purchase

Having finished the book, I'm quite surprised by all the 4 and 5 star reviews this book has. I am a huge fan of crime/thriller novels, so I'm always on the lookout for new authors and I was sucked in by the hype and high rating this book has. The premise was very promising, but for me, this book was a long way off delivering what it promised.

I really could not relate at all to Louise, the main character. I felt she was very weak, a bit pathetic and had no substance. I could not muster any sympathy or empathy for someone who was so awful and self absorbed during the sections set during 1989. But the very worst thing about her was that she was a woman in her 40's still obsessing over something that happened 25 years ago. Once the threatening messages started, I was amazed that she made no effort to block/report the messages or protect herself and/or her son. Her stalker was also unrealistically omniscient, which was a bit silly, really.

She didn't feel like a 'real' person and the other characters were just as 2D with not much fleshing out. The plot was very slow and not very thrilling - I thought I was at the climax, the reunion the story was leading up to, but I was only 50% of the way through and wondering what more there could be and when it would end (never a good thing to be thinking!). The book could have been half the length and a much better paced story. It reads like a short story stretched out into a full length novel.

What compelled me to write this review was the ending. I feel so utterly cheated that key information about a character was kept from the reader, just to make the sudden reveal at the end more shocking. This reveal makes absolutely no sense in the narrative the reader has been given and more annoyingly it is not new information, but something the narrator has know all along (and made a few very vague and deliberately misleading allusions to). Rarely have I ever been so dissatisfied with a book that I have read.

150 people found this helpful

jenni d

Would have made an ok short story but as a ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 28, 2018

Verified Purchase

Would have made an ok short story but as a novel far too little content and an awful lot of padding out

56 people found this helpful

Vicky Matthews

Some initial intrigue, but ultimately too contrived

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2018

Verified Purchase

I find the buzz around this book a bit mystifying. To me, it seems over-rated. However, I did enjoy the portrayal of the schooldays' insecurities and paranoia around meeting up with peers not seen for many years (especially with the advent of social media, which probably only highlights the sense of competition and comparison - not to mention the "undiscussed things" lurking in the background). So, that was definitely a good psychological hook and sustained my interest for a while, but as the novel progressed and became more plot-driven, there were too many aspects that felt contrived and not believable. As the writing became increasingly one-dimensional, I found myself skimming through the pages.

36 people found this helpful

Adris

Weak story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 17, 2018

Verified Purchase

Not happy I wasted my time with this book. The main character is like two different people, one suffering and abused, then as a single confident mother with her own thriving business, all hardly believable, it just wasn't making sense. Lazy writing.

39 people found this helpful

L. Turner

Dreadful book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 28, 2018

Verified Purchase

Managed to finish this only by reading first/last sentences of most paragraphs after about a third of the way through. The main character is really annoying, needs to ‘get a grip’ and I got got thoroughly fed up with being told of the terrible thing she had done. Much of it is unbelievable, Facebook messages from dead friend, being followed etc, just go to the police, but then there would be no story.

28 people found this helpful

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