Friend Request: The most addictive psychological thriller you'll read this year

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Moving back and forth between the events as sixteen-year-old school pupils in Norfolk and the non violent bullying and emotional blackmail of her friendship with dominant Sophie the reader is able to appreciate just how Louise was pilloried into ostracising Maria as she herself clung to the coat tails of the popular clique at school. It reminds me why I decided to delete my personal account, the idea of people you barely know getting such a personal glimpse into your inner sanctum and keeping in contact with everyone you ever met from high school days seems an odd thing and the perfect basis for a revenge style vendetta so I did quite enjoy the storyline.

We know there's something that Louise feels guilty about, something to do with Maria that happened in High School in 1989. And now the two are often combined, so that bullying and stalking have become a common occurrence on social media. This story is about Louise and her childhood girlfriends and a tragedy that occurred at her high school on prom night in 1989. Not only that, who among you can honestly say you haven’t lurked around on someone’s social media page at one time or another?Maybe that had been the problem all along: Maria Weston had wanted to be friends with me, but I let her down. Maybe that was the problem all along; Maria Weston wanted to be friends with me, but I let her down. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. Though being dumped by her horrid husband, she is not mature enough to cut clean all the links with him. But Louise begins to think more and more that perhaps Maria didn’t die on that night and the truth will come out at the high school reunion.

To keep her secret, Louise must first uncover the whole truth, before what's known to Maria - or whoever's pretending to be her - is known to all. Now though, I’d be grateful for marketing spam, and I long to go back to the mild tedium of a few minutes ago.Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface–those first days of their budding connection, the awful judgment of the young women who felt at the time like her sole gateway to belonging. Instead of shying away from these topics, Laura Marshall does a brilliant job of handling them with ease. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: Those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.

Louise has spent the last 25 years out of touch with most of her classmates but is drawn into finding out if her actions at the leavers' party did not lead to Maria dying, just disappearing and will Maria turn up at the reunion. I thought this was done very well, the two stories unraveling at the same time, both of them kept me on the edge and kept me trying to figure this all out (and I never did). I sit there amidst the trappings of my very comfortable, very middle-class, nearly middle-aged life. This would also make an incredible book club pick as it would generate some pretty interesting discussion and debate. However, revisiting ones past is the itch that we all seem to scratch, regardless of the often mixed memories and so Louise accepts Maria’s request with trepidation.With one simple Facebook notification Lousie Williams' carefully constructed life is turned on it head.

Just read the numerous threads on Mumsnet regarding the lack of transparency and exploitation of children by Instamums, but I digress. As she thinks of her life the same sentence keeps running through her head "Maria Weston wants to be friends with me". The author was brilliant at keeping me guessing and it wasn’t until well into the second half I started to guess who the culprit was.

Upon finding her Facebook page she finds Sophie’s page and looks it over to see what Sophie has been doing in the last 25 years. Alongside books, puzzles, films and cooking, it is a form of an escapism, which I define as a positive thing, as it allows me to recharge the batteries. The same night Louise gets the Facebook friend request from Maria and through her messaging with Sophie Louise learns of the 25TH high school. Although, this story didn’t grab some of us at first because of the mean girl stuff going on within the storyline we did appreciate the different perspectives from being a mean girl and someone who is targeted by a mean girl. Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County.