Psychological Thriller Review: Keep Your Friends Close | Leah Konen

Strangers on a Train meets The Family Next Door in this page-turning thriller by Leah Konen, author of The Perfect Escape (which I loved!). In her latest psychological thriller Keep Your Friends Close, a woman going through a difficult divorce meets a charming woman, only for her new friend to ghost her. Or did she?

About the Book | Keep Your Friends Close

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary needs a friend more than ever. When she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, the women’s connection feels fated. Finally, she has someone on her side. During a margarita-fueled moms’ night out, though, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and 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 Annie now, 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 Willa.

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

Review | Keep Your Friends Close

This is the second book I’ve read by Leah Konen and she’s proving herself to be a fantastic writer for what I like to think of as popcorn thrillers. These psychological thrillers are gripping, read-in-a-day, twist-y, salacious books that will appeal to a large variety of readers, making them perfect book club picks—they aren’t too dark, they have lots of twists and turns, the plot is easy and engaging to read, and the endings are satisfying. Fans of darker thrillers will enjoy, but even non-psychological thriller readers will have a great time and not find anything too moody.

True to that description, I picked up Keep Your Friends Close when I needed something that would instantly pull me in and be an easy read in between some heavier books. It delivered that and more! This worked great as a buddy read for me and a friend because it was easy to say “text me when you get to this chapter, we need to discuss!” I had lots of different theories throughout. The direction it took was unexpected, which was a lot of fun.

The story centers around Mary, who is going through a divorce and brutal custody battle with her husband George. George’s family is extremely wealthy (something Mary benefited from in her marriage), but over time she realized she didn’t have a voice in her own family and home. Mary doesn’t care about the money, but she wants custody of their son. One day when she takes her son to the park, she meets a beautiful and charismatic mom named Willa. The two quickly realize they have things in common, and they exchange numbers. Over the next few weeks, the two form a close bond. Enough so that Mary feels comfortable sharing a bit more than she normally would one night over margaritas. But after that night, Willa never returns her texts or calls, and Mary finally accepts the message that their friendship is over.

Until two months later when Mary sees Willa with a different man and a different child. She tries to talk to Willa but the woman insists her name is Annie. Mary is certain it’s Willa—especially when she notices the woman wearing a very distinctive necklace that Willa never took off. Why is she lying about who she is, and what happened to her previous husband and son? Mary is determined to have a private conversation with Willa to find out what is going on…

But soon after talking to Willa, Mary has bigger problems. George is found murdered and Mary is the prime suspect. It seems a bit too coincidental that Willa turned up under a new name and reconnected with Mary right before George’s murder. Is Willa the person responsible? Did she take those texts from Mary seriously? And if so, what will she expect in return…

What I liked

I love a good con in a book, and Willa showing up with a new hair color, name, and family seems like she may be playing a different game than Mary realized. This was a fun part of the story, as was Mary’s efforts to get Willa to admit who she was. When Willa spills more information about herself, I was intrigued. Especially when it seemed that she took Mary’s complaints about George and her divorce a bit too seriously. Mary was exaggerating when she said life would be easier with George dead. Willa must know that, right?

It did seem like evidence pointed towards Willa, but I questioned whether Willa was the type to do it. There were a lot of twists and turns during the sequence following George’s murder. I liked the Konen kept the reader guessing on what Willa’s role may have been. And so many other details are unveiled that I didn’t expect—I was desperate to know what really happened and how. As more secrets are revealed, I also wondered what Willa and Mary knew about the other person. Konen writes chapter from both women’s perspectives, which adds to the tension between the friends.

Another storyline that made me question Mary’s take on events was related to her ex-sister-in-law Cassandra. When the book opens, Cassandra and Mary are no longer friends, but before they were very close friends. When Mary divorces George’s brother and the divorce turns into a viscous battle, Mary tried to be supportive. But Cassandra asks her to do something that she simply can’t, and it caused a rift that was never repaired. When Mary starts to have a similar pattern with Willa, I wondered more about her and Cassandra’s friendship. Maybe Mary really is the problem in her friendships and we are getting an unreliable story about what happened.

I honestly liked that Mary was an imperfect character. At times I found her a bit pathetic, given how much she had. Her reasons for the divorce are the sort that seem inconsequential when you aren’t the one experiencing them, but may be bigger to Mary. At the same time, Mary doesn’t always feel like she’s giving the reader the full story, and that pulled me back in. I love an unreliable narrator, and Mary is at a minimum leaving some key things out.

What didn’t work

I don’t have a lot of criticism about this book, but there are a few things I noticed that didn’t work as well for me (though none of them majorly detracted from my enjoyment). The first is a personal preference, and that is that Keep Your Friends Close is a fast, plot-driven novel and I wanted a bit more focus on diving deep into the characters. Willa in particular is such a fascinating character and we get a lot of reveals about her, but I wanted to understand her on a deeper level. However, I think many thriller readers like a fast-paced plot and this won’t bother them at all—this book delivers a rapid pace and there isn’t a slow or boring moment in the entire book.

The other minor thing that didn’t really bother me but may bother others are that you have to be willing to go along with several coincidences in order to get to that final big twist in the book. I don’t mind suspending a bit of disbelief because frankly, I don’t read to find something that would occur in the average life. This is a standout plot and it should be the tiniest bit outlandish! I thought the chain of coincidences were worth it to get to all of those delicious twists and turns.

Final thoughts

This is a fast-paced, tense psychological thriller that centers around two fascinating women. Is their friendship real, or a friendship of convenience? And who is playing who? You’ll have to read to find out! Don’t be too sure you’ve figured everything out, Konen has a lot of twists and turns that will throw everything you thought up in the air.

Suspenseful, engaging, and a tiny-bit salacious! A perfect book club pick.

About the Author | Leah Konen

Leah Konen is the author of Keep Your Friends Close, You Should Have Told Me, The Perfect Escape, All the Broken People, and several young adult novels, including Love and Other Train Wrecks and The Romantics. Her books have been featured in Vogue, Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Reader’s Digest and The NY Post, among others. She lives in Brooklyn and Saugerties, New York, with her husband; their daughters, Eleanor and Mary Joyce; and their dog, Farley.