I’ve not read any books by Rebecca Drake before but the blurb for this book sounds like a good read so of course I wanted to feature it here to bring some attention to the book for you lovely readers. Check it out!
Just Between Us by Rebecca Drake
Release Date: January 9th, 2018
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genres: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction
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.
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Excerpt
chapter one
ALISON
Sometimes I play the whatif game and wonder, what if we hadn’t moved to Sewickley when I got pregnant, and what if I hadn’t gone into labor in early August, and what if Lucy hadn’t slipped, wet and wailing, into this world a full three weeks early? If my oldest child had been born on her due date or after, then she wouldn’t have been eligible for school a full year earlier than expected, and I wouldn’t have met the women who became my closest friends, and what happened to us might never have happened at all.
So much in life hinges on chance—this date or that time, the myriad small, statistical variations which social scientists like to measure.
What if I hadn’t been the one handing Heather her cup of coffee that crisp fall morning at Crazy Mocha? And what if the sleeve of her knit shirt hadn’t slid back just a little as she reached to take it, and what if I hadn’t happened to look down and see what the sleeves had been meant to hide, and what if I hadn’t asked, “How did you get such a nasty bruise?”
A throwaway question at first.
I distributed the other cups to Julie and Sarah, barely paying attention but turning in time to see Heather startle, a tiny movement, before jerking down her sleeve to cover that large purple yellow mark. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I must have bumped it on something.”
It’s only when I look back that I see this moment as the beginning, how everything started, though of course I didn’t under stand the significance then.
We were in our favorite spot in the coffee shop on a Friday morning, a tradition started by Julie long before I moved to Sewickley, tucked in the back corner of a shop that itself was tucked in a back corner on Walnut Street. Our kids had been seen safely off to school, and the only child with us that morning was Sarah’s threeyearold, Josh, who dozed in a stroller by his mother’s side.
If I close my eyes, I can still see the four of us in our respective armchairs. Julie, redhaired and energetic, couldn’t sit still, her leg jiggling or toe tapping, always moving. Sarah, her counter point, small and still, dark head bent over her coffee, reminding me of a woodland creature in the way she pulled her legs under her, fi her whole body in the seat. Too tall to do that, I slouched in mine, legs stretched out in front of me, hiding behind my mousyblond hair. And then there was Heather, with her fine long legs hanging over the side of her chair, head back and golden mane hanging down, her thin neck exposed, looking both effortlessly graceful and vulnerable.
Sometimes I’d notice the glances we got from other mothers, desperate for adult conversation as they pushed strollers with one hand while clutching coffee cups with the other. I’d been one of those women once, coming here with Lucy and Matthew in a double stroller, envying the conversations going on around me. That was more than five years ago, when we’d first moved to town, before I met Julie and became part of the shop’s regular clientele.
Doesn’t this book sound like a good one? A nice, suspenseful story to snuggle up to on the January cold nights? I’m mighty curious about Heather and Julie and Sarah and Alison. I want to know their stories and I really want to know more about Heather’s bruises.
This is definitely on my wish list.
About the Author
Rebecca Drake
Rebecca Drake is the author of the novels Don’t Be Afraid, The Next Killing, The Dead Place, which was an IMBA bestseller, and Only Ever You, as well as the short story “Loaded,” which was featured in Pittsburgh Noir. A graduate of Penn State University and former journalist, she is currently an instructor in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction M.F.A. program. Rebecca lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with her husband and two children.
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