Keep Your Friends Close

by Leah Konen

Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary is desperate for a friend. So when she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, their connection feels fated. But during a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and the next morning Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing.

Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa . . . only Willa’s name is now Annie, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in town: Willa.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

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About Keep Your Friends Close

How well do you know your friends?

Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary is desperate for a friend. So when she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, their connection feels fated. But during a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and the next morning Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing.

Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa . . . only Willa’s name is now Annie, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in town: Willa.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

See Less

About Keep Your Friends Close

How well do you know your friends?

Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary is desperate for a friend. So when she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, their connection feels fated. But during a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and the next morning Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing.

Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa . . . only Willa’s name is now Annie, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in town: Willa.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

See Less

About Keep Your Friends Close

How well do you know your friends?

Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary is desperate for a friend. So when she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, their connection feels fated. But during a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and the next morning Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing.

Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa . . . only Willa’s name is now Annie, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in town: Willa.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

See Less

About Keep Your Friends Close

How well do you know your friends?

Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary is desperate for a friend. So when she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, their connection feels fated. But during a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and the next morning Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing.

Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa . . . only Willa’s name is now Annie, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in town: Willa.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

See Less

Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary is desperate for a friend. So when she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, their connection feels fated. But during a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and the next morning Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing.

Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa . . . only Willa’s name is now Annie, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in town: Willa.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

Mary is in the process of divorcing her husband, George, and finds that without her husband she no longer has friends, money, a job, or a home. George’s family was very wealthy, but also very domineering. She feels she lost herself in the marriage and has no choice but to divorce, especially since her son seems to be picking up her husband’s attitude of disrespect. She is trying to start over with nothing but her son and a husband who goes back and forth between hating her and trying to win her back.

Desperate for company, she finds herself talking to another mother in the park where she took her son to play. They instantly connect and exchange numbers. She feels she has found a true friend with Willa and that they have a bond. She befriends Willa whom she overshares with and eventually is ghosted by. As her struggle to divorce her husband and win custody of her son heats up, Mary moves closer to where she grew up and runs into Willa who pretends that she has never seen Mary and identifies herself as “Annie.” Annie has a different child that she is caring for than when they first met and has made some effort to look a little different, but Mary is sure it is Willa.

George claims that he is ready to file for divorce and will come to an agreement that Mary will find palatable. But in a turnaround, he follows her to her new home and tries to win her back. Unfortunately, George is murdered, and Mary is a prime suspect especially since they had an ironclad prenup. With George dead, she doesn’t have to divorce him, or worry about him taking away her son, or her endless money problems since she gets his life insurance. She is terrified that she will be arrested and remembers sending a text to Willa saying that she wished George was dead, which could leave the police with a very wrong impression. She turns to Willa/Annie trying to make sure the text is erased and to gain a friend back. Unfortunately, Mary isn’t so sure that Willa is a friend or something much more complicated. It seems that Willa may be a con artist and perhaps had something to do with George’s death.

To complicate things, Mary’s sister-in-law Cassandra, who used to be her friend before everything blew up when Mary tried to help Cassandra with her divorce which caused George to threaten to take Mary’s son away from her (yes complicated). Cassandra and Mary are trying to divorce men that are brothers, and the brothers are closer to each other than to their wives and have more loyalty to their birth family than to the family they created. As the book goes on, Cassandra’s role becomes much more important.

The book has a lot of twists and turns and an unexpected ending. It moves fast and it isn’t easy to figure out what is going on, which makes it even more fun. There are a couple of elements of the book that I found disturbing and too often true. One is that some women become too isolated in their marriage, letting go of friends, and depending completely on their husband for economic security and emotional support. The other element is the idea of some women basically selling themselves to the highest bidder. I think it might be easier and more beneficial in the long run to have a career which gives you self-respect. You can still be married and have children, but I believe it is good to have some independence and self-reliance. Once more the concept of friendship is central to this book including how hard it is to find friends and how difficult it is to maintain those friendships. Modern fiction seldom has straight forward heroes anymore and this book has that element. No one is an obvious hero, or perfect. In fact, I would say that no one in this book is very likable. They are all damaged people who make some poor choices and take actions that are often questionable. All these things make the book far more complex than I expected when I picked the book up to read. It was fast moving and thought provoking.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death. Is the woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.

Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman’s 5^th book in the Clay Edison series just came out in August to great reviews. The Kellerman’s are an amazing family of writers with a long history of best-selling mysteries from Faye Kellerman and her husband Jonathan and now son Jesse.