it all lets a reader choose their own interpretation while backing up scenarios with facts that point in multiple directions. Between the descriptions, the character growth, the balance of detail versus vague concepts. Easily one of my top reads in the last year. I still put this one up there between 4.5 and 4.75 stars. I had a few small niggles (personality quirks that didn't quite add up, a couple of times where the author sorta hinted / crossed a line about something happening but then pulled back, and timing on a pregnancy and age) - not enough to really cause any issues. Everything is gray for the most part, so it's hard to say (until the end) whether Martin is as bad as his family, if both children have inherited the good and the bad from their parents, whether Josh knows more than he's saying, and who really killed Yaz, the girlfriend. Reinard built a beautiful set of characters who are flawed but have potential. Sure, Sarah makes a few mistakes, but she is generally a good wife and mother, and I feel a lot of empathy for her. I didn't want to put it down because of how everything slowly unwound. It immediately gripped me and pushed me to read the entire book basically in one day. Everything is connected in Sarah's new life as Martin's wife, but she doesn't realize every thread's purpose on her spool of life.Īh! I loved it. She secretly met with Josh until he disappeared one day. Years ago, she fell in love with a boy named Josh whose family owned a beautiful mansion near her house. Little things along the way cause Sarah to doubt Martin's ethics but it's never enough to do something irreversible. They fall in love, marry, have two children, and live happily ever after. Martin is a fraternity guy from a wealthy family with a genuine and a slightly dark side. Her mother passed away from cancer, and they are not at all rich. Sarah's father is the head maintenance technician at a college in Pennsylvania.

But the book opening, where they are dealing with the death of their son's girlfriend, is one of the best I've read in years.

The book is told in dual timelines: what happened during Sarah and Martin's courtship roughly 25 years ago and where they are today.

I am thrilled to say this was fantastic, and I highly recommend it. Reinard is a new author to me, but I was in need of a solid suspense novel, so I took a chance. Sweet Water by Cara Reinard was released on New Year's Day in 2021, and I found it via NetGalley.

Sweet water by cara reinard