Book Review: A STRANGER ON THE BEACH by Michele Campbell

Title: A STRANGER ON THE BEACH

Author: Michele Campbell
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Read: July 2019

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

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, Aiden, 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 Aiden for comfort...and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aiden'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.

My musings:

He said / she said – but who is telling the truth? If you like an unreliable narrator, then this latest book by Michelle Campbell will be right up your alley, because it is clear from the start that someone has to be lying.

Caroline, a thirties-something woman who is suspecting her husband of having an affair, is drowning her sorrows by sleeping with a young local bartender, Aiden, whilst staying in her lavish holiday home. Very soon after that, she claims that Aiden is obsessed with her. He is stalking her, threatening her and her family. Aiden, however, tells a different story. He and Caroline are in love. He would do anything for her. And so it goes back and forth, in alternating chapters like a game of crazy murderous tennis – he said – she said – he said – she said. Until someone winds up dead. So who is telling the truth, and who is lying?

I really wish I could have loved this one more. The idea of the two completely opposite narratives was great, and I’m always on board when it comes to unreliable narrators. Except that I really hated each and every character in this book. Firstly, they were just plainly unlikable. There wasn’t a single redeeming feature in Caroline, so I was firmly in camp Aiden for the whole ride, even though he also wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Maybe there was something in the water in that particular little beach town, because none of the characters seemed overly smart. Except the crazy cat lady next door, who featured only briefly but should have been the head of police and the crime would have been solved a lot sooner.

Secondly, I found some of the story line drawn out in the later part of the book, when I had long forged a theory of who was right and who was wrong (which proved to be correct, and believe me, I am no Sherlock). I don’t like it when characters are dumbed down to make the story work, and some of the actions and dialogues here did not ring true for the way a mature adult would act or talk – even though believe me, in my line of work I do see a lot of crazy stuff!

Summary:

Unpopular opinion alert, whilst I had high hopes for this book and picked it up in a severe case of FOMO, it didn’t deliver the chills and thrills for me that I had anticipated. But I am definitely in the minority here, so if you are looking for an entertaining beach read with a couple of unreliable narrators, and don’t mind that they are a thoroughly unlikeable lot, then you may very well love it!

Thank you to Edelweiss and St Martin's Press for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.