Book Review: The Stranger Inside by Jennifer Jaynes

Shelly's Book Corner received a review copy from Author and voluntarily provided an honest review. This does not affect the opinion of the book or the content of the review.

In this tautly crafted tale of psychological suspense, a recently widowed mother resorts to the unthinkable to protect her shattered family. But does she go too far?

After mystery author Diane Christie loses her husband to suicide, she and her son move to the small coastal town of Fog Harbor, Massachusetts. Her daughter is attending college nearby, and Diane hopes that her family can now begin to heal. But rebuilding their lives after the tragedy isn't so simple.

Diane's depressed college-age daughter, Alexa, still avoids her, critical of everything Diane does, and even her generally amiable teenage son, Josh, has started acting out. Diane pushes forward, focusing on her writing and her volunteer work at a local crisis hotline. She knows that healing takes time.

But then a girl from Alexa's college is found strangled. Worse still, the murderer uses the crisis hotline to confess to Diane... and claims she is the only one who can stop the killing. And just when the glow of new love from an attractive admirer begins to chase away some of the darkness, more girls turn up dead, and Diane races to solve a mystery she fears will hit terrifyingly close to home.

Review:

Diane is trying to pick up the pieces after her husband’s suicide. She has two children Alexa and Josh. Diane has a very strained relationship with Alexa who is dealing with some deep issues. When I heard her backstory, I can’t help but feel for her but I wish she would have spoken up sooner about all her issues. Diane also volunteers at a crisis center and one day she gets a strange call about a murder and how she can be the only one to stop them. Talk about creepy!

As the story progresses I pretty much figured out who the killer but wasn’t hundred percent why they were doing the killings. Once it was revealed it does make sense, a lot of sense. Not justifying the killings but I do understand why and hopefully they get some much needed help. Diane also developed a love interest with Rick. I did like her and Rick together and loved the support he gave her during everything but I felt the relationship progressed way too fast.

I’ve never read anything by this author and was in need of a genre change so I decided to give this book a shot. I’m glad I made this decision to read. This book was fast paced, well written and kept me glued to the edge of my seat! The only thing I really didn’t care for was the abrupt ending. I wished we could have gotten to see what happened after the revelations came forward. Despite that issue I still enjoyed the book! I also went and purchased the other books in the series as well.