Just Between Us by Rebecca Drake
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin on January 9, 2018
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thrillers, Women’s Fiction
Pages: 374
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Four suburban mothers and friends conspire to cover up a deadly crime in this heart-stopping novel of suspense in the tradition of Lisa Scottoline and Lisa Unger.
Alison, Julie, Sarah, Heather. Four friends living the suburban ideal. Their jobs are steady, their kids are healthy. They’re as beautiful as their houses. But each of them has a dirty little secret, and hidden behind the veneer of their perfect lives is a crime and a mystery that will consume them all.
Everything starts to unravel when Alison spots a nasty bruise on Heather’s wrist. She shares her suspicions with Julie and Sarah, compelling all three to investigate what looks like an increasingly violent marriage. As mysterious injuries and erratic behavior mount, Heather can no longer deny the abuse, but she refuses to leave her husband. Desperate to save her, Alison and the others dread the phone call telling them that she’s been killed. But when that call finally comes, it’s not Heather who’s dead. In a moment they’ll come to regret, the women must decide what lengths they’ll go to in order to help a friend.
Just Between Us is a thrilling glimpse into the underbelly of suburbia, where not all neighbors can be trusted, and even the closest friends keep dangerous secrets. You never really know what goes on in another person’s mind, or in their marriage.
Today’s post is about a book I finished reading a few weeks ago – Just Between Us by Rebecca Drake. I had never heard of this author before, so I didn’t have any particular opinions before starting the book. (Let me just say now that I will be rushing back to read every other book she has ever read in her entire life – even if that was kindergarten!) Here’s what the author, Ms. Drake said on Goodreads about this book:
“The original idea for JUST BETWEEN US came from a conversation I once had with a friend who expressed his loyalty to another, mutual friend, by saying that he’d hide the guy if he committed a murder. I was really intrigued by this–how far are we willing to go to help our friends?”
Let’s dig in: So the cover tells you – this story is really about four women, Alison, Sarah, Julie and Heather, who bound together by friendship in their suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood. The whole story is told from each of the four women’s point of view.
Heather is the second wife of a prominent plastic surgeon, Victor Lysenko, and the women start to notice that Alison has various mysterious bruises, starting with a nasty bruise on her wrist. Alison is positive that Heather is being abused by Victor, but the other women aren’t completely on board. It’s Julie’s opinion that Alison is jumping to conclusions and thinks that Heather would have confided in them as her best friends if Victor was actually hurting her. Things begin to escalate and the women begin to agree with Alison and fear that something horrible is going to happen to Heather.
…….and then comes the 2am phone call they were all expecting….. but it wasn’t really what they expected at all!
As everyone knows, things aren’t always what they seem, and as readers learn, Heather isn’t the only one of the four women keeping secrets. As more details come to the surface, the women begin to have a bit of doubt, suspicion and fear. They are all paranoid and worried about what will happen next.
This story explores the depths of true friendship and to what extent we will go for those friendships. Ms. Drake also writes about friendships – in a very realistic way – we don’t always know everything about the folks we love – sometimes we don’t get along, sometimes we are even rude or talk about them, but at the end of the day, we are always there for our friends when it counts.
I love the way the story built up the tension and suspense – I was getting so nervous for them and had to read just one more page until there were no more pages to turn. The characters were so realistic, the plot was intriguing and I was totally wrapped up in this whole story. I just HAD to know what was going to happen next. I kept thinking I had it figured out, and then things changed again, and I was wrong over and over.
I rarely give 5 stars, but with this book there’s no way I couldn’t. Ask any of my family that tried to interrupt while I was reading – this book consumed me cover to cover.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR in her own words: “I was born in New York City and moved to Indiana, Ohio, back to Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I was the always the new kid, attending nine schools in 12 years including four different high schools.
Wherever we moved, one thing was a constant—we always lived near a library and a bookstore. Books were the friends that never said goodbye and great companions on long, dusty U-Haul trips from one place to the next. Each new apartment or house became home once the books were unpacked.”
Rebecca Drake is a Penn State grad and an instructor in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction M.F.A. program. A native New Yorker, Rebecca currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and two children.
I received an copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to provide a positive review and this affected neither my opinion of the book, nor the content of my review. Thank you so much St. Martin’s Press!!
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