Book Review – We Knew All Along by Mina Hardy

***Note: There are affiliate links in this post and if you click on them and make a purchase, we will earn a commission from it. We appreciate your support and thank you in advance.

Description

Writing as Mina Hardy, New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart, delivers a twisted tale of domestic suspense where no one is what they seem–and the skeletons in the closet are all too real.

Blame the booze, her shaky marriage, her troubled son, or a thousand other things. Jewelann Jordan has one thing on her mind when she attends her class reunion, and that’s making sure her old crush Christian Campbell sees exactly what he lost all those years ago. A late night, a hotel room, a rekindled flame that burns even hotter than it did back then. What could go wrong?

Everything.

The night with Christian isn’t the first secret Jewelann has kept from her husband Ken, so one more shouldn’t be much harder–except that Christian shows up without warning, seemingly determined to do his best to mess up Jewelann’s life in any way he can. Worse than that, he seems to have his sights set on charming her son, Eli, and befriending her husband. Revenge isn’t so sweet when it bites you back, but Jewelann is determined to keep Christian from ruining everything she’s worked so hard to keep safe, including her son.

Fighting to keep it all from spiraling out of control, Jewelann discovers Christian is not the man he claims to be. When darker secrets emerge, even closer to home, Jewelann takes the chance to turn the tables on him. The more Jewelann digs for the truth, the uglier–and the deadlier–it gets.

Book Reaction Navigation

The Gist

What Worked For Me

What Did Not Work For Me

Content Warnings

Final Verdict

Bonus Content

One day, I will learn not to blindly pick up books without glancing over its description.

Not this time though.

The Gist

We Knew All Along by Mina Hardy, follows the trials, tribulations, and trepidations of stay-at-home mom and wife, Jewelann Jordan. Jewelann dolls herself up, putting on airs, to vie for the attention of a high school fling, Christian Campbell. She thinks her presence is reminding him of what he could have had. Amid the compliments and attention, little does she know that that wasn’t all she’s getting from this one night of playing catch-up.

“Faking the funk” catches up and the seams of Jewelann’s life start to unravel. How do I know? Because I hung on with her to the very end and the end to that end before it became the end. 

Jewelann has been through enough for several lifetimes. Ya’ll, I’m ready to take a nap.

What Worked For Me

Audiobook Narrator

Zura Johnson is a stellar narrator. I will be listening to more from her in the future.

Dramatics

I enjoyed the messiness of it all. Something about the story being set in one location and the key players dredging up haunting pasts, kept me intrigued and wanting to continue with the story.

What Did Not Work For Me

Forgotten Characters

I’m still wondering what happened to one of the characters who conveniently disappeared. I feel like their disappearance was a plot device never expounded on and I still want to know what happened to them (lol).

The Ending(s)

The neverending ending grinded my gears. The best way I can explain it is the feeling you get when you visit someone’s house and they continue giving you stuff that you have no use for AND they talk to you while the car is running. It’s like they don’t want you leave. 

I was ready to go when I had about 3 chapters left. The further I got to the end, the more revelations there were, and it begged the question of “when is this going to stop?” It’s like the story did not want to let me go. I was tired. Let me go home, friend (lol). 

As soon as I finished the book, I tweeted the following:

Content Warnings

Final Verdict

My rating for this novel is 3.0 Stars for its entertainment factor. I recommend it. It’s fun if the reader can get passed the “end to the end” of the last 10% of the book.

All in all, the novel reminded me of a Tubi movie that somehow became a franchise. I cannot quite pinpoint which element in the book encouraged more from a character that literally did not have much from the start. Somehow, this novel did and it was a good time for me.

Bonus Content

Here’s the Twitter thread with all my thoughts and quibbles for this audiobook. I had to laugh at myself when I read it back. Enjoy!