If you enjoy HGTV renovations and mysteries – then this book is for you. I didn’t want to stop reading and almost gave up my entire weekends plans to try and finish this book. Robert Barron – known also by “The Robber Barron” thinks he’s scored big when he gets a Vermont cabin for a steal at a tax sale because they previous owner hadn’t paid owed taxes. He ends up teaming up with social media influencer Holly to renovate the cabin and submit it for an HGTV show “To the Manor Build”. They become one of the finalists, fall in love and end up getting married – only to have Robert ask to borrow his assistant’s car to take Holly on an impromptu honeymoon at the last second – just DAYS before they’d need to have all the final clips filmed for the show! When they don’t return… the crew ends up filing missing persons reports for both of them.
I’m not sure I actually liked ANY of the characters in this book, especially as more and more secrets were revealed, but I just had to know what was going to happen and who was behind it! But I liked how it was based on a TV show and how they even incorporated online social media – specifically a subreddit with fans of the show and amateur sleuths who thought they knew what was going on. I never really did quite figure out “whodunit” but there were so many twist and turns on every page it was hard to really pin anything down. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.
I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.
About the Book
From the bestselling author of Do I Know You? comes a fast-paced, riveting psychological thriller that skewers our modern obsession with home renovation and fixer-uppers.
Holly and Robert Barron are attractive young real-estate investors and contestants in a competition run by To the Manor Build, the nation’s most popular home renovation app. With millions in product endorsements and online followers at stake, they’re rehabbing a Vermont home they scored at a bargain price into a chic hilltop estate ideal for entertaining.
It’s all camera-ready laughs and debates over herringbone tile until Holly and Robert go missing hours after their picture-perfect wedding—leaving behind a bloody trail.
Suspicion falls quickly on Erika Turnbull, the Barrons’ twenty-something assistant—eager, efficient, and secretly in love with Robert. Did Erika let her misguided passion turn her into a murderer? So claim the townsfolk of Snowden, Vermont, who still haven’t forgiven her for a tragic accident back in high school.
But Erika’s mother, Kim, is not about to let small-town gossip and a cop with an axe to grind destroy her daughter—again. With time running out and their own lives at risk, the mother-daughter duo set out to find what really happened to the Barrons. First, though, they’ll have to confront the vengeful former owner of Holly and Robert’s estate, ruthless reality-show producers, and a secret that might bring their own house down.
Fast-paced, full of humor, and undeniably twisty, We Love to Entertain is another winner from Sarah Strohmeyer.