You Were Made for This by Michelle Sacks

A dark and harrowing tale set in the beautiful Swedish country side, You Were Made For This is a sophisticated psychological thriller that takes a sharp look at marriage, friendship and the truths of motherhood most people love to sweep under the carpet.

Genres: Suspense, Mystery
Published: 28th June, 2018
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Series: N/A
Rating: 4

In an idyllic house in a Swedish wood, Merry and her husband are building their new dream life with their young baby, far away from events that overshadowed their old life in New York. And they’re happy, aren’t they? Blissfully, blissfully happy.
When Merry’s childhood friend Frances comes to stay, Frances barely recognises her old friend Merry, pureeing baby food, baking, living the Swedish dream. But little by little, cracks begin to show in her carefully constructed fairy tale. And Frances starts to see things others might miss. Dark and treacherous things.
And then a terrible tragedy unfolds…

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I’m a total sucker for domestic suspense, and love digging deep under the cracks of a marriage. A frenemy, of course, is more than welcome too. The more the merrier, I say!

For a while now I’ve been thinking about becoming a stay-at-home mum, and spending my days cooking, baking and reading. The tricky part is to figure out how to pull this off without actually having children.

Merry has all the baking, fruit picking and household managing figured out. Husband happy, baby happy, what more do you need? Well, for starters maybe friends. Poor woman is stuck at home all day in the idyllic Swedish country side, in a tiny village where her only acquaintances are the family next door. Now that doesn’t sound so much fun. So Frank, her childhood friend announces her visit, Merry’s enthusiasm is totally understandable.

None of that cheerfulness lasts long however, because you need to be blind not to see that these two women just simply don’t like each other very much. I guess we all had some friends in our lives we just couldn’t let go, even though after our lives went separate ways we had nothing left in common. But any distraction could work, so Merry welcomes Frank with open arms.

Any household where things are just too much in order and everyone is all smiles at all times is a suspicious one, and good old observant Frank starts picking up some not so pleasant vibes around Merry and her husband, Sam.

As the three of them spends some more time together, it becomes blatantly obvious that they are all flawed in some ways, quite unapologetically so. Neither of them are pleasant people, and the facade they hide behind is so perfectly the opposite of who they really are, that I was instantly drawn to them. As their masks started slipping, I had a sense of foreboding, and prepared myself for the worst.

The writing is absolutely brilliant, and the lack of dialogue tags was a clever way of blurring the lines between unsaid truth and the lies covering it. Once all pretense falls away and we see their nasty side in plain view, we can rest assured: they are all assholes, who deserve each other.

A haunting story, You Were Made For This is a perfect summer read for fans of domestic suspense.

P.S. Just how fucking gorgeous that cover is?! 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, but it did not influence my opinion.