Review: The Heiresses

Posted August 27, 2014 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Review: The HeiressesThe Heiresses by Sara Shepard
Series: The Heiresses #1
Genres: Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Published by Harper Collins on May 12th 2014
Also by this author: Pretty Little Liars, The Perfectionists, Vicious, The Good Girls, The Lying Game, Never Have I Ever, Two Truths and a Lie, The First Lie, Hide and Seek, Cross My Heart, Hope to Die, Seven Minutes in Heaven, True Lies, The Amateurs, Follow Me, Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined to Meet, The Elizas
Format: eBook (320 pages) • Source: Purchased
Goodreadsfour-stars

From Sara Shepard, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Little Liars, comes The Heiresses—a novel about the Saybrooks, a diamond family blessed with beauty and fortune yet plagued by a string of tragic and mysterious deaths.

The only thing more flawless than a Saybrook’s solitaire is the family behind the diamond empire. Beauties, entrepreneurs, debutantes, and mavens, the Saybrooks are the epitome of high society. Anyone would kill to be one of them. But be careful what you wish for, because if you were a Saybrook, you’d be haunted by secrets and plagued by a dark streak of luck.

Tragedy strikes the prominent family yet again on a beautiful morning in May when thirty-four-year-old Poppy, the most remarkable Saybrook of them all, flings herself from the window of her office. Everyone is shocked that someone so perfect would end her own life—until her cousins receive an ominous warning: One heiress down, four to go.

Was it suicide . . . or murder? And who will be next: Aster, the beautiful but reckless girl who’s never worked a day in her life—and who’s covering up her father’s darkest secret? Her older sister, Corrine, whose meticulously planned future is about to come crashing down around her? Perhaps it will be Natasha, the black sheep of the family who suddenly disinherited herself five years ago. Or maybe the perpetually single Rowan, who had the most to gain from her cousin’s death.

A gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller about heiresses who must uncover a dark truth about their family before they lose the only thing money can’t buy: their lives.

Review: I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase “guilty pleasure.”  That’s exactly what this book (and literally any and all other books by Sara Shepard are). I just wanted to get that out of the way first before you holler at me and say how shitty this book is. I’ve read the entire PLL series and I’m FULLY aware of Shepard’s writing style and plot devices and anything else you could think of. The thing is – I don’t care. I would read her grocery list because I think somehow she would manage to surprise me. Maybe you thought this book was predictable if you’ve read it. The thing is, I don’t try to predict anything when it come to suspense books. I prefer to be surprised. I may make a guess or two about things but never want to be right. I’m sure if I really sat hard and brought my thinking up just one more level, I would have been able to figure more out. I just don’t want to. I could make the jokes that everyone and their mother made in their Goodreads reviews, but I’ll resist the urge. (They are pretty funny though, you should look)  Sara Shepard has been vague about if this is a series (although Goodreads suggests that it is).. I’ve gotta say that after that ending- there better be a second book. It kept me interested and intrigued throughout the entire thing, which is really what a good book boils down to. I didn’t like that there were ten million characters introduced within the first few chapters and I had trouble keeping them all straight for the most part. After a while, I got used to it, but it was a bit overwhelming at first. This family is fucking huge. You’d think that with all the sons and daughters and cousins and second cousins and aunts and uncles that the family would have run out of their fortune a long time ago. The general plot is this: the Saybrooks are a family who gained their wealth from the diamond industry. The CEO of the company, Mason, has two daughters named Corinne and Aster. They’re opposites: Corinne is basic and Aster is gorgeous. Corinne has had the same boyfriend since college and is marrying him soon, while Aster is a wild party girl. They have two cousins, Poppy (who is murdered shortly into the book… this caught me off guard because apparently I started the book without ever really reading the plot summary) and Rowan. Rowan is the company’s lawyer and Poppy was president. The family is “cursed” with mysterious deaths and accidents, and everything comes to a head when Poppy is murdered. It is first thought to be a suicide, but then evidence suggests otherwise. The remaining Saybrook girls, which also includes their random other cousin Natasha, try to figure out what the fuck is going on while naturally they’re all keeping secrets themselves. Slowly, things start to be revealed about the family and the company’s past. The Heiresses definitely had a lot of the same elements as the Pretty Little Liars series – with the main difference that the characters were older (in their 20s/30s instead of in high school). Their problems were a bit bigger and sometimes crazier, but for the most part everything was fairly similar. I honestly didn’t mind though. The whole “heiress” piece was kind of cool because we all know I’m a sucker for stories about rich peoples’ lives. Overall, there isn’t that much to say as far as complaints go. The book was exactly what I expected from her. It wasn’t a stellar five star book, but I can honestly say I enjoyed it. I’ll continue all of her books as my guilty pleasure as long as she is writing them.

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