Rating: 4 stars
“Confronted by a restraining order and the threat of a lawsuit, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs to get out of Boston when she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who has just left a troubled relationship. Emmy proposes they move to rural Pennsylvania, where Leah can get a teaching position and both women can start again. But their new start is threatened when a woman with an eerie resemblance to Leah is assaulted by the lake, and Emmy disappears days later.
Determined to find Emmy, Leah cooperates with Kyle Donovan, a handsome young police officer on the case. As they investigate her friend’s life for clues, Leah begins to wonder: did she ever really know Emmy at all? With no friends, family, or a digital footprint, the police begin to suspect that there is no Emmy Grey. Soon Leah’s credibility is at stake, and she is forced to revisit her past: the article that ruined her career. To save herself, Leah must uncover the truth about Emmy Grey—and along the way, confront her old demons, find out who she can really trust, and clear her own name.
Everyone in this rural Pennsylvanian town has something to hide—including Leah herself. How do you uncover the truth when you are busy hiding your own? “
This is the second time that I have read a Megan Miranda novel, and I am still impressed with her ability to keep a reader hooked until the last page. This book was sat on my shelf for months before I actually picked it up as I though I would not not enjoy it as much as I did.
This is the story of Leah Stevens and Emmy Grey, who decide to pack up and move to Pennsylvania to Boston in an attempt to restart their lives and get away from their old ones. Leah, now a teacher, used to be a journalist and took a lot of pride in this, but sometimes went to far to get a good story, which is why she had to leave her old life behind, as she was forced to leave or suffer serious consequences, and Emmy coincidentally appeared on her doorstep one day, wanting the same thing as she had just gotten out of a rough relationship. They both know each other as they lived together during Leah’s college years, until Emmy disappeared them too.
When Leah and Emmy are finally living together again, it is only then that Leah realises that she doesn’t actually know anything about her roommate, which worries her when Emmy eventually goes missing, at the same time a woman who looks the same as Leah is discovered to have been attacked near the lake which she passes on her way to work at a secondary school, where rumours are flying about her and another teacher having an affair, after he ultimately starts stalking her. Most of her students think that Leah was the intended target of the attack at the lake after the other teacher, I can’t remember his name, it’s been a while since I read it, gets arrested for the assault by the lake.
If I am being honest, I didn’t really think that the plot was very exciting, but it still kept me intrigued all the way through the book, so I don’t know how to explain that one, but the ending did seem a bit pointless, and if you’ve read this book, you might know why I think this. I still don’t really understand how Emmy became to be a character everyone focused on, her ending, I thought, was really boring. Even throughout the book, there was never any evidence of Emmy ever existing, and Miranda did a good job in making me believe this too, even though I knew she was a real person, and she was in fact around and lived with Leah.
By the time I was reaching the end of this book, I was really beginning to not enjoy the way that Leah was narrating the story, and I don’t have a set reason as to why, it just annoyed me as the time went on.
Tea Stains and Book Spines 