Friend Request By Laura Marshall

Maria Weston wants to be friends with you on Facebook.

But you know Maria has been dead for more than 25 years.

What would you do?

That is what Louise Williams is faced with in the opening chapter of Friend Request by Laura Marshall.

With that simple Facebook friend request, Lousie’s life is irrevocably changed. She is tortured by her guilt over her key role in a callous prank over 25 years ago that ended with the disappearance of Maria Weston, her high school classmate. Maria was presumed to have fallen off a cliff in a drunken stupor but her body was never found.

During her high school days, Louise had been desperate to fit in the social circle of the popular schoolmates, so much so that she would yield to the crushing peer pressure. Maria had been on the receiving end of much bullying from Louise and her circle of friends.

There was no social media when Louise and her friends were tormenting Maria but now Maria–or whoever’s pretending to be her— is about to make her pay. Unable to ignore the friend request, Louise accepts it. From then on, things start to spiral out of control as she starts receiving eerie and alarming messages from Maria.

The terrified Louise seeks out her old class mates and it appears that Louise is not the only one who has received a friend request from Maria. Her friend Sophia, who was the main instigator in the torment of Maria, has also received a similar friend request.

Lousie, now a 40 year old single mom after her divorce from her husband Sam Parker, knows that if the truth ever came out, she could stand to lose everything: her job, her son Henry, her freedom, her friends. If Maria is alive, Louise knows what the consequences would be.

As she tries to piece together exactly what happened that fateful night, Louise discovers there’s more to the story than she ever knew.  Louise receives an invitation to a class reunion in their hometown of Sharne Bay, Norfolk. She accepts the invitation. At the reunion, Sophia ends up being strangled to death. Louise knows her life is in grave danger.

Revealing anything further would be a great spoiler. I highly recommend this  amazing debut novel by Laura Marshall. It is an engrossing twisted psychological thriller that had me holding my breath in fear. It may make you think twice about sharing too much on your Facebook account!

Friend Request by Laura Marshall